ARiM - Artist Residency in Motherhood #3

REBUILD ON HISTORY

Nature is not invented but has arisen. Last week I listened to Bas Haring’s lecture ‘Theory of evolution, a lecture about the mechanisms of evolution’, from Home-academy. Darwin’s theory of evolution is an undefined, arbitrarily and aimless process and in addition irreversible.

Survival of the fittest (survivalist). This well-known phrase says that the genes who are the best in surviving will survive, it doesn’t necessarily mean progression. That’s why there are a lot of unhandy or unnecessary examples to find in nature. For example, the nose of a whale, nowadays on his back but first it was on the front of their face. The trachea runs from the nose with a detour to the lungs. If someone would design the trachea today, it would probably go in a straight line to the lungs. The bended line of the trachea now, makes the shifting of the position of the nose during the evolution visible.

Charcoal drawing, the engine room (Atlas), April 18 2018

The technology in the Soyuz rocket developed in a kind of similar way. When André Kuipers flew into space with this rocket, he knew that when he pushed on a certain button of the operating system, this button pressed three other buttons. And that these buttons would press other buttons again and so on. The technology in the rocket was developed by a trial and error method. But it’s never replaced by a new system, simply because it was too expensive. The technology in the Soyuz rocket is actually an accumulation of systems.

It’s no different from how our brains are built up. Many of us assume that our brains are flawless, but actually it’s just like the technology in the Soyuz rocket and the trachea of the whale. Not only how our brains are built up, but also how they work. For example, your worldview is formed by previous experiences and memories. In fact, we always build on the past. The past can’t be erased, but it can be viewed from a different point of view, what may change the meaning.