DANCE TO EXIST

Dance drives the universe. Creates our being. Is the essence of our existence. The seeds of our creativity.

The notion of a fixed point in time and space and the stability it offers to us all is nothing but a chimera. Because the world is made up of movement. Without it – we don’t exist.

Look at the physics – and then it all becomes clear. When we take a temperature reading, which gives us a so-called fixed measurement, this measurement is only made possible by the movement of molecules agitating the air. Or take a vacuum, which we always think of as empty. But in fact it is the movement of molecules again, which creates and makes it – sealing it all in. Without their energy, this would not happen and a vacuum is no more empty than a full glass – because it contains this movement.

This is the world of quantum mechanics – where nothing is what it seems. Measurements and definitions seem to pin down stable meanings, only for them to be revealed, if you look at the world in a quantum way, to be fixed by and in dissolution. Read that sentence, and suddenly also the world of Deconstructionism and Jacques Derrida does not seem that far away either. There seems to be a quantum entanglement between both physics and philosophy – both of which say the same thing in essence. That absolutes are illusionary.

After all, when symmetry breaks – which is also the most absolute and fixed of man made aesthetics constructs – the universe comes into being with an explosion of energy and movement. The imbalance of matter and anti-matter leads to the Big Bang. The universe is created out of imperfection and imbalance which leads to movement and the birth of stars.

So when talking to CERN’s first artist in residence, Julius Von Bismarck, who starts at the laboratory in March 1st, it seems entirely appropriate, that the essence of his work is about movement. The slippages between perception and energies of both nature and machine drive work such as the Image Fulgarator as well as the Public Face. But talk to Julius further, and then even more is revealed. That he finds the ultimate stillness and clarity of his creative process when dancing. Movement frees his thinking, so he will dance for 4 hours at a time and the line of creativity will just unfurl as he circles and spins.

http://www.juliusvonbismarck.com/bank/
www.cern.ch/arts