Phil-The beginning of the beginning
A few thought to start the process…
Death, how do we as a culture view and deal with death? How does my thought of death differ from those around me, from those that come form different cultures. The topic of death comes up in my work often. Time is also a theme that I think about constantly. How do we experience time? Why does it pass differently for different people? Why does it pass differently depending on the situation? In my thesis I want to explore both time and death, and how we relate to these concepts. Specifically the fleetingness of time and the permanence of death.
The idea of Pendulight started in Energy (class) as a way to create an artifact from the kinetic energy of a moving pendulum. The original project had a compound leaver arm attached to the drive shaft of a stepper motor. the viewer/user had control of the speed and direction of the stepper through discrete controls. The change in direction and speed would cause chaos in the movement of the pendulum. Its this chaos in the movement that made me start thinking about this as an illusion to life, how life changes direction without notice, how the energy of life is in a constant ebb and flow, how one day the movement of life will stop.
There are a number of technical aspects of this piece that need to figured out to expand the original concept. I can see how many of those details can be solved but the biggest are of concern is in regard to the interactions of the viewer/user. Some feedback I’ve been given is to change the interactions from discrete to intangible. This makes sense to me, however, I want to make the interactions so they can be discovered and have meaning to the overall piece and subject of the installation. the suggestion was made to use sensors to control the variables that influence the behavior of the pendulum.
A letter to myself
Phil,
When you started this journey you were 40 years old, how does death resonate with you now that another 40 year have passed? Is death still a cold silent darkness or have you lived enough that the cyclical nature of life is more please to your psyche? I learned innumerable things along the way to the point in my life and I wonder what other pieces have fallen into place since writing this. Did the world crumble around us? Did we find a way to save this earth or did the damage take over? Are you even reading this right now or was this sent into the void never to be unearthed by my future self?
The hope for this project was to make people understand how time moves on without regard for anything around it. To make us think about the present and how the future for all of us is the same, death comes for us all, and weather you believe in reincarnation, heaven or hell, or an afterlife of some sort we must realize that it will not be the same as it now. The memories of this lifetime will not influence nor come to light in the infinite time of death. I’ve said it before, this thought of death, how we relate to it, and how it will inevitably come to fruition is not morbid; its real. Even for Methuselah’s children death descended upon them, we as a society must strive to normalize death in a way that makes us unafraid of what is to come. I think that’s why I look at death so much, I am not at peace with death. This piece is therapy in a way, forcing me to understand fear of the unknown, forcing me to sit with uncomfortable thoughts. There are very few constants in life, in fact I can really on think of one and that is death. For whatever lives must die, must return to stardust, must continue the cycle of entropy to afford the ever-present expansion and eventual contraction to the cosmos.
Phil, I hope meaning found its way to you. I hope that you feel as though you have accomplished what you were put here to do, I don’t yet know what that is and I probably won’t for years to come.
With all the love possible,
phil at year 40
Research will be compiled in the following are.na channel.
https://www.are.na/phil-caridi/thesis-research-ne1iwvgdfoy
If you want to see my work over the past year or so head to: