“Excerpts from the Book of Entropy” is a photography exhibition that represents an artist’s inner search to comprehend the mysteries of the universe. Toronto artist Eugen-Florin Zamfirescu has created an exhibit that brings together science and art.
How close is humankind to the truth of this universe? Does energy become matter and can matter turn back into energy? Can time flow back and forth? These questions, coupled with a desire to search for the deep meaning behind the workings of the universe, led Zamfirescu to bring science into his art.
Through the lens of physics, Boltzmann’s entropy formula explains the behaviour of macroscopic systems in terms of the dynamical laws governing their microscopic constituents. “Excerpts from the Book of Entropy” is an aesthetic reminder of this law.
Based on the law of entropy, it is forbidden to go back in time—everything is forced into the future. The artist uses texture and colour, contrast between brightness and darkness, certainty and uncertainty, to express the effects of entropy, restore harmony, and reveal the inner beauty of untold stories hidden in objects covered by the dust of time.
His talent for mastering light captures rare and unique moments that generate a magical and ephemeral atmosphere.
The following is an excerpt from the artist’s website explaining the exhibition, currently on display at TeodoraART Gallery in Toronto.
“To my way of thinking, by far the most perplexing characteristic in the universe is Entropy. At the very foundations of the universe time can go both forwards and backwards. Energy can become matter and matter can turn back into energy,” Zamfirescu writes.
“This is certainly not the way we perceive the world on a daily basis. Somehow, only larger entities seem to be getting older, to develop ’time afflictions.' Time is forbidden to flow in reverse, the law of entropy is forcing everything into one direction only, towards what we perceive as the future.”
The exhibition, Zamfirescu continues, “is an aesthetic reminder of this law.”
“In the slow decay that affects everything, I try to transcend physical matter or the laws of nature, to find deeper meaning in what I see and photograph. Through the act of capturing my subjects photographically, I attempt to slow the implacability of fate drawn by the hands of entropy and save them from the ravages of time. The harmony can be restored in the end if we establish a new kind of orbit for our own thoughts and sensibilities.”
Zamfirescu’s style is distinctive. Each photograph is an invitation to the viewer to come closer and engage. Among the notable pictures on display are “Search for the Perpetual Motion Machine of the Second Kind,” “Vintage Reunion on Boltzmann’s Desk,” “Endurance and Fragility under an Entropic Spell.”
“Excerpts from the Book of Entropy” runs until Saturday Oct. 11 at TeodoraART Gallery, 214 Avenue Road, Toronto. For more information, visit: www.eugenflorinzamfirescu.com
