Liber Mundi
A project for an art installation in public space, originally for a location in Sofia downtown.
Introduction
Liber Mundi is probably one of the most wide spread metaphors in the European Middle Ages. Essentially it has its roots in the New Testament myth that Word (Lat. "verbum") and World (Lat. "mundus") are in a symbiosis. The Gospel of John (1:1, 2, 3) introduces for the first time the metaphor Liber Mundi:
„In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one (thing) received being which has received being. ... And the Word became flesh.“
In his work Berkeley and Liber Mundi [1] Dr. Costica Bradatan, assistant professor at The Honors College, Texas Tech University writes:
"... the word "Word", as it is presented in John’s Gospel, is the translation of the Greek word logos, meaning both "word" (Lat. "verbum") and "reason" (Lat. "ratio"). As a result, from a Christian standpoint, the Incarnation made the world not only "readable" (since the Word "penetrated" and "inscribed" it), but also "ration-able", comprehensible (since God as ratio came the world into being).1 That would represent a crucial premise of the European civilization as one "obsessed" with the knowledge of world. The world is considered "thinkable" since it essentially contains "reason" (logos), that is, the process of knowledge of the world is a process of "self-recognition" by which our reason (as a faculty of knowledge) recognizes itself in the very essence of the world (as one which came into being by the Supreme Reason)."
The Book of the World (Liber Mundi) is not simply a book of the words but a book of the meanings of the words because it is the sentence (sententia) that, according to Thomas of Celano, makes the book something that contains the totality of the world (liber in quo totum continetur). (Gellrich 1985: 32) [2].
Description
The project Liber Mundi is a closed space with glass walls and ceiling that is located at some busy place in the city (Sofia other some other city) or at some other public place. The inner surface of the walls is covered with books that could be easily taken off the wall and thus removed from their places. The visitors are invited to get a book according to their choice and take it home. As a result the glass walls recover their transparency and the world outside the glazed space becomes visible again while the inner space becomes visible from outside.
Installation Dimensions (glazed space): Base: 6 х 8 m (48 m2); Height: 2.5 - 3 m
Place for Realization of the Project: any suitable place in a city/museum/park
Time of Realization: preferably in the warmer seasons – spring, summer, autumn
Duration: хх days
Prise: To be determined in case of interest and for a concrete place.
Idea / Concept
The project offers to its visitors an aesthetic experience of the contemporary visual art that allows and provokes various philosophical interpretations. It offers to people of different age an opportunity to see the book from a different viewpoint as well as to get a book that is part of a work of art. Everyone that takes a book will have a part of the whole and will keep a memory of the event. All books that are going to be used in the project will have a special stamp.
On the other hand the gradual removal of the books from the glass walls (as the visitors take them off) will represent a “liberation” of the seeing from inside out and vice versa. That “cleaning of the sight” is a metaphor of the fact to what extent our vision of the world is determined by the written word, which can give us information but could conceal the reality as well. As some kind of semitransparent film, it mediates the perception of the reality and impedes the direct perception/experiencing of being by man.
[1] Dr. Costica Bradatan, Berkeley and Liber Mundi, Minerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy, Volume 3, Nov. 1999.
[2] Gellrich, J. M. (1985), The idea of the book in the middle age (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press).
Liber Mundi is probably one of the most wide spread metaphors in the European Middle Ages. Essentially it has its roots in the New Testament myth that Word (Lat. "verbum") and World (Lat. "mundus") are in a symbiosis. The Gospel of John (1:1, 2, 3) introduces for the first time the metaphor Liber Mundi:
„In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one (thing) received being which has received being. ... And the Word became flesh.“
In his work Berkeley and Liber Mundi [1] Dr. Costica Bradatan, assistant professor at The Honors College, Texas Tech University writes:
"... the word "Word", as it is presented in John’s Gospel, is the translation of the Greek word logos, meaning both "word" (Lat. "verbum") and "reason" (Lat. "ratio"). As a result, from a Christian standpoint, the Incarnation made the world not only "readable" (since the Word "penetrated" and "inscribed" it), but also "ration-able", comprehensible (since God as ratio came the world into being).1 That would represent a crucial premise of the European civilization as one "obsessed" with the knowledge of world. The world is considered "thinkable" since it essentially contains "reason" (logos), that is, the process of knowledge of the world is a process of "self-recognition" by which our reason (as a faculty of knowledge) recognizes itself in the very essence of the world (as one which came into being by the Supreme Reason)."
The Book of the World (Liber Mundi) is not simply a book of the words but a book of the meanings of the words because it is the sentence (sententia) that, according to Thomas of Celano, makes the book something that contains the totality of the world (liber in quo totum continetur). (Gellrich 1985: 32) [2].
Description
The project Liber Mundi is a closed space with glass walls and ceiling that is located at some busy place in the city (Sofia other some other city) or at some other public place. The inner surface of the walls is covered with books that could be easily taken off the wall and thus removed from their places. The visitors are invited to get a book according to their choice and take it home. As a result the glass walls recover their transparency and the world outside the glazed space becomes visible again while the inner space becomes visible from outside.
Installation Dimensions (glazed space): Base: 6 х 8 m (48 m2); Height: 2.5 - 3 m
Place for Realization of the Project: any suitable place in a city/museum/park
Time of Realization: preferably in the warmer seasons – spring, summer, autumn
Duration: хх days
Prise: To be determined in case of interest and for a concrete place.
Idea / Concept
The project offers to its visitors an aesthetic experience of the contemporary visual art that allows and provokes various philosophical interpretations. It offers to people of different age an opportunity to see the book from a different viewpoint as well as to get a book that is part of a work of art. Everyone that takes a book will have a part of the whole and will keep a memory of the event. All books that are going to be used in the project will have a special stamp.
On the other hand the gradual removal of the books from the glass walls (as the visitors take them off) will represent a “liberation” of the seeing from inside out and vice versa. That “cleaning of the sight” is a metaphor of the fact to what extent our vision of the world is determined by the written word, which can give us information but could conceal the reality as well. As some kind of semitransparent film, it mediates the perception of the reality and impedes the direct perception/experiencing of being by man.
[1] Dr. Costica Bradatan, Berkeley and Liber Mundi, Minerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy, Volume 3, Nov. 1999.
[2] Gellrich, J. M. (1985), The idea of the book in the middle age (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press).