The universe, a kind of “whole,” is divided into gravitationally bound
systems—galaxies of stars, stellar remnants, gas and dust and dare I say dark
matter. We divide solar systems into planets. We divide the globe horizontally
and vertically by lines of latitude and longitude. Planet Earth is divided by
bodies of water into continents, which are further divided into countries,
which are divided into regions, states, cities, villages, neighborhoods, houses
(which are divided into rooms—some families under the same roof are divided).
The pages of the Rand McNally you might keep under the passenger's seat of your
car are divided by the Interstate Highway System, roadways and waterways like
strings of lights draped from one city to another, each city a little bulb, lit
up, or not.
The divisions on a compass rose orient us: north,
south, east, and west.
“When possible,
make a U-turn,” the GPS lady says when we veer off course.
My address: The
Universe, Milky Way, Earth, North America, the United (not “divided”) States,
Idaho, Moscow (I don't yet know you well enough to say exactly, but I could).
Because of
division, or in spite of it, there is no such thing as a permanent address,
however—I am always moving (we are all transient). Relative to the sun, I am
moving at approximately 30 kilometers per second; for Earth, as you learned in
elementary school, back when you didn't consider “division” beyond obeli on
wide-ruled notebook paper or the question of enough cupcakes for everyone to
have two, is in orbit around the sun. Division likewise animates Earth's crust
in the form of tectonic plates that diverge and converge and transform (massive
rafts in motion) as the molten matter we tread upon changes beneath our
relatively tiny feet. We keep walking.
We divide time:
eras, centuries, decades, years, days, even down to the the tick of a clock,
the tock of that watch upon your wrist or the one that was your grandpa's
hidden in your pocket.
The body is
divided into systems (you know them), all of which must function in sync to
keep the heart beating, the eyes open, the feet stepping—until that final
breath, that is (a great gasp), divides the living from the dead. Some say
there is an afterlife, however. Some say there is rebirth, too: the Ouroborus
eats its own tail. But for better or worse, as cognitive beings, depending on
our system of belief, many of us operate under the assumption of binary
divisions, or we challenge them as such: life/death, woman/man,
happiness/sadness, external/internal, creation/destruction. Through division,
we order chaos. We grid things. We keep time ticking in pockets. We frame our
days on walls. To divide a batch of cupcakes evenly, sometimes we have to split
them in half—there are beautiful little acts of violence like that we live by.
Division creates
boundaries and chasms (canyons grand). Sometimes these boundaries warn against
trespassing: KEEP OUT. Sometimes we straddle or transgress them anyway. We hop
a fence. Is there any escape from division and the boundaries it forms?
I don't know. But
even tectonic plates, responsible for the disasters we fear, are
artistic—mountain-makers. Tectonic, from tectonicus,
pertains to “building.”
Perhaps the act of art is possible because of
the / or the ÷. As artists, we hop some fences, or we knock them down, or we
raise them up again as best we can. “Can you hear me now?” we sing, hammers
swinging.
5x5 derives its
name from the ratio of signal-to-noise, or S/N, a kind of division that
compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise or
static. 5x5 is the best possible ratio for carrying a voice through space.
Thus, in terms of radio transmission, 5x5 translates to the answer all artists hope
to hear: “I can...perfectly.”
The artists in our upcoming issue are as clear as what croons from your car stereo on a good
day (or when you're not driving through tunnels), and maybe even clearer. There are no “tunnels” here, no static.
Stay tuned!
Over and Out (for
now)—
S.J. Dunning
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