Z o n  C h r o n o 
 

Diploma thesis :

​

The Seabed is a mystic land. The density of the water, the underwater currents, the thudding sounds and the divergent living organisms that drift there, make the observer feel introverted and reminded of the wetland where life originated. The scenery around these creatures is presented in a variety of crystal clear, bright colors, creating a world akin to the one we recognize as our own. Thus, man, observing the seabed and its creatures, identifies primary elements of his inner world, inspires myths and recounts stories from antiquity to the present day, which give rise to concerns in fundamental questions of self-awareness.
My personal narrative focuses on the jellyfish, a creature of different sizes and life expectancy (even the biologically immortal species "Turritopsis dohrnii"). The form of its body, its density value almost equal to that of water, the single opening with the numerous fringing oral arms where food is absorbed and discarded, its perceptual ability despite the lack of a brain and its complex tentacles that contribute to its captivating movement, yet at the same time, protect it with their venom, constitute its unique features. So, through literature and poetry, they are often attributed to the formation of conflicting human qualities, like arrogance, that is, the innate tendency that while it acts as a primary driving force of behavior in humans, at the same time awakens dark instincts.
The ancient Greek myth of the Medusa is characteristic, which adopts the allure of her rhythmically hypnotic movement with the immediate, poisonous, even deadly effect of her elaborate tentacles and transfoms her into a monstrous gorgon with venomous snakes for hair and a gaze able to render any onlooker into stone. The beautiful gorgon Medusa overestimates herself and is led to arrogant and insolent behavior (hubris) which has as a direct consequence the blurring of mind (hatei), the acts of absurdity and her righteous (nemesis) transformation into a monster as a punishment (tisis).

According to one interpretation of the myth, the fearsome features of the medusa depict the personified expression of the unbridled forces of human instincts that are drawn from the realms of the subconscious, obstructing purity of thought.
In a similar way, the jellyfish ends up being punished for her arrogance in a traditional Japanese tale. Having the unique ability to live on both land and water, at the instigation of the lord of the sea, she commits a heinous act to save his diseased wife, by deceitfully stealing vital organs of the monkey. Overestimating her abilities, she is ultimately deceived by her victim, thus failing to achieve her goal. Her audacity, resulting in inefficiency, leads her to the maximum punishment, that is to continue living through her descendants, only in water thereafter, deformed and condemned to drift along with the sea currents. According to one interpretation of the myth, the jellyfish represents the soul, condemned to live trapped in a transparent skin due to her arrogance, and despite being part of a congenerous group, destined to wander carried away by the currents of water, as mainly a source of food for other creatures.
Indeed, as a unit, a jellyfish moves in a special way with rhythmic pulsations through the water with its body mass, which is nothing more than a confined concentration of the space where it floats. This particular fact has proven a remarkable challenge for me, that is to use water mixed with pure colors of different densities, in order to capture its different versions, isolated from the whole, in opaque or transparent skin, afloat in the liquid textures of its confined microenvironment on the seabed.

Although a jellyfish is one unit within a large population of jellyfish that is formed in blooms floating on sea currents, it seems that it is limited to the space around it, which allows it to move rhythmically, similar to a modern man limiting his capabilities based on his sense of self. Although the human body is a more complex structure, it seems to inactivate most of its components, imitating the basic characteristics of a jellyfish. The sight of its seemingly pointless yet graceful movement, by association brings to mind the meaningless life of people who indulge in acts of vanity, self-indulgence and individualism.

The Japanese poet Mitsuharu Kaneko (1895-1975), in his poem “Jellyfish Song” (1952), while observing the jellyfish pulsate in hypnotic elegance, reaches the point of identifying a dismal version of the decaying self through its wet mass, by means of the emptiness of futile acts. Through the rhythmic contracting and expanding of the jellyfish body, he detects the dim light of his soul, trapped in its delicate cover, strained and carried away by the waves. Although he seems to finally accept this dire state of his soul, the sight of the jellyfish, ever since the awareness of its existence, has evoked (awakened) this profound existential thought.
From another standpoint, the Greek poet Kostis Palamas (1859-1943) in his poem “Medusa” (1902), although he, too, attributes to the form of the jellyfish the fears that unbridled instincts generate and renders them capable of causing necrosis of the mind, total idleness and suspension of any creative endeavor, he distinguishes a driving force in the inner voice of the subconscious which does not keep man awake in vain, rather it ultimately leads him to the realization that only hard work, effort and self-exertion to create meaningful things in his life, are able to lead him to immortality. And in the end, he becomes the plunderer of its supremacy.

​

In modern society, man tends to get carried away by matter resulting to a solitary way of life. He makes ends meet by strengthening his “EGO” via a virtual framework for social media. The technological possibilities for communication and the fear of interpersonal relations, contribute to this trend. Eventually, he is isolated in his habitat, constituting but a unit of a devised social framework, indubitably following the trends projected through it. A society that seems to be carried away by these trends, without any regard to personal opinion. This brings to mind jellyfish, which congregate in groups without an obvious driving force, rather driven by prevailing sea currents. By focusing on the self within this context of our life, what is it really that we face when, by isolating it, we are confronted with our own soul...

​

​