Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: The Apotheosis of Aeneas ((c. 1765)

Gallery Notes: This bozzetto, or preparatory sketch, was part of Tiepolo’s designs for the fresco ceiling of the Guard Room in the Royal Palace in Madrid, which was executed by his large workshop. The artist excelled at manipulating perspective and color to create dramatic compositions in which space seemingly recedes toward infinity. Here he combines two events derived from Virgil’s Aeneid. The first is the promised deification of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who is depicted in red rising to the Temple of Immortality, accompanied by winged personifications of Victory and Justice. The second is the appearance of his mother, Venus, who is clad in white at the upper right of the painting. Along with the Graces, she presents Aeneas with arms forged by her lover Vulcan, who supervises their making below. Tiepolo gradually lessened his use of earthly reds from the bottom to the top of the composition, which exaggerates its dramatic effects.

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"I wonder what I so passionately and, ultimately, passively sought there."

In the 16th Century, Giordano Bruno argued for the existence of infinite worlds within infinite worlds. He was burned at the stake for his trouble, yet we recreate his speculation each time we try replacing one habit with another. Scrolling, for instance, seamlessly immerses us in an infinity, one in which space and time lose meaning. This easily becomes all-consuming, so high a priority that we can neglect everything else without remorse, without even noticing. The time when I first chose to limit my entry into the scrolling infinity, the first thing that occurred to me was a sense of nearly limitless time. My most prominent limit had essentially evaporated, leaving me with a fresh sense of infinity. Unlike the infinity I inhabited when scrolling, which had gone beyond my conscious awareness, this 1stInfinity overfilled my consciousness. I felt a real sense of excess. I couldn’t yet grasp what to do with it.

I suspect that this sense will diminish over time, as fresh infinities cast shadows over this latest, freshly discovered one. As Bruno proposed, it’s infinities all the way down, up, and sideways. To enter the least of them is to also join the most prominent, for each infinity, from the tiniest and least significant-seeming to the largest and all-consuming, seems equally overwhelming on first encounter. It appears to be in our nature to try to tame these infinities, however, so we shortly tend to tame them into seeming understandable. Our ability to preconsciously inhibit our perception can leave us simultaneously open to multiple infinities without us even realizing what we’re doing.

A grand reallocation occurs. What was invisible behind scrolling’s focus becomes present in the moment, first, as glimpses of possibility, and later, as genuine potential. Faced with choices, replacing defaulted roles first feels overwhelming. Fleeing back into scrolling’s relative unconsciousness should seem more appealing than facing so many decisions. The response might seem like indecision, but it’s more a matter of inexperience. Defaulting’s so much more soothing. Choosing seems endlessly disquieting. We speak of freedom more fondly than we ever actually experience it. In practice, it’s mostly a pain in the ass, demanding and not nearly as satisfying as spouting off about it was.

1stInfinity should properly seem like a void, empty of genuine possibility. Losing any addiction seems indistinguishable from losing a confidant and friend. The blessed unconsciousness that full-immersion engagement brought demanded little maintenance. It seemed to sustain itself while quietly draining genuine lifeblood. I felt informed, after a fashion, or at least I would run out of leads. Parallel infinities always remained, whatever infinity I thought I’d drained. The whole idea of draining infinities as a living seems absurd only from a distance. Only from the perspective of any orthogonal universe does draining any universe seem absurd. From within it, resources seem genuinely infinite, filled with comforting, essentially limitless excesses.

Living requires limits. It cannot thrive where boundaries hide. We go unconscious when faced with boundless spaces because our consciousness requires limits to properly perceive. Immersed in any infinity, we might just as well be absent. In fact, people who knew us noticed our absence whenever we immersed ourselves in another undifferentiated infinity. Scrolling does more than consume time; it so dominates attention that time effectively ceases to exist. Relative importances fuzz. Relationships go to shit. We become islands instead of isthmuses. We lose intimate connections, even though we might feel extremely well-informed. With whom, then, do we share our infinite insights? Who isn’t already consumed in their own infinity, constantly informing their own perspective, too? Scrolling, we become neither better-informed nor particularly influential, but just another capable of repeating the same unsurprising headlines as if they were revelations. I wonder what I so passionately and, ultimately, passively sought there.

There comes a time when a fresh infinity’s called for, one we haven’t yet spoiled with familiarity and dulled with resulting complacency. One with some sense of immediacy for a change. A world without so many foregone conclusions, absent so many familiar iterations. One with at least a spark of consciousness replacing quiet compliance. Enjoined from checking my feeds, I felt strangely free to actually engage rather than plot and plan for some indeterminate future engagement. A moment held real meaning, as if it might represent a point at which I might choose to make a difference rather than mindlessly repeat the same sad cadence. I’m keeping my device in my pocket. When at odds, I’m trying not to default back into my previous unconsciousness. This 1stInfinity feels reassuring but strange to me.

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Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz