Le réel est apparence ; et autre chose existe, qui n'est pas apparence et ne s'appelle pas toujours Dieu.
André Malraux
Paradise of Machines
Overview
If we were to briefly define the Paradise of Machines, it is an industrial Lascaux. A sanctuary.
The Lascaux cave was painted by men who symbolized their natural environment, the wildlife on the walls of a cave, while the Paradise of Machines evokes the industrial era, in an environment that marked men from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, namely a factory.
It is obvious to me that the cave of Lascaux, the Chauvet cave, the tombs of the pharaohs, the Paradise of machines are occult worlds touching on so-called secrets, on what would not be visible.
Seeing these universes from another era transfigured on purpose allows us, through emotion, to be in contact with the soul of a lost world that has constituted the almost "natural" daily life of millions of people.
Machine Heaven is an allegory, that is, a narrative implementing concrete elements, each element corresponding to an abstract content.
the concrete elements are like humans, they wear a mask for their life in society and reveal another personality in another sphere. A boss can therefore be both dominant and serious, just like his role in his work and family life: he is a normal being with personality facets that make him a human like everyone else.
for machines it’s the same thing.
to illustrate this, the principle of this machine during its activity in the service of its boss was objectively to be a shear for cutting metals. she was painted black to be serious.
whereas, subjectively, it is very clear that this deceased machine (which has gone beyond its objective and functional reality, has been trans-passed) has become a small, joyful car ready to devour miles with its pelican’s beak. The machine went from a meaning of a thing to a symbolization of a concept.
From the reality of the machine-shears we deduce this abstraction of this small car, which will now live in eternity for itself. This is the definition of abstract art, which does not represent subjects or objects from the real world, but forms and colors for themselves.
In ancient times, we had already seen this : If the patron of the gods, Jupiter, had the gift of metamorphosis, it was because he went from his transcendent state to his own immanent state of his genitive form, Jovis, who gave the word Jovial, full of frank and communicative cheerfulness. If to achieve its ends it is a question of disguising, this does not pose any problem for someone who orders.
we can clearly see the joyful and jovial face of the car with its yellow mouth and green eyes
(real machine without any modification, just painted)
(reality will always surpass fiction)
In all civilizations there is an important part of the teaching of wisdom through humor, and in the West, it is Harlequin who is dressed in clothes adorned with a mosaic of colors does not say that the truth is black or white but breaks down the light into all the colors of the understanding prism.
Considering this abstract painting by Robert Delaunay, Rhythm of 1930, one can see a mathematical progression going from bottom to top and left to right through cycles of life passing from the clear life to the dark death, and all the colors coming from the prism through which passes to the light. this applies very well to the technical progress of his time;
it’s a surreal painting.
At a time when all knowledge is digitized in computers, the Paradise of machines makes us operate mechanisms that artificial intelligence will never have, belonging to the soul.
It is certain that artificial intelligence does not have one, but what is the soul? To this question, Robert Musil said that it is easy to define it by the negative: it is what begins to shrink as soon as one starts counting. To define it in a positive way, well, André Malraux said that the supreme force of art as of love is to compel us to draw on inexhaustible; Emmanuel Kant, for his part, said that happiness is an ideal of imagination and not of reason.
Artificial intelligence also has no tradition:
Tradition is not the cult of ashes, but the preservation of fire (G. Malher)
the machine is dead, fire the machine, ashes
s
a powerful tradition is made so that the soul can resource itself there, in order to take off again, start anew, and renew itself without betraying its origins
the red and gold bird is the Phoenix reborn from its ashes (I painted the machine without knowing it was red and gold, the machine spoke and told me what those colors to fit with)
Once, was asked to Cocteau the question,
Your house is burning, what are you taking with you ? The fire, he replied.
There is nothing more important than getting the imagination off the ground.
