GLATTES EIS EIN PARADEIS FUER DEN DER GUT ZU TANZEN WEISS. (sic)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)
PARADAYS, 1989, special price of the jury at the 4. Marler Video-Kunst-Preis 1990 Betacam SP, color, mono, 7:29 min
Through five abstract symbols drawn from parapsychology, Paradays invites us into a deep puzzle: to ponder the idea that raw information is the deepest level of reality. This cryptic journey is set against the ominous shadow of nuclear doom and the potential failure of civilization. Much like Percy Shelley’s contemplation on the fleeting rise and fall of great powers, Paradays ultimately directs our gaze toward the powerful, intrinsic beauty of simply existing.
Voices: J.G. Bennett, Zener, David Larcher, Eugenia Fulkerson
Text Source: P.B. Shelley
What are changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which supported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and of political systems, to life? What are the revolutions of the globe which we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it is composed, compared with life? What is the universe of stars, and suns, of which this inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and their destiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not, because it is so miraculous.
It is well that we are thus shielded by the familiarity of what is at once so certain…
If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in his mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and had painted to us in words, the spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, great would be our admiration.
…Truly we should have been astonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said of such a man, “Non merita nome di creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta.” [“None merits the name of creator except God and the Poet” by Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595)] But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to be conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person. The multitude of men care not for them. It is thus with Life – that which includes all.
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