‘O.K. we’ll begin with entropy. That’s a subject that’s preoccupied me for some time.’
From the oil still leaking into the gulf of mexico as I write, at a rate of between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day , to the corner of my laptop that is crumbling and cracking from where my wrist rests on it, entropy is in evidence all around us. Entropy was one of the main concerns of the artist Robert Smithson. The themes of decay, deterioration and irreversibility run through his work and writings, and entropy itself was the subject of his essay ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, 1966 (ENM), and the interview ‘Entropy Made Visible’, 1973 (EMV). These texts provide a departure point for various lines of enquiry around the idea of entropy, constructing links between diverse subjects, and it is this spreading, unfolding, weblike enquiry of Smithson’s, that has led me to compile the following text, as I map my own understanding of the implications of entropy. Download the pdf here.