{"id":10018452,"date":"2024-12-22T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/?p=10018452"},"modified":"2025-01-16T14:52:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T13:52:00","slug":"state-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/en\/state-of-change\/","title":{"rendered":"State of change"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXT ANDREAS K. VETTER<\/p>\n

It would actually be much more exciting to deal with what happens than with what is. Because that is immediately recognizable, static, defined. In contrast, our world and things are constantly moving and changing. Ancient Greece called this \u00bbmetamorphosis\u00ab \u2013 and that’s what we’re talking about here.<\/p>\n

\u00bbLost in Translation\u00ab\u2013\u2013who hasn’t seen the classic film starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, in which two people who don’t know each other meet by chance in Tokyo, a Japanese megacity that is unfathomable and untranslatable for them, which is presumably why they have sought it out. However, the intense feeling of being lost gives their encounter a common level on which they meet, talk and live as if in an intermediate world\u2013\u2013for a few days. Watching the film, you enjoy entering this floating state with the two of them\u2013\u2013light, open, liberated. You wish you had the courage or the sovereignty to be in-between, as the foreign metropolis allows the main characters in the film to do. Perhaps because it is something subconsciously important to our existence that we repeatedly suppress out of reason or convenience: an interim state of mind that applies to all people in the most diverse life situations and is typical of processes, evolutions and formations. It is the moment of change\u2013\u2013sometimes short-lived, sometimes with a noticeable duration\u2013\u2013that is expressed quite well in the concept of hovering. The Swiss artist couple Gerda Steiner and J\u00f6rg Lenzlinger<\/a> achieved a congenial visualization of such a process with their touching \u00bbGiardino calante\u00ab installation at the 2003 Venice Biennale: in the nave of the church of San Sta\u00eb, people move under a three-dimensional sphere of flowers and delicate natural elements that seem to fall down from the vault without reaching you directly. The beauty and vitality of what was otherwise painted on the ceiling as floral decoration in the Baroque period and stands for creation becomes physical and moving. This brings us closer to the miracle of the speaking church interior; we find ourselves, as it were, in the process of creation, from the ideal budding to the fullness of nature.<\/p>\n

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Gerda Steiner & J\u00f6rg Lenzlinger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Gerda Steiner & J\u00f6rg Lenzlinger, \u00bbGiardino calante\u00ab (installation), Church of San Sta\u00eb, Biennale 2003, Venice<\/p>\n

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While the flanking states\u2013\u2013i.e. the initial situation on the one hand and the new on the other\u2013\u2013are tangible for us, as they can be clearly defined and also clearly perceived due to their stability, the in-between is a phenomenon whose nature and form is too fluid to \u00bbhave a handle on\u00ab. Time and again, people are forced to accept this period of transformation, whereby they are confronted with it in the most diverse dimensions of life. Sometimes dreams revolve around those motifs of tense pauses, as we are dealing here with the most intense moments of our experience of the world\u2013\u2013perhaps Paul Virilio’s famous formula of \u00bbfrenzied standstill\u00ab fits quite well here? Ultimately, however, nature is behind all movement\u2013\u2013from the cosmic to our planet. On the constantly rotating earth, vitality and life are defined by the movement and transformation of states: emergence, growth and decline. Symbols of this are the bud or the larva that develops into a butterfly\u2013\u2013and this without being able to see the beautiful final stage of the original form, even if it is already within it. Reflections of this omnipresent metamorphosis, as this phenomenon of shape-shifting was called in ancient Greece, can be found in the culture that humans developed as a living being typical of their species from the earliest epochs of history.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Andrew Russeth, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, (https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/
wiki\/File:Marina_Abramovi\u0107,_The_Artist_is_Present,_2010_(2).jpg), https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/legalcode<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Marina Abramovi\u0107, \u00bbThe Artist is Present\u00ab, MoMA New York, 2010<\/p>\n

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So it’s no wonder that, alongside philosophy, art is also interested in those slow-motion tipping points, those short periods of time in which one situation leads to the next. Impressive examples are easy to find: For his Florentine sculpture from the story of David, Michelangelo chooses exactly the minute in which the boy develops the courage to hurl the stone he is weighing in his hand at the giant Goliath; Marina Abramovi\u0107’s performances lead those present into an uncomfortable situation, forcing them to constantly resist the pressure to avoid the exhausting or upsetting confrontation with the art action\u2013\u2013only those who can stand the artist sitting in front of them in silence for hours, for example, will ultimately take part. The South African William Kentridge<\/a> could also be mentioned with his animated films, mostly drawn in charcoal. When you see them, you can’t take your eyes off them, because unlike conventional films with separate individual images, you experience the process of change and the traces of what has gone before always remain at least briefly present in the current film still. \u00bbIn this way, each sequence carries the story of its development within it. What the technology itself brings with it is a sense of time\u00ab, according to the artist. The cases listed demonstrate the intention of art to really and tangibly bring the recipients into its sphere\u2013\u2013by subversively placing them in a precarious situation. A routine or emotionally protective perception is not possible in this way. Instead, one must surrender oneself to the experience of this ambivalent situation.<\/p>\n

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William Kentridge, Courtesy Kentridge Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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William Kentridge, Courtesy Kentridge Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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William Kentridge, Courtesy Kentridge Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\u00a9 William Kentridge, Courtesy Kentridge Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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William Kentridge, \u00bbMonument\u00ab (Stills), 1990<\/p>\n

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But why is this so fascinating? Human beings actually strive for order, which in a practical and cognitive sense would only give life a before and after. Immediately before the introduction of change and also in between, there is ambivalence, hesitation and dithering about changing a safe situation, the fear of an uncertain outcome\u2013\u2013and that is unpleasant at first. That’s why we analyze and plan wherever possible so that everything runs smoothly and the results don’t come as a surprise or create unforeseeable problems. However, transitions are fundamentally unavoidable in an organic, metabolic system in which we live. The nature of the matter always includes its ability to change, even the certain change of what we are currently experiencing. And humanity has always reacted to this: In archaic societies, for example, initiation and sanctification rituals arose in which a specific period of time, a symbolic act and special objects performatively accompany the transition into a new quality, such as the admission of young men into the circle of adults. The ancient Egyptian cult of the sun god Ra worked with the barque as a real embodiment of his journey across the sky and through the underworld. People celebrated this in processions in which a Nile barge charged with a mystical aura was moved from the water to the holy place. Christian theology also had to grapple with the zone between secular reality and the sacred sphere. It developed the concept of limbo\u2013\u2013a non-real waiting room for the souls for the temporally unmeasurable but unimaginable intermediate state until redemption.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Nigel Young, Foster Partners; \u00a9 German Bundestag, Meldepress, AMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Norman Foster, Reichstag Dome Berlin, 1999<\/p>\n

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In factual life on earth, on the other hand, which is constantly and often inexplicably changing, cultic and individual rituals give people more time and sensory influences to empathize and understand\u2013\u2013which is why sacred places such as altars or graves have been circled since time immemorial. Turning around something makes you think, see more sides, experience a small effect of the endless in the circular movement, which is typical of the permanent mobility of the cosmos. In this respect, it is not only children who love walking around in circles, adults also enjoy the formal constraint of a circular path, especially when, as with a spiral, the perspective changes subtly with every step. Norman Foster’s architectural concept, who was commissioned to redesign the dome above the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995, also operates with a complex implementation of this motif. Visitors not only walk upwards in a spiral movement along the edge of the transparent roof structure, where they can look out over the country, which is governed from within the building. They can also look down into the plenary chamber and watch their deputies making their case and taking decisions. The discursive process of the legislature is reflected in the movement of the citizens in the iconically towering dome and thus becomes conscious in the performative movement of all.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Refik Anadol Studio for Bvlgari<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Refik Anadol Studio for Bvlgari, Milan: \u00bbSerpenti Metamorphosis\u00ab (installation), 2021<\/p>\n

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The project \u00bbSerpenti Metamorphosis\u00ab by media artist Refik Anadol<\/a> does not use architecture, but visual effects to address the motif discussed here. The large spatial installation, realized in Milan in 2021, creates wall-filling, constantly reconfiguring surfaces that are composed of 200 million varying images of nature in 3D and are connected to animal protagonists\u2013\u2013snakes. These are generated by an immersive computer program: \u00bb… as poetic imagery mimicking natural transformations and snakes that seemed to slither and change throughout the installation\u00ab. Anadol has a concrete goal: \u00bbI welcome the machine as a collaborator, it allows me to make the invisible visible. Metamorphosis is really the perfect symbol to represent overarching ideas of evolution, growth, and precision in the world that surrounds us.\u00ab The use of AI also makes it possible, depending on the situation, to emit a fragrance that makes the experience synaesthetic. The phenomenon of permanent change in nature is transformed into an equally volatile visualization, which in turn has an emotional effect and changes through the reactive actions of the audience within it.<\/p>\n

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Epiq, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, (https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Teshima_Museum_Ryue_Nishizawa_Rei_Naito_2.JPG), https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/legalcode<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Rei Naito, \u00bbMatrix\u00ab, permanent installation Teshima Art Museum, 2010<\/p>\n

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While Anadol’s media installation is in principle an artificial setting, in another artistic work nature actually appears as an active player and can thus be experienced in its metabolic movement. The Japanese artist Rei Naito worked on the floor of a specially constructed grotto-like concrete architecture\u2013\u2013the Teshima Art Museum<\/a>\u2013\u2013using a special surface shape and punctured holes so that the natural spring water in the area forces its way up onto the artificial surface in small drops, which then move freely: \u00bbFollowing the inclination of the floor they seem to race, overtaking each other and occasionally colliding and combining in larger puddles. Dancing in unexpected patterns, they finally gather and are drained through other holes. This splendid movement makes the water look lively, and not only a source of life but alive itself.\u00ab Unlike when looking at a stream or lake, the water is not perceived as an element of the landscape, but as a visible and tangible indicator of the vital force of nature, of pushing and becoming\u2013\u2013experiencing the process of life, the seemingly eternal cycle of the creation and decay of natural forms in the forming and draining of these small ponds. \u00bbIs there anything more moving than this moment of transformation?\u00ab, the artist asks rhetorically.<\/p>\n

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