“Being modern came to mean, as it means today, being unable to stop and even less able to stand still. We move and are bound to keep moving not so much because of the 'delay of gratification', as Max Weber suggested, as because of the impossibility of ever being gratified: the horizon of satisfaction, the finishing line of effort and the moment of restful self-congratulation move faster than the fastest of the runners. Fulfilment is always in the future, and achievements lose their attraction and satisfying potential at the moment of their attainment, if not before. Being modern means being perpetually ahead of oneself, in a state of constant transgression…”[1]
Zygmunt Bauman – Liquid Modernity
Standing up, sitting down and the escape of thought is about the repetition of two actions as a starting point for a next movement. On the one hand, it is an examination of the man without brakes that Bauman talks about, as well as to the idea of ??having to walk as fast as possible to stay in the same place, and twice as fast as before to change it. On the other hand, this exercise represents the Japa which, in Hinduism, is the practice of repeating a mental or bodily movement in order to reach a different state of consciousness. With this second approach, the movement would then become a tool to transcend the frantic state in which we find ourselves and access the emptiness of our mind in order to enter a more meditative phase.
So far we have only focused on the movement as an escape. This exercise is an invitation to reflect on these two options: to continue in that exalted state of running in the same place, or through movement, to understand the immense world of the mind. The change (within this context) depends on the level of consciousness and the intention you have at the time of standing and sitting.
[1] Zygmunt Bauman. "Liquid Modernity". Polity Press. 2000. Page 28
Work made of: 3 photographs
Location: Bogota-Colombia
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