Motus Mentis

When we enumerate those few qualities that, despite Man’s infinite capacity for folly and cruelty, reveal nevertheless a transcendent spark that sets us apart from the beasts, chief among them, perhaps, is our astonishing ability at times to create, even as we groan upon the rack, works of art of timeless and ennobling beauty. We think of the music of Bach and Beethoven; the plays of Shakespeare; the paintings and sculpture of Leonardo and Michelangelo; the novels of Tolstoy; the great cathedrals of Europe.

Or, if that stuff doesn’t do it for you, there’s this:

For Nuit Blanche 2009, The Apology Project will be staged in its largest scale thus far. A cluster of 55 people wearing large brown paper bags on their bodies will congest a public hallway and personally apologize to every person who ventures through them. The uncanniness of this human blockade will disrupt the regular flow of traffic and provoke reflection about passive aggressive behavior. Who are these people? Why are they here? Why are they wearing brown paper bags over their bodies? There is an enigma about what precisely they are sorry for and why they are choosing to continue doing something that they find reproachable. If it is their awkward presence in the space that they are apologizing for, why do they chose to remain there? Why not just stop an offensive behavior rather than continue to indulge in it and apologize?

Encountering something like this moves me to such depths of emotion that I am simply unable to find words to do it justice. Read all about it here. And for an aesthetic experience of incomparable import and ineffably poignant beauty, be sure to visit the artist’s hompepage, here.