Paul Laffoley
(b. 1940, Cambridge,
Massachusetts)
The Living Klein Bottle House of Time
1978
Oil, Acrylic, Lettering on Canvas
73 1/2 x 73 1/2 in.
Subject:
The Second Design Phase of the Time Machine
Symbol Evocation: The Singularity between the Third and Fourth
Dimensions Spatiality
Comments: The basic change from the first to the second design
phase of the time machine is the addition of the Biochron Time-Suit. This
entity is an alternative creature that has been genetically programmed
to grow in the form of a living Klein bottle.
I believe that to perceive time periods radically dislocated from one's
habitual and functional space-time frame, a buffer or early warning system
is necessary for protection against possible changes in circumstance and
belief. Although the average world-view should take one successfully through
an entire lifetime with little adjustment, world-views or universe-views
are in fact notoriously fragile entities. For example, if you attempt
to process information on the circumstance and beliefs of the world 5,000
years hence, you might well be brought into direct contact with thoughts
not only unimaginable but directly destructive to someone in your present,
or yourself. Imagine if the artifacts of our present civilization were
constructed by people from our ancient past, and what inevitable havoc
would reign unless the ancients had had some way of understanding our
present beliefs.
Coupled with the Biochron Time-Suit is a device I call the Agnosticon.
The purpose of the device is to allow its user to engineer their doubt
or faith processes. In my opinion, it is necessary to engineer doubt and
faith in relation to the accelerated space-time frames of reference that
would be encountered with the time machine, in order to perceive these
unfamiliar world-views. In other words, you must be able to believe or
disbelieve any proposition instantly in order to survive in alien space-time
systems. The basis of the Agnosticon is the heptahedron, which is a seven-sided
convex polyhedron made from a piezoelectric crystal shaped like an octahedron
and electromagnetically charged along its major axes and surfaces. As
a structured singularity, the heptahedron is kept isolated from other
singularities so that it can function specifically in relation to human
beings.
from the "Mephitic Models" interview:
Paul Laffoley: I would have private conversations with [R. Buckminster Fuller]. I once had an argument, for four hours, about the existence of the Mobius strip. Because he believed in the Klein Bottle, you see. And I said, "How in hell can you claim to believe in the Klein Bottle and think that the Mobius strip is dubious?" He said, "Well, it's a torus." I don't know what he had in his mind as a mathematical background, because I don't think he got topology. Because, in other words, the Mobius strip didn't have angles in it. The tetrahedron was his big thing. He'd talk about it in the same way Plato talked about angles. And I said, "Well, why do you believe in the Klein Bottle?" He said, "Because I can imagine it." I said, "You don't have to imagine a Mobius strip. It's right there in front of you!" But he couldn't see how that could involve a cross cap, meaning something that couldn't be reduced to a two-dimensional surface. Which it does. It's because he was thinking that the matrix was the thing that a fly could walk over the edge of, like a torus. It's not. The Mobius strip is only an analog for the reality of what it is. And then he says, "Like a shadow... shadows don't exist, they're the absence of light." He was quite a Newtonian in certain ways. But he was an excellent inventor and kept people on their toes.
Robery Guffey: You know, supposedly he once told Marshall McLuhan that during questions and answers, he would wear earplugs in his ears so he wouldn't hear the questions.
PL: [Laughs] I think that's true, because he would pretend to be deaf at the right times.