Jakub Jernajczyk (Poland)

Lucretius's Spear (2008)

Programme: Willa Lentza, Branch 13 muz, Wojska Polskiego 84 Saturday (21.03) Start 18:00

In the Ist century BC,  Titus Lucretius Carus by strictly theoretical inquiries drew a proof of the endlessness of the Universe.  Assuming first, that the cosmos has a border , one may imagine that we send close to it a human who flings a spear beyond it. What may happen next?  According to Lucretius, the spear will either fly across the border or it will be put off it.
In the first case a lack of the Universe border in the originally settled location is obvious. In the second case there must exist an obstacle, the spear was put off. The obstacle must also take some, even if the tiniest space surpassing the previously demarcated border . Both cases mean that consistent repeating spear flings spreads the Universe, at different speed, into infinity .
The opportunity of touching infinity seems to be tempting.
A tactile screen fixed on the wall displays a black circle in a white background. The circle area sets a finite range where the user may move, as if it was the Lucretius's Universe. Touching the edge of the circle zooms the picture. It thus reveals a surprising fact that the point we touched is not on the border of the circle but inside it. Touching the edge again gives the same result – the circle grows and the point touched is not on its edge but right beside it, inside the figure. The action may be repeated endlessly or a different part of the circle (Universe) may be examined.
On the wall with the screen, there are also drawn circles which cross the surface of the screen. In some cases these circles make up a whole with a fragment of the circle displayed on the screen.
If there is no interaction between a user and the screen for some time, the application switches into animation mode – on the screen there appear random fragments of the circle that match the circles drawn on the wall.