a single thought
"The fact that we hate nothing so much is nothing more than another expression of the fact that we will life so much, and we are nothing other than this will and know nothing other than it."
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The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1, Arthur Schopenhauer
What can one see and know of nothing if one sees and knows beyond the will to life? The “relative nothing” is the eternal conundrum that Schopenhauer presents to his readers (The World as Will and Representation Volume I 439). If the abolishment of the will is precisely by definition the negation of Schopenhauer’s universe, how can it still be a part of his “single thought” (VIII)? Or would a more accurate (and rhetorical) question be, how could the will be undivided, all-encompassing, free from necessity and constraints otherwise without intrinsically embodying all possibilities, including that of self-denial?
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This problem remains perhaps the portion which suffers the most from what Schopenhauer himself admits as the limit of abstract concepts and language, akin to how a mosaic fails to transfer the subtle shift of hues that a painting can portray (81). Indeed, I side with Schopenhauer that visual imagery can more effectively convey this seemingly contradicting but perfectly coherent reality by appealing to the intuitive cognition of the audiences. It is captivating to think about what Schopenhauer may have thought about the medium of moving image, which, being a combination of Idea (image) and direct copy of the will (sound), fully embodies both the world as representation and the world as will. He may have considered it to be the most complete form of human art that occupies spatial and temporal dimensions, just as is with tragic play, but one that transcends further from the limitation of human bodies and physical law, for it is man who manipulates even the spatiotemporal dimension of the work itself. Thus the work A Single Thought, a digital collage made to be played in a loop, aims to capture this unspeakable yet self-evident message.
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A Single Thought utilizes several of Schopenhauer’s analogies, from the pendulum to the coin of two sides, not to mention his quotes and the overwhelming impressions that I received when reading The World as Will and Representation. At the same time, it is my hope that even viewers who are unaware of Schopenhauer’s text can relate to what is presented to them, for the cosmos of this work, if the task has been executed well, should be none other than the world that they live in.
Quotes, footages and sound effects used in A Single Thought (2020)
A Single Thought
2020
Mixed footages