ETERNITY

SCULPTURE EXHIBITION

Transience is one of the topics that occupy me.

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I wonder if, by observing transience, one can attempt to approach answers to the fundamental questions I ask myself: What are we? Why are we? Where are we heading?

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Unlike these questions, transience is tangible. We age and die, our cars break down, and the structures we build deteriorate. But at the same time, new people and other animals are constantly born, new buildings are constructed, and countless objects emerge that can bring us joy. Disintegration and reintegration are tangible processes in which we are daily recipients, participants, and creators.

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The last century has seen rapid advancements in ecology, archaeology, anthropology, physics, and chemistry, providing us with a wealth of information about these processes. Mass education and the internet have disseminated this knowledge. Yet, paradoxically, the world is still driven mainly by ideologies created thousands of years ago.

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According to modern physics, the atoms that make up our being have existed for billions of years and will continue to exist for billions more after our death. Atoms are tiny building blocks, perpetually in motion. Sometimes they form organic matter, other times they become part of inorganic matter. The atom currently residing in my heart might once have been part of a rock, someone’s fingernail, the tip of a spring leaf, the ocean, bird droppings, or rain. Quite literally, we are stardust, creating various forms for reasons unknown to us, some of which seem to possess micro-agency and the capacity to become aware of their own existence.

Some people, myself included, feel the need to somehow preserve this fleeting collection of atoms that makes them who they are — to leave a mark, a trace, an imprint, to influence the software — culture. In other words, to make a short-term, local, and micro-scale impact on other forms created by atoms. But for what purpose?

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Driven by instinct, I will leave behind clay masks which, if not intentionally destroyed, fired twice at approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius, will likely last 1,000–5,000 years, depending on whether they are stored in more humid or dry conditions. Stone heads with carved facial features will probably endure for 5,000–10,000 years before their shapes erode naturally. My hypothetical ancestors, preserved in masks and stone heads, will gaze upon reality for far longer than I will. According to estimates, the complete decomposition of my body under traditional conditions takes a few hundred years. Can the trace of an imprint smile upon the memory of the imprint itself?

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These poignant, nostalgic thoughts and desires, full of naivety, like the musings of a drunkard — which, incidentally, might be an advantage for hominids — may, from the perspective of a future where a more deliberate, orderly rotation of atoms occurs, seem like an intriguing, flavorful song. Yet, in the face of today’s facts proclaimed by physicists, they matter little.

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We are eternal. Humans, cats, tables, sofas, toilets, socks, airplanes, the food we are currently digesting, the bottle that broke, and the water that spilled — all of it. It just so happens that we are in heaven. Because everything that exists is the boundless Cosmos. And, paradoxically, ancient software holds much truth. The difference is that there’s no need to do anything. Whether we want to or not, we will live forever.

How will this awareness, which today is the subject of theoretical deliberations among physics students and scientists, alter the rotation of atoms? Will it influence the software, and if so, how?

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And can atoms remember anything? Can atoms feel anything?

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Robert Sosnowski

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The author of several masks is Adaobi Sosnowska. The author of one mask is Ndidi Sosnowska. The author of one stone head is Anastazja Sosnowska.