Smaller than reality

You see a picture of a facebook status which reads: At times I feel like I understand everything. It is surprising how little good that does in itself. I become enclosed in my self: truth is smaller than reality.

Screenshot of facebook

You see a young man standing in what appears to be a bathroom. He is wearing a blue tank top and blue shorts. You see him from beneath, in profile, starting from the thighs. You can not see his eyes. His right hand holds a remote release firmly. The flash of the camera has overlit his hand and produced a large shadow to his right.

C-print

You see a pencil sketch of a rough circle, a spiral and the lambda symbol.

Pencil on paper. How I explained it to the people of the museum.

You could visualise the point being made as a helix viewed from above: this looks like a circle. Once your viewpoint shifts you see see there is a third axis and the points do not actually touch. The basic parametric formula for such a helix would be: sin(t),cos(t),t.

You see a screenshot from a Launchpad f.a.q. answer which reads: What can you say about everything? You keep revisiting the same words over and over. There are not so many words; there are much more things. And since time and causality keep things in a constant state of flux, the same words are always different, as they refer to different things. Once you add in the dimension of time, the motion is not circular, it is spiralling. Like an equation without a solution; like a function that never finishes. Words give the comforting sensation of stability, they give a semblance of permanence but like the Greek guy said you never step into the same river twice.

Truth is smaller than reality, and there are less words than things. You could say truth is composed of words, and reality of things.

Screenshot of a f.a.q. answer on launchpad

See also: Bowie, David: Changes (1972); Prince: Sign o’ the Times (1987).