INGREDIENTS: But perhaps the function of disappearing is a vital one. Perhaps this is how we react as living beings, as mortals, to the threat of an immortal universe, the threat of a definitive reality. So this whole array of technology could be taken to mean that man has ceased to believe in his own existence, and has opted for a virtual existence, a destiny by proxy. Then all our artefacts become the site of the subject's non-existence. For a subject without an existence of his own is at least as vital a hypothesis as that of a subject decked out with such metaphysical responsibility. Seen from this angle, technology becomes a marvellous adventure, just as marvellous in this case as it seems monstrous in the other. It becomes an art of disappearance. It might be seen as aiming not so much to transform the world as to create an autonomous world, a fully achieved world, from which we could at last withdraw. Now, there can be no perfecting of the natural world, and the human being in particular is a dangerous imperfection. If the world is to be perfect, it will first have to be made. And if the human being wishes to attain this kind of immortality, he must produce himself as artefact also, expel himself from himself into an artificial orbit in which he will circle forever.

Do be sure to visit the
12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project:
continuous sequential
hypermodern
photo-art