Ode to the Impossibility of Eternity

The Ode to the Impossibility of Eternity installation deals with philosophical doctrines and physics concepts, among which the concept of the possibility of memory as a series of events, according to temporal finitism, stands out. This is the doctrine that time is finite in the past. The philosophy of Aristotle, expressed in such works as his Physics, held that, although space was finite, with only void existing beyond the outermost sphere of the heavens, time was infinite. This caused problems for medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers, who were unable to reconcile the Aristotelian concept of the eternal with the Genesis creation narrative. Modern cosmogony accepts finitism, in the form of the Big Bang, rather than Steady State theory, which allows for a universe that has existed for an infinite amount of time, but on physical rather than philosophical grounds. The installation is made up of two elements, an ever-rotating polenta maker and tied reed hanging from above. The reed, although dead, contains seeds and hence is full of life. The polenta maker stands for the content flow of energy throughout time. The reed also represents the need to preserve memories and mark specific moments. The installation is meant to provoke the question of what we carry on from the past, and if this could be possible in case of temporal infinitism.