THE ALGORITHM

In this series I start with 2 wood panels and I set up a simple system of autocatalytic processes, consisting of a creation, a destruction and a maintenance process that I execute consecutively in subsequent iterations over and over again.

In each iteration I start with the creation process in which I paint a portrait on the first wood panel, on top of the result from the previous iterations.

In the destruction process I scrape down the creation with a palette knife.

In the maintenance process I use the scraped down paint and put it onto the second wood panel creating another portrait. This is one complete cycle of iteration.

I execute the iterations on a daily basis. All creations are vanishing by destruction, and all destructions are vanishing by new creations, while the maintenance process accumulates all the memories. The creation is an illusion, the destruction is an illusion, the maintenance is an illusion too although with grave consequences. While creation and destruction play their games together and fight and love in the reflector light, maintenance takes all the consequences and keeps all the memories and the remnants of the interaction of the other two. The maintenance takes on itself the layers upon layers, the used paints and ideas and heartbreaking destructions. It’s not about creativity and fire and momentum, it is about bookkeeping. Tangible and practical. Boring and low level. But this is the illusion of maintenance. Maintenance is the real world. I embrace it and love it. There is emerging an entity here that has qualities and properties that its constituent processes do not have individually.

I took the inspiration for this series from the observation that many things in reality are the consequences of endless repetitions of simple processes. Take for example the ribosomes, or any bimolecular machine in our cells, those tiny machines or I would say beings, are executing processes over and over again, in repetition, catalysing and influencing each other in intricate networks. Out of these processes emerges the human cell, which is an entity that satisfies properties and has qualities that its underlying constituents do not have individually. But then those cells self organise again themselves into higher level structures and similarly to their constituents, they also execute processes in endless repetition, catalysing and influencing each other, so that we get our organs and other functional units of our body. And then we can continue this higher and higher level of scale, or lower and lower level of scale. It's all the same.

When we reach our mind, we see these autocatalytic processes there as well, because we all have our little personalities in our heads, that are triggered in different situations and play out like a pre recorded tape. How many times we catch ourselves in reacting the same way, or saying certain things, or doing certain things following the same patterns. We tend to think ourselves as individuals, as some-one. But in fact we are an intricate network of these personality processes that play out automatically. If we look closely into these processes, the illusionary some-one, the individual is hardly found anywhere. So again there is an emergent being here that I experience as being myself that satisfies properties and has qualities that its underlying processes do not have individually.

And again we can move to even higher scales, above human levels, and look at emergent beings like corporations, cities, global events and we see again their constituent processes, and how they are repeating and executing in endless repetition, influencing and catalysing each other.

In all scales of reality we see these emergent beings growing out of lower level processes and having qualities and properties that its underlying constituents do not have individually

Iteration 15

The zoom into lower scales continues, it’s a dissection of inner image, state, external materialisation. How to arrive from inside to the outside? I need to materialise a connection between the inner spirit and the outer world to establish a flow...I am a taxi driver between the two...it doesn’t matter if the taxi is not realistic and square and perspectivic as long as I am very very familiar with how to drive it and effectively be able to transport Spirit from there to here.

Iteration 14

Iteration 13

“P-214 is an open star cluster containing middle aged hot B type stars in the northwest of the constellation Aquarius. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Computer simulations have shown that P-214 was probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood. They have been known since antiquity to cultures all around the world,including the Celts, Hawaiians (who call them Makaliʻi), Māori (who call them Matariki), Aboriginal Australians (from several traditions), the Persians (who called them پروین Parvīn or پروی Parvī), the Arabs (who called them Thurayya), the Chinese (who called them 昴 mǎo), the Quechua, the Japanese, the Maya, the Aztec, the Sioux, the Kiowa and the Cherokee. In Hinduism, they are known as Krittika and are associated with the god Kartikeya.” Memoirs from an alternate reality.

Iteration 12

I stepped out from the airport arrival hall and the humidity hit my face, the air was thick and full of smell and energies. The Sun was high above, shining with hotness and strength, I could barely keep my eyes open and relaxed, even in sunglasses. By the time I got into the city, at Soi 3, stuck in traffic jam after Ploen Chit, sunset was approaching. Almost 6pm, the sounds and waves of people flowing on Sukhumvit, the reds and yellows and blues and greens and yellows and reds are penetrating the glass sky, it’s as if something is imminent. “You don’t even realise how immense your situation is...”....I love you very much, but that’s none of your business.

Iteration 11

Trying to get closer and closer, following the vortex. The underpaint and underlayers present themselves in nice coincidences, it happens “coincidentally” that some parts need not be painted as they just appear as already done before, already done for something else, but as we move to the current iteration they reappear and are recycled in new layers of meaning. Also interesting how the zooming in works, at the beginning a very central area was in focus, like a door far away that I want to reach, but now it seems the door was reached and stepped in already so now the focus can be much wider, scaling up its field of vision and filling up the whole space. It’s a microscopic diagnostic.

Iteration 10

A new turn, an unexpected appearing of solutions and answers for previous wishes and calls. This is when those wishes get answered and the window of opportunity opens up. In a very down to earth manner, it is presented what needs to be done now, step by step in order to move to the next. I asked for it and I am getting it. This is not what I wanted now, but this is what comes to me and I have to realise this is among what I want. And now is the time to do that. Everything else can wait, but now is the time for this. I embrace it and appreciate what comes to me. It is truly magnificent how all this works. As I once repeated it in an altered state of consciousness through a whole night, “it is absolutely amazing, absolutely beautifully amazing. It is just amazing...”

Iteration 9

After recovering from the first peak and dip, in the current iteration I arrived at an intermediate stop of the journey, I feel that I finished the first major part of it, and now I will turn to something new, but before that there is time to slow down, to reflect what happened, to turn inwards and make an inner bookkeeping about where we are now, where we came from and what comes next. This current iteration as an inflection point is a sweet mix of all these energies, the ending, the looking back and taking a moment before the vortex turns and grabs me again. I celebrate that I got so far, and appreciate the evolving. For a tiny amount of time I am grateful now for what it is, and I am happy to work with it.

Iteration 8

Letting go of a state that was a high point and dear to my heart. Shifting lower in energies, greys and blues and browns. That little fire of trying and surviving and getting to a next step is very weak compared to that. Creation is weak and pointless. This is a portal into my own consciousness with places and stops that are unique realities on their own. The creation is an illusion, the destruction is an illusion, the maintenance is an illusion too although with grave consequences. While creation and destruction play their games together and fight and love and play in the reflector light, maintenance takes all the consequences and keeps all the memories and the remnants of the interaction of the other two. The maintenance takes on itself the layers upon layers, the used paints and ideas and heartbreaking destructions. It’s not about creativity and fire and momentum, it is about bookkeeping. Tangible and practical. Boring and low level. But this is the illusion of maintenance. Maintenance is the real world. Embrace it. Love it.

Iteration 7

Today the Destruction process was full of surprises and unexpected phenomena. I worked a lot on the Creation phase today, gradually moving layer by layer. It was quite surprising to see what stayed and what went after the scraping though. Also the previous, dryer layers started to appear, reappear and disappear in very unexpected ways.(e.g. The small head that appeared below the right eye). I like the current state very much although it needs to go, so I try to minimise and maximise :-) the energetic bond. The consequences of the repetition and the autocatalytic processes give their blossoms and take them away in a chain of surprises. The next iteration will be a huge exercise to let go.

THE ALGORITHM

Iteration 15

Iteration 14

Iteration 13

Iteration 12

Iteration 11

Iteration 10

Iteration 9

Iteration 8

Iteration 7

Iteration 6

Iteration 5

Iteration 4

Iteration 3

Iteration 2

Iteration 1