Hacker News Reader

Comment by EngManagerIsMe | Hacker News Reader

There's a part of me that loves this and there's a part of me that finds this sorta sad. Not pejoratively, just, evocatively for me there's a sense of sadness in the ephemeral nature of this installation.

I have a really complicated relationship with nostalgia -- on the one hand I love it and seek it out but on the other hand I love seeing people create new things.

View on HN

The Japanese aesthetic known as wabi-sabi is all about accepting transience and imperfection. Have you ever thought about the ephemeral nature of art installations from that point of view?

I recently spent a day killing time by walking around Stanford medical center. There is a rather grand atrium, circular and several stories high, with most of the center taken up by an abstract art installation. All the walls are a combination of rough and polished stone. Hundreds of tech companies' and individuals names are etched into the walls. While all very impressive, the permanent opulence of it all evoked a similarly negative emotion in me.

I was around to see the actual installation when it was present. The thing is, it didn't just exist on its own, but was part of, or maybe the initiator of, a trend to make post-it art. I still see it in office windows, sometimes in videos of distant foreign countries.

So if you wanted to make it known again...go get some Post-Its and have at it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com