"Jesus Christ as perpetuum Mobile or the survival of an idea"
In the summer of 2005 I discovered a strange crucifix on the flea market in Eupen, which I bought a German-Russian dealer. This crucifix was strange and had attracted my attention because the cross was attached to mechanical gears. Cogwheels that handed into each other like a large mechanism.
A religious mechanism?
This mechanical context formed the association to the perpetuum Mobile, the idea of an imaginary drive, which is the cause of the well-intentioned, but also historically occupied cruel mission of a worldwide Christianization was.
The Perpetuum Mobile as a machine is assumed that it is developed out of its own drive again and again new energies and therefore acted in endless movement.
This machine as an idea has been since the Renaissance (and I believe Even earlier), since one deals with mechanical phenomena, a model that is used for scientists, hobbyists, tinkers and engineers, then as today as a reason to take a dispute. However, these attempts fail again and again, since the question of the impetus, that is, the energy has never been clarified.
However, assuming that the perpetual motion machine constantly develops a force that generates a constant movement, it would have something divine. Similar to nature and its phenomena in the constant cycle of life and transience.
It was precisely this parallel of knowledge that I saw above all in this graphic context, like a parable or a metaphor, at least as an abstract model.
Michael Schulze in March 2006
Jesus Christ as perpetuum Mobile or the presumption of an idea, 2005, manual kinetic, diameter 120 cm