Marija B Jones

Beginningless Mind

"Flows of consciousness are also known as Mind Stream - the moment-to-moment continuum of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another.
Quantum physics debates the sustainability of having the notion of reality.

Everything ultimately is created by the mind.

Buddhists believe the beginning of life is inconceivable since it has neither beginning nor end, that the world was not created once upon a time, but that it is constantly being created..."

Beginningless Mind is a three-fold audio-visual narrative, which interacts in real time with search engines using natural language processing to decipher today's ordering of knowledge. Featuring music by 33EMYBW and J.G Biberkopf and software developed by Jayson Haebich, the work examines the flowing process of interconnectedness.
Beginningless Mind follows life on Earth where energy and information unwind cosmic law from order to disorder, and where the earthling is the youngest, yet most detrimental species.
The audio-visual trilogy observes a (post)colonial symbiosis of nature and culture harvesting Wikipedia as knowledge commons. Scalable timeframes explore earthy life from its early imaginings to live satellite imaging. The worldmaking produced by remote sensing of scientific apparatus is queered with ancient systems of beliefs. The threefold narrative considers planetary kinship as a visceral sense of interdependence, grounded in terrestrial breathing patterns and how other ecosystems' (plants, animals, earth elements) breath is mirrored in our own.

"... The Gaia hypothesis proposes that living organisms and inorganic material are part of a dynamical system that shapes the Earth's biosphere, and maintains the Earth as a fit environment for life.

Lynn Margulis was the primary proponent for the significance of symbiosis in evolution. She opposed competition-oriented views, stressing the importance of cooperative relationships between species. Margulis married astronomer Carl Sagan in 1957.

Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface. The Last Universal Common Ancestor - LUCA, probably lived in high-temperature conditions found in such deep sea vents...

... There is currently no consensus regarding the definition of life. One popular definition is that organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve..."

Score: 33EMYBW and J.G. Biberkopf (GG Biberkopf/ Gediminas Zygus)
Custom built software/ Natural Language Processing: Jayson Haebich
Voice: Natasha Kerry

Beginningless Mind launched during the pandemic on somersethouse.org.uk as a realtime interactive experience with search engines and Wikipedia, as today's notions of knowledge commons.

Commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices, University of Salford Art Collection and Somerset House Studios in 2020 and produced by Abandon Normal Devices and Somerset House Studios, and supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Psilocybin tea reading