ZERO AGAINST ONE:
REWORLDING THE WORD IN THE ART OF NICKY BROEKHUYSEN
PROF. DR. WENDY M.K. SHAW
When the world dissolves into its component parts, it will become clear that it all has always been made of ones and zeros: the interplay between presence and absence; proof of creatio ex nihilo through the divination of Chinese numbers; a Schroedenger’s cat who may or may not meow. Whether under the divine composed of the unity of the all being, or in the virtual reality of the computer destined to survive every apocalypse, it will all be one puddle between meaning and meaninglessness.
The space between the zero and the one was never distant from the search for the divine. When, in 1703, the father of calculus Gottfried Liebnitz published the essay that would someday allow for computing, and through computing for the infinity of information flows that waver between infinite complexity and the white noise of excess, he was actually searching for God. And he did this by way of China, inspired by the method of divination called the I Ching.Between the method of prophecy which sought information where we might believe there to be none; and the birth of infinite possibility between presence and absence set up in the gap between the one and the zero, he sought proof for God’s creation (the one) out of nothing (the zero). To read the full essay click here.