Fragmentology

Many things come in fragments. Most of the time, it is not intentional. Fragments are lesions on the skin of life. Islands floating in an ocean of demolition.

Fragments survive, but they barely survive. A book, a document, a manuscript, a fragment of a dream, of a prayer, of a moment, they are there, but we know they are not quite there.

Printed books may look identical, but fragments of them will always be dissimilar from each other. You can make two identical copies of a book, but if they suffer damage, they will no longer be copies in the material sense. And that’s when they become most unique. Rendered thus by misfortune, by accident, by the ruthless hand of the god of destruction, who ends up creating something much more unique than the ponderous, rational mind of the creator, writer, publisher or artist.

Fragments are traces of what once was, the chronicle of the passage of time and the injuries of history. In a deeper sense, everything is fragmentary, however inviolate things may appear to be. The more an item is exposed to time and space, the more fragmentary and discontinous it becomes, preserving the vestige of, of what exactly? Perhaps of an instant, when the undoing of time had not yet began its meticulous yet merciless surgery.