Forgotten Future

The title of the exhibition refers to a fictional path which runs between the past and the future.

According to an old saying, “the past is the present, as is the future, which, although it has not yet arisen, already exists.”

Since ancient times, arguments have raged over whether or not the flow of time runs independently. So many questions remain unanswered about the concept of time: are there any general principles, laws, and patterns in history? What is the direction or meaning of history? The principle of cyclicality is also a fascinating concept. There are cycles of civilizations that rise and fall, that grow from apart each other before intersecting once again against the background of the archetypal world. Is time a force that leads human history to fulfil these archetypes?

In classical philosophy, time is divided into three distinct fields: “the past”, “the present”, and “the future”. Using this representative model, the past is generally considered to be fixed and unchanging, and the future remains at least partially undefined.

Quantum physics has undermined this once widely accepted construction. As the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli has claimed, “There is no such thing as past and future”. Time is not an independent medium that flows around us. “Time“ according to Rovelli, “is a part of a complicated geometry interwoven with the geometry of space“.[1]

The American theorist Karen Barad is of a similar opinion. In her book Meeting the Universe Halfway, 2007 she argues that: “...time and space, like matter and meaning, come into existence, are iteratively reconfigured through each intra-action, thereby making it impossible to differentiate in any absolute sense between creation and renewal, beginning and returning, continuity and discontinuity, here and there, past and future.”[2]

We can therefore suggest that reality exists outside the domain of time and that what we experience as separate phases are actually elements of a simultaneous reality.

[1] Carlo Rovelli on changing how we think about time. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview (2.12.2020)

[2] Barad, Karen: Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics And the Entanglement of Matter And Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press 2007, p.10