Atlas of the Irreverse
The Atlas of the Irreverse (2023) was a project funded by Land Steiermark and the Blaumann Foundation. The work consisted of research and a workshop, and culminated in the publication of a general audience book, The Atlas of the Irreverse, published by the University of Graz, Austria.
NOT (reverse, go back, rewind, undo, start again, repairable, alterable, retrievable, revoke) · adverb + verb OR adjective.
The English language provides us with a plethora of words to describe reversal, from which almost all synonyms for irreversible are constructed as the negation (e.g. unalterable, irreparable, irrevocable). Why must irreversibility inherit its personality from the definition of another concept? Its presentation, always in the negative, is an indicator that one has to come up with a more adequate description.
What would a world in which events were reversible look like? Perhaps forgiveness wouldn’t be requested, but automatically granted. Our material possessions might be spotless and untarnished and our bodies highly optimised, blemish-free. There would be no art to imperfection.
The experience we have of our surroundings is highly non-trivial precisely because we can’t undo everything. When we retrace our steps we don’t walk toe-to-heel, eyes cast over our shoulder and neither do we return to exactly the same place. Sometimes we cross a threshold unaware, like the moment in chess when we realise we have lost – we could have seen it coming, but now it’s too late.
Unable to take everything back, we accept that in some sense we have to start again; we create coping strategies and innovative alternatives. We are immersed in irreversibility. How can we document it? As vocabulary in a dictionary or as appointments in a calendar? Can it be chronicled at all?
The Atlas of the Irreverse is the first attempt to map the irreversible world. It is a cross-disciplinary selection of works spanning science, politics, philosophy and art, depicting the dimensions, conditions and consequences of irreversibility. For every step backwards we find ourselves advancing many more forwards, into the Irreverse.
Project
Despite our experience that life passes irreversibly, we notice that for some systems, it is often possible to reverse, or undo, an action. For instance, this could be deleting a letter from a text on a screen, picking up an object from the floor or making peace after a fight. Each time, these little rewinds require a certain amount of work to be invested. But exactly how much work must be put in to reverse an action? If the item dropped on the floor is a glass, which shatters into hundreds of pieces, ‘undoing’ this event looks hopeless — it is too much work. Where is the tipping point that distinguishes our ability to undo our circumstances?
Puzzlingly, in quantum mechanics, the equations seem to suggest that in principle all actions are reversible. How long would it take to arrange the pieces of smashed glass back into their original shape? Here, the complexity of the task appears to prevent us from reversing it. Humans face irreversibility in their struggle against death, which appears to be the ultimate tipping point from where no coming back is possible. This experience of liminality is not only embarrassing to the aspiration for eternal youth, it also determines the structure of societies. The problem of irreversibility interlocks the need for conservation, retaliation, or redemption with the opportunity for forgiveness, destruction, abolition, and progress.
For eight years painter and sculptor Marcel Duchamp worked on his piece “Large Glass” before premiering it in 1927. After the exhibition, the sculpture was accidentally broken, and on seeing his installation in pieces, Duchamp declared that the work was finally finished. For Duchamp undoing the seemingly irreversible was not an insurmountable quantity of work, it was in fact a source of pleasure.
Image credit: design and layout by Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain.
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