
impotent the flow of years...
know
Last week, a bit hypocritical on pyramids. Pyramids are how I know things, how I get by! Thales of Miletus discovered indirect measurement in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza. He stuck his staff in the ground (poor little obelisk) and compared its shadow, his shadow, and that of the Pyramid. I owe my modern life to this Intercept theorem, a real lightbulb moment.

The Ancient Romans shouted
WATER! when there was a fire.
FIRE! shout the Romance speakers
When they most need water.


“Impotent the flow of years...” (detail) | 2021-22 | porcelain, tinted plaster, bedsheets, pillow case, paper, polypropylene rope, ratchet strap | dimensions variable, tallest 100 cm |
Alexander Cigana
photography by Isabella Wild

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How many other Ideas come to light in the shadow of graves?

Ideas Man | 2021 |
porcelain, pendant-light electrical lead, aluminium mesh, bubble wrap | L 20cm (head)
Originally, “idea” meant the way something looks. This is still true for most people—I suppose it is true for artists in a special sense. During the later Renaissance, when the connection between ideas as images and ideas as thoughts was very conscious, good illustrations began to appear in serious books. Phrases like “This image demonstrates…” became common. The woodcuts in Vesalius’ books of anatomy are the most beautiful and significant examples; I consider them in my thesis. At the entrance to the anatomical theatre in Padua where he worked was written: “Here is the place where death delights to help the living.”

I’m sure the doctors who worked on my hand (remember last week?) saw a lot of pictures, videos, dummies, animals, corpses—all replacements for me—through their training.

WORLDWIDE

In this copy someone has blacked-out a section with ink.
Today, a lot of medical wellness journalism targeting a broad audience of patients and consumers uses stock photography. You buy these images from a kind of online shop— you search for whatever your boss wants by punching in key words. There will be someone who looks angry but what they are angry about is entirely up to you. Scrolling, you discover that the models must have spent hours acting out for the photographer a dizzying variety of situations. How they decide, I have no idea.


Stock Image
Who are you worried
Young Caucasian man
With hand on head yellow
Impotence concept?
​
A place is pre-ruined
For you: of what news
Will your innocent face
Ornament the subject?
​
You are good evidence
Bad things happen
Needing this sympathy
Fresh images inject.
​
You may in truth be
Virile, unflustered, but
As a scapegoat meantime
Idol you are perfect.
​