Eternity Formulae. Introduction

An exhibition exploring the theme of cold in architecture, astrophysics, and art history.

The Eternity Formulae project is a reflection on how shared meanings can be found in the most diverse and seemingly unrelated things, from industrial construction to the emergence of the Universe, and from nineteenth-century caricatures to the popularisation of science. The exhibition revolves around the concept of cold. The various implications of the notion are traced through the history of architecture, the visual arts, and the natural sciences, showing how the phenomenon of cold gives rise to universal patterns in human culture. The exhibition consists of three independent parts or novellas, each developing a separate narrative.

Illustration: Daniel Annenkov

The first section is centred around the story and context of what was one of the largest industrial refrigerators in Europe at the time of its construction. Its design was one of the last projects to emerge from the studio of Ivan Zholtovsky, the architect of many buildings that defined the Soviet skyline in the 1930s—1950s. His design of the refrigerator was conceived in the early 1950s with echoes of the Doge’s Palace in Venice and was intended to show how the principles of Renaissance harmony could be applied to panel building technologies. However, by the time construction work began, in the second half of the decade, war was declared on “excesses in architecture”. The rich decoration of Zholtovsky’s design was emasculated and the building, which still stands on Moscow’s Otkrytoye Highway, seems from afar to be a purely functional industrial facility. However, closer examination finds traces of the original project, including a decorative frieze. In this section, documents and materials about the refrigerator enter into dialogue with the works of contemporary authors, showing how utility and fantasy interact in the history of industrial architecture, monument restoration, and the modelling of virtual space.

The next section, Winterreise, is devoted to the history of cold in European visual art from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. It brings together works from the largest Russian museum collections, interrogating the museum itself in its classic conception as a repository of cultural monuments, designed to protect exhibits from any undesirable changes and assure their rightful place in the hierarchy of public values—a form of cold storage room.

The section has seven blocks, where cold is shown under different aspects. The phenomenon is explained or demonstrated by contrasts—a figure, movement, detail, footprint in the snow, which the eye needs in order to register the snow itself. The perimeter of the hall bears the visual-poetic installation Winterreise (“Winter Journey”), based on poems from the eponymous cycle by the romantic poet Wilhelm Müller, which were put to music by Franz Schubert. Müller’s theme was the futile quest of a lyrical hero, who encounters the icy indifference of nature and of other people.

In the final section, cold appears as the ubiquitous background of the Universe itself and, at the same time, of the lives of its researchers. At the centre of the narrative is the phenomenon of relic radiation, which has uniformly filled the endless space of our Universe since the formation of the first atoms immediately after the Big Bang. Its average temperature is close to absolute zero, the theoretical limit of cold. But the panorama of its almost imperceptible fluctuations reflects the entire grandiose structure of the Universe: today, the study of relic radiation is the key source of scientific knowledge about space.

Scientists at the Special Astrophysical Observatory, located near Nizhny Arkhyz in the Russian Caucasus, have made a significant contribution to this research. The exhibition section reflects on their work and lives, and on the tasks of science as a whole, not only for research, but also for education. The section brings together works by contemporary authors devoted to the problems of astrophysics and the poetics of chance, which, without going beyond statistical error, sometimes trigger processes on a universal scale. The section includes a performative and educational platform for public programme events, celebrating the work and energy of the Russian astrophysicist and populariser of science, Oleg Verkhodanov.