2) Hotel Hilbert or the infinite hotel 2004-en cours : The death and infinity
A traveller comes in front of a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms.
But sign says <No Room Available>.
Can he get a room?
Take the guest currently in room 1 and move him to room 2.
Take the guest currently in room 2 and move him to room 3, the 3 to 4, the 4 to 5…and so on.
Put the new guest in room 1, which has just opened up.
Now, an infinite number of people show up at the same time and each ask for one’s own room.
Take the guest who is currently in room 1 and move him to room 2.
Take the guest currently in room 2 and move him to room 4, the guest in room 3 to room 6…and so on. Now, take all the new guests and put them in the odd-numbered rooms.
This is the famous illustration of the idea about the infinity of a mathematician, Georg Cantor imagined by another mathematician, David Hilbert.
I was reading a biography of Georg Cantor. I am not good at mathematics, so I did not understand all detail of his theory of infinity. But I felt, all the same, he told something beyond my thought. He states: “ the infinity is not only one, the infinity exists infinitely”.
I found a dozen emptied frames in the street. A frame without picture is paradoxical. The 4 sides of a frame cut the space and isolate the inside from the surroundings in two dimensions. But the distance for the depth is infinity.
The death means the end of one body; it doesn’t mean the end of a life.
I realised a luminous installation with these emptied frames and keys (which I also found in the street 3 years before.)
In this installation, three different lighting systems completely transform the atmosphere of the existing space. I gave this installation the name of <Hotel Hilbert>.
Today I intend to complete this installation with video projection.
The luminous installation in 2004 will be the basis for my future installation. In addition, I want to make several videos, which a traveller comes out of a door and goes into the next door. Using projections on four sides of space, the multiplication of this gesture seems to be repeated and continued infinitely.
And m aybe I’ll integrate it into a spectacle later on.
|