THE STILLNESS OF THE DEPARTING LIGHT
Dan Nichols, Isabel Castro Jung, Louise Boer, Manuel Calvo, Natalya Falconer, Natasha Moody, Rocio Chacon, Zia Frances23-24 September, 2023
Chaos is coming. It is written in the laws of thermodynamics. Left to itself, everything tends to become more and more disorderly until the final and natural state of things is completely random distribution of matter. Amidst this prevailing disorder, life emerges as a rare and irrational thing. Its survival hinges on maintaining an unstable equilibrium – a system steadily marching towards decay, yet another manifestation of entropy. Life extracts its building blocks from the tumultuous environment, siphoning order from chaotic cosmic conglomerations. By means of digestive and nervous systems, cells harnessing sunlight for sustenance; lungs, skin, electric brain waves, tentacles, fingers, and intricate compound eyes that see the world in 360, it sorts out the environmental chaos into the oder of some sort.
Cosmos is an infinite noisy space. Everything in it is subjected to a constant bombardment of conflicting electromagnetic and sound waves. The Sun is singing. The low pulsing hum caused by the huge flowing rivers of solar matter has to be sped up a factor 42.000 to bring it into the audible human hearing range.
Ulysses spacecraft have made three voyages around the sun between 1994 and 2008. The scientists reading the data from the space craft discovered that the sounds generated deep inside the sun cause the Earth to vibrate and shake in sympathy. They have found that Earth’s magnetic field, atmosphere and terrestrial systems are all part of this sing along. The Earth moves to the rhythm of the Sun, it’s atmosphere, magnetic field and even voltages induced on ocean cables are all taking part in this cosmic sing along.
Legend has it, this building was designed to bask the chapel's center in perpetual sunlight, where the departed found their resting place. As the sun courses through the sky, its rays travel through into recesses, illuminating shadowed corners and warming the noon-heated rough stones. Through this dance, a life that traces its origins to stellar explosions absorbs the sun's parting radiance – a circle drawn to a close.
The Earth's rotational axis tilts away from the vertical, causing the planet to unveil subtly varied countenances to the sun during its orbital journey. Biannually, the sun's rays intersect the equator perpendicularly, ushering in universally twelve-hour day-night cycle.
Amidst this cosmic choreography, living organisms orchestrate their existence. They dance to the rhythm of day and night. These circadian rhythms, intrinsic to life's fabric, synchronise with the Earth's rotation, aligning the pulse of existence with the cosmic beat.
Text by Urtė Janus