Assignment 1
Empty Space I: Books, Paper, Scissors


The book I got for my project is The Nature of Things by Lucretius. It's a translated poem of a greek philosopher/poet, and discusses several parts of life over the course of six books.

You can find the interpretation in detail here. 

The book itself is quite small, hard-bound, printed ages ago [1948], and suffering some wear. The pages are yellowing and have no finish, the print is fine and clearly made on a printing press, and the cover is worn and bubbling.

The main points I took from the book covered the topics :

- Fear of Death [unknown. carve into book and somehow maintain its closed position. middle isn't directly viewable = element of unknown]
- Material Nature of Man [ephemeral quality. beginning -> end -> beginning. circular pattern - same idea]
- The Struggle to Escape Oneself [something within another. co-existence. overlap. everything + nothing at the same time]
- Nothing to Fear in Death [before + after life = same level of fearlessness]


*bold = topic, italicized = initial thoughts

I felt the essence of the book described the nature of life and how quickly it evaporates, with all of its intricacies and unconceivable, minute moments that occur within the span of a lifetime - within an hour even - dissipating immediately and existing only in memory [a blurred impression of actuality]. All of the things conceived in the mind that can't be seen by others unless put into words and even then it's only a stilted, patched-together framework that attempts to make clear the meaning behind it. So I wanted to represent that somehow, the entirety of life beginning and end, frozen in a moment so that one could take a look at it and understand that the beginning is the end is the beginning.

My initial idea was to use a life-cycle motif, such as a tree growing, dying, and new trees growing beneath it, but that was very literal and compromised the project. My second idea was to use some form of circular pattern to represent the cycle but in a more abstract way. Third was to use a form that would represent everything all at once while still retaining its ephemeral quality, and so I chose the form of a breath in the cold. Something that indicates life but it remains unseen most of the time.