EFFACES - art is not immortal

EFFACES

art is not immortal

Art is not immortal. Perhaps it outlasts the lives of many,

nevertheless art will not escape the laws of physics.

The art ends, in a physical sense:

it is made of matter, and matter is transformed,

despite the best attempts to preserve it.

The art ends, in a conceptual sense:

the man changes, changing the views on an artwork.

There are artworks that materially challenge the time?

The artist arrange at his best, with tools and knowledge,

so the art resist as long as possible.

The pyramids will be eroded by the winds,

the Sistine Chapel needs restoration,

The Damien Hirst's Shark, in the long run, will rot.

There are artworks that materially follow the time?

Some artists create artworks that,

today instead that tomorrow, are different.

The landart, using natural materials - if not even organic - 

follows the rules of the transformation cycle.

There are artworks that materially are born with an expiration date?

Living in the actions of their creators,

and in the observation of their audience only for a certain period,

the performances may fall in this category;

remains photo documentation, or video,

but it is always matter, and it must be copied and reproduced

countless times in order to survive,

and who can say if in each subsequent copy

the underlying code to the meaning will fade or not.

There are artworks that conceptually challenge time?

The idea contained in some artworks is eternal,

perhaps because it binds to the archetypes 

rooted deeply in the human being.

Shakespeare's works speak

to the man of yesterday as to the man of tomorrow,

I wonder if, one day, the humankind will change to the point

of no longer recognize himself in the one

represented in these literary masterpieces.

There are artworks that conceptually follow time?

What it could be said changes

as well as changes the one who watches.

The universe observed by Ptolemy

will never be the same when it will be observed by Copernicus,

and who knows how many times it will change again;

it will remain the same, of course, and seeing it grasps different aspects;

but considering it in one way rather than another

causes a different act against it,

and so a different reaction from the universe.

There are artworks that conceptually are born with an expiration date?

Ideas that will not survive the time,

and will be only history, dead language.

Pharaoh was a god, now he no longer is;

my inner self it's so valuable today, tomorrow it will no longer exist.

We know about the entropy of the matter,

as well as the entropy of information.

A closer look, and the matter or the information

are in a state of non-entropy

according to  the human perception, or attribution:

if it is "useful" then it is not "entropy".

Yet, all the possible entropic states

of the matter and of the information

contain forms equally worthy to exist

that simply do not concern us

and our point of view about using them.

Some forms of matter and information

seem to be more resistant to the entropy of others;

the limit of social networks, on which easier becomes viral

the simple information, at risk of becoming superficial.

The physical medium of artworks, by its nature,

in the classical era has at its center the search for resistance to entropy;

in modern times, its fragility

about falsification, processing and disintegration

tells us of a world that has become heaving beneath our feet,

or requiring an evolutionary leap to accept its transience;

evolutionary leap that certainly will not leave our humanity intact.