In 1969, George Spencer Brown published his seminal book "Laws of Form "– an attempt to straddle the boundaries between mathematics and philosophy in which he declared: "Draw a distinction and a universe comes into being." This brief statement outlines the paradoxes of world-building and our relationship to these processes. If our understanding of the world is ours alone, then without action this understanding remains inaccessible to others. Rather than something shared and mutually understood, the "world" is plural, situated and in a process of continuous formation. Worlds within worlds are made legible through a cosmology of observations.
Physicist and author Carlo Rovelli reminds us that in physics, there is no future or past; everything understood remains in the ever-present. "The Order of Time" speaks to this understanding of time(s) as something situated and relational, examining world-building at infinite resolutions from the subatomic to the cosmological.
The three sculptural works shift scales and magnitudes, revealing this dynamic interplay through direct experience: everything you see is your own invention. The installation bridges art, science and technology, examining the forces of algorithmic structuring and simulation of life.
Building on John von Neumann’s research into self-replicating machines, the invention of cellular automata and John Conway’s Game of Life, the resultant three sections of time speak to the complex interactions of these associative rules within the construction of a model, in the spirit of Charles and Ray Eames’ seminal short film "Powers of Ten".
The exhibition includes a conversation between Carlo Rovelli and Theodore Spyropoulos, drawings, films, and a series of generative studies that further expand on the installation.
