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Tändsticksområdet (Holga): photo by Johan Larsson, 24 February 2014
The entire universe is composed of stellar systems. In order to create them nature has only one hundred simple bodies
at its disposal. Despite the prodigious profit it knows how to make
from its resources, and the incalculable number of combinations these
allow its fecundity, the result is necessarily a finite
number, like that of the elements themselves. And in order to fill the
entire expanse nature must infinitely repeat each of its original or generic combinations.
Every star, whatever it might be, thus exists in infinite number in
time and space, not only in one of its aspects, but as it is found in
every second of its duration, from birth until death. All the beings
spread across its surface, big or little, animate or inanimate, share
in this privilege of perennity.
The earth is one of these stars. Every human being is thus eternal
in every second of its existence. What I write now in a cell in the
fort of Taureau I wrote and will write under the same circumstances for
all of eternity, on a table, with a pen, wearing clothing. And so for
all.
Jönköping. Undergången på Östra Storgatan, 1886.
Undergången på Östra Storgatan mot väster från Liljeholmsskolan. Denna
järnvägsövergång byggdes 1863. Den byggdes senare om då mittpartiet togs
bort efter en dödsolycka med en bil som körde in i fundamentet. Foto: N. B. Ögren (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Jönköping. Undergången på Östra Storgatan, 1886 (stereobild). Undergången på Östra Storgatan mot väster från Liljeholmsskolan. Denna järnvägsövergång byggdes 1863. Den byggdes senare om då mittpartiet togs bort efter en dödsolycka med en bil som körde in i fundamentet. Foto: N. B. Ögren (Jönköping Läns Museum)
One after another all these earths are submerged in renovatory
flames, to be re-born there and to fall into them again, the monotonous
flowing of an hourglass that eternally turns and empties itself. It is
something new that is always old; something old that is always new.
Those curious about extra-terrestrial life will nevertheless smile
at a mathematical conclusion that grants them not only immortality but
eternity. The number of our doubles is infinite in time and space. In
all conscience, we can hardly ask for more. These doubles are of flesh
and blood, or in pants and coats, in crinoline and chignon. These
aren’t phantoms: they are the now eternalized.
Kungsgatan med Stora Limugnen i fonden, omkring 1880). Foto: A.G. Andersson (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Kungsgatan med Stora Limugnen i fonden, omkring 1880 (stereobild). Foto: A.G. Andersson (Jönköping Läns Museum)
There is nevertheless a great defect: there is, alas, no progress!
No, these are vulgar re-editions, repetitions. As it is with editions
of past worlds, so it is with those of future worlds. Only the chapter
of bifurcations remains open to hope. Never forget that all we could
have been here, we are somewhere else.
Hotellträdgården. Här ser vi uteserveringen med Stora hotellet till vänster. (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Hotellträdgården (stereobild). Här ser vi uteserveringen med Stora hotellet till vänster. (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Progress here is only for our nephews. They are luckier than us. All
the beautiful things that our globe will see our future descendants
have already seen, see now, and will always see in the form of doubles
who preceded them and who follow them. Children of a better humanity,
they have already scoffed at us and mocked us on dead earths, passing
there after us. From living earths from which we have disappeared they
continue to condemn us; and on earths to be born, they will forever
pursue us with their contempt.
They and we, as well as all the guests of our planet, are born over again as prisoners of the moment and place that destiny assigns us in its series of avatars. Our perennity is an appendix of its perennity. We are but partial phenomena of its resurrections. Men of the 19th Century, the hour of our apparition is forever fixed, and we are returned always the same, at best with the possibility of happy variants. There is nothing much there to satisfy the thirst for what is better. What then is to be done? I haven’t sought my happiness; I have sought after truth. You will find here neither a revelation nor a prophet, but a simple deduction from the spectral analysis and cosmogony of Laplace. These two discoveries make us eternal. Is this a godsend? We should profit from it. Is it a mystification? We should resign ourselves to it.
Jönköpings Östra kyrkogård, 1860-talet. Gång nära kapellet med äldra liggande gravhällar till vänster. Senare gravvårdar med träkors och stenar.
Fotograf: okänd (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Jönköpings Östra kyrkogård, 1860-talet (stereobild). Gång nära kapellet med äldra liggande gravhällar till vänster. Senare gravvårdar med träkors och stenar. Fotograf: okänd (Jönköping Läns Museum)
But isn’t it a consolation to know ourselves to constantly be, on millions of planets, in the company of our beloved, who is today naught but a memory? Is it another, on the other hand, to think that we have tasted and will eternally taste this happiness in the shape of a double, of millions of doubles! Yet this is what we are. For many of the small minded this happiness through substitutes is somewhat lacking in rapture. They would prefer three or four supplementary years of the current edition to all the duplicates of the infinite. In our century of disillusionment and skepticism we are keen at clinging to things.
But deep down this eternity of man through the stars is melancholy,
and sadder still this sequestration of brother-worlds through the
barrier of space. So many identical populations that pass each other
without suspecting their mutual existence! But yes! It has finally been
discovered at the end of the 19th Century. But who will believe it?
Hotellträdgården. Trädgården upptog ursprungligen den norra delen av tomten, men utvidgades mot öster 1871, och förminskades i början av 1900-talet. Den bestod av planteringar med gångar, bersåer, skulpturer och musikpaviljon. Musikpaviljongen var byggd av trä och hade dekorationer i schweizerstil. (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Hotellträdgården (stereobild). Trädgården upptog ursprungligen den norra delen av tomten, men utvidgades mot öster 1871, och förminskades i början av 1900-talet. Den bestod av planteringar med gångar, bersåer, skulpturer och musikpaviljon. Musikpaviljongen var byggd av trä och hade dekorationer i schweizerstil. (Jönköping Läns Museum)
And in any event, up till now the past represented barbarism to us, and the future signified progress, science, happiness, illusion! This past has seen brilliant civilizations disappear without leaving a trace on all our double-worlds; and they will disappear without leaving anymore of them. On millions of earths the future will see the ignorance, stupidity, and cruelty of our former ages.
At the present time the entire life of our planet, from birth until
death, is being detailed day by day with all its crimes and misfortunes
on a myriad of brother-stars. What we call progress is imprisoned on
every earth, and fades away with it. Always and everywhere in the
terrestrial field the same drama, the same décor; on the same limited
stage a boisterous humanity, infatuated with its greatness, believing
itself to be the universe, and living in its prison as if it were
immense spaces, only to soon fall along with the globe that carried --
with the greatest disdain -- the burden of its pride. The same monotony,
the same immobility on foreign stars. The universe repeats itself
endlessly and paws the ground in place. Eternity infinitely and imperturbably
acts out the same performance.
Louis Auguste Blanqui, L'éternité par les astres, Librairie Germer Bailliére, Paris, 1872
Kungsgatan med Stora Limugnen i fonden, omkring 1880. Foto: A.G. Andersson (Jönköping Läns Museum)
Kungsgatan med Stora Limugnen i fonden, omkring 1880 (stereobild). Foto: A.G. Andersson (Jönköping Läns Museum)
JKPG Jätten (Diana -- vintage): photo by Johan Larsson, 24 March 2014
6 comments:
Translation of the Blanqui is by Mitch Abidor, with a bit of medieval tinkering intruded by beyond the pale.
I had hoped someone might enjoy these views of Jönköping -- over which great pains were taken, back in the time of Blanqui, by the unknown local photographer who produced the stereoscopic views seen here, and by the contemporary photographer Johan Larson, whose unique multiple-exposure technique (up to 20-25 exposures for the large shots, like the breathtaking lower image here) inspired the post in the first place.
And lo and behold, it turned out that someone out there in the wide weird world actually WAS interested; and that that someone had actually BEEN there, and even paid a visit to the Match Museum (Tändsticksmuseet) in Tändsticksområdet, where the top large photo in this post was made; and furthermore, talking of miracles, has taken the trouble to send along this note:
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Tom,
Mirabile dictu, I once went to Jönköping, about 15 years ago, to visit the Match Museum, and it was well worth it:
Tandicksmuseet, Jönköping
So for me this is a particularly engaging post.
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I well, I guess the Match Museum was a bit of a red herring. But, just saying, we tried... and it always leaves one feeling a little deficient when so many posts in a row are certain to disappoint the backwoods lurker who shows up to pore over the comments in search of gossip, as, alas, there never is any.
On the other hand, there's always (even less amusing!) the "content", as it were.
These multiple-exposure images of Johan Larsson's have been haunting the mind for months now, making me think about the medium, or more properly, the media -- light and time. The spectral quality of the images brings to mind nineteenth century Spirit Photography -- and reminds that in many respects, photography is about death, for what it shows us is a moment that happened once, and (malgré the intriguing theory of Blanqui) will never happen again, in this or any other solar system. Coaxing multiple exposures out of the famously fleeting moment is a way of attempting to change the temporal equation, of playing with time, but in the end this merely reinforces the strange poetics of historicity involved in such images, which are involved in capturing what is already irretrievably gone; the sense that it has departed in stages eerily reproduces the gradual nature of all departures. The shadowy structures of Larsson's contemporary Jönköping seem to fade back into a past that is accidentally identified for us in the nineteenth century views; that which is vanishing superimposed, in this instance, upon what has vanished. As we're all busy doing, bit by bit, all the time.
OK, we give up. Nobody gives a damn about ghosts any more, obviously. So it'll be a quick tour of the Match Museum, and have done with it. What do we notice first? The schizophrenic clock -- what time IS it, actually? And everything's so darn... what would the word be? clean? And the neat bike parked outside. Does it come with the Museum? Is it, in fact, actually, THIS swell, spanking clean model?
And going inside now, a trove of wonders. We discover that toward the middle of the nineteenth century Johan Edvard Lundström (1815-1888) developed Swedish chemist Gustaf Erik Pasch's idea and applied for the patent on the phosphor-free safety match. Johan's younger brother, Carl Frans Lundström (1823-1917) was an entrepreneur and industrialist with bold ideas. Between 1844-1845, the brothers opened a safety match factory in Jönköping. Manufacturing of safety matches began in 1853 and sparked (do forgive!) great interest at the World Expo in Paris 1855. The Bros. from Jönköping were awarded the silver medal for managing to manufacture matches without the workers developing phosphorus poisoning. Safety matches were expensive to produce and it wasn't until 1868 that they became known throughout the world. These matches are still referred to as Allumettes Suédoises in France, Schwedenhölzer in Germany and Swedish Matches in England. We learn that for a long time, matches were manufactured by hand. They were made of aspen and a single log of aspen could produce 370,000 matches. That's a lot of lights, but if you were an aspen, would it be enough to give up your life for? Planing the matches by hand was heavy, time consuming work. The matches were then dipped in sulphur, which meant that the flame could easily be transferred from the head of the match to the wood. Johan Edvard Lundström later came up with a way to eliminate the smell of burning sulphur. The matches were dipped in wax or paraffin. They were then dipped in the match head substance that consisted of stibnite, gum, starch and potassium chlorate, and were then left to dry. Finished matches were packed into capsules or tubes of brass or shavings. Once the manufacturing of safety matches had begun, the Lundström brothers came up with a practical form of packaging that is still being used today, the modern-day matchstick box with an inner box and an outer sleeve. The sides of the outer sleeve were coated with a striking surface containing red phosphorus. Even matchstick boxes were handmade. A visitor to the Museum can view no less than 9,000 different export matchbox covers. There are plenty of enthusiastic matchbox collectors around the world, also known as philuminists. One of the most famous philuminists was King Farouk I of Egypt (1920-1965) who once flew to Copenhagen in a specially-chartered plane just to buy a matchbox cover. But there is no plane even a champion philuminist can charter that will fly out of the time dimension. I believe that was tried in The Langoliers. There were these huge malign meatballs from another dimension, see -- they hopped across microwave towers and ate the tarmac at the airport in Bangor, Maine; what a coincidence that author Stephen King happened to be striking a safety match in that very neighborhood, on that fateful day. It's one of those movies that asks a question. Well, two questions, actually. And it's just possible that the answers to these questions are printed on matchbox covers... in another dimension, naturally.
What happens to today when today becomes yesterday?
And if you lived in yesterday, could you make it back to today, just by banging your disposable camera against your palm, with just the right degree of force ?
Wonderful!
Excellent!
I've been looking forward to reading this post all week (while I was in Sweden, though not Jonköping). These photos still resemble the modern townscapes there, the same marked absence of people (seeing it with UK eyes).
Matchsticks are never irrelevant. They are the flash photography of this ghost world. :)
Thank you, Michael. I suppose it's true those aspens did sacrifice themselves for a good cause, if one considers enlightenment good.
And Edison be damned -- King Farouk never flew to Copenhagen to purchase a light bulb.
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