Ben Stein's Collage

Artist Statement:

I believe that life has no higher meaning; it is just a miraculous succession of random coincidences played out over time. The background composed of four pictures of the same avalanche serves to represent those coincidences. The avalanches also show that life just happens, you can’t do anything to stop or deter it, you just have to go with it and make the best. This relates to the sets of letters in the upper middle of the collage that spell out “Chaos” and “Order”. It is saying that there is order in the chaos of life. For instance, the four avalanches, although they are chaotic, falling snow rumbling down the mountain at great speeds, it is also organized. The snow is falling in a fairly even line straight down the hill. I could have picked four different avalanches, but I thought that four of the same would get the point across better. Then there is the saxophone. The music spewing from it’s bell starts out fairly regular, but by the end has twisted and morphed so much it finished upside down and hardly keeping to the lines. I believe that music can explain emotions and tell stories. It can tell orderly stories, like in the beginning, or chaotic messes, like at the end. Lastly we have the five clockwise galaxies and the words encircling them. “The world is meaningless. There is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose. All meaning is man made.” And so on. The words going around in a spiral are, in a nutshell, existentialism. The philosophy that each individual gives his or her life meaning, no one else, which relates to the earlier stated random coincidences that make up life. The only meaning any of it has is the meaning you give it. The galaxies behind the words serve two purposes. The first is showing the universe, but have it behind the words to show that the only significance anything else in the world has is, again, the significance that you give it. The second is to give the words direction and help the viewer in what direction to read them, clockwise starting from, “The World”.

Personal Philosophy:

My personal philosophy is that life is just random coincidences with no higher purpose, and each individual is responsible for giving the chaos any meaning. This existentialism also aligns slightly with a few of Karl Marx’s beliefs, that the only work worth doing is work for yourself and your environment. If you don’t give any meaning to your own work, then it isn’t yours. If you let someone else own you and have that someone else give your life meaning, then you can call yourself human only in genetics. In mind you would be nothing but a sub-sentient life form.