WHATS IN A BROKEN VASE
We experience the world as a sequence of fleeting moments, each present pregnant with possibility, each past sealed and unreachable. Yet in mathematics, time is reversible. Equations unfold identically forward or backward. So, is spacetime itself an illusion, a cognitive framework evolved to help us navigate existence?
In the age of media, we live among ghosts. People now linger indefinitely in endless loops of curated moments, replayed, reframed, rewatched. Our grasp on the present slips as we drift through reflections of what was. Live events become performances for future playback, moments not lived, but staged.
Is our linear perception of time intentional? A design that demands we anchor awareness in the specificity of now, lest we become lost in the vast seas of what came before or what lies ahead? What would we do if we could see the past and future as vividly as the present?
Humanity has steadily chipped away at time’s opacity. Language first breached its veil, followed by writing, mathematics, and now media. Each advancement has extended our reach into what was once irretrievable.
This sculpture extends that pursuit. Porcelain fragments are connected to a computer through a system of motors and armatures. By analyzing footage of a cup shattering and translating it into code, the sculpture replays the break in reverse. Like rewinding a videotape, the motion is repeated endlessly, unbreaking the unbreakable. It is a poetic breach of temporal logic, a meditation on memory, causality, and our longing to rewind the irreversible.
