ETHER

"ETHERNITY is a portmanteau-word invented by Alfred Jarry, combining notions of the heavenly ether and eternity* but also evidently informed by his predilection for drinking strong alcohol in the form of Ether from chemical laboratories and its consequent effects of dislocation from the physical world.

Jarry absorbed the more extravagant solutions of both physics and metaphysics into his new science. Here was a new space inhabited by a new matter enduring within a new time; a supplementary continuum lying to one side of everyday life. Jarry called it Ethernity in Faustroll; elsewhere it became known as The Absolute.

If this can be accepted, then the pataphysical Ethernity provides a potentially 'useful fiction' of Jarry’s temporalisation of the already spatialised Aether of the nineteenth century as an eternal substance and medium. Very much a plane of invention, the aether was inextricably linked with scientific theories of great moment for the twentieth century and on the cusp of rational and irrational modernities. At the time that Jarry wrote Faustroll and Time Machine, a nineteenth century scientific culture was on the verge of transforming the notion of the aether from the useful fiction of science to that of an imaginary science of fiction and one of seeming continuing interest for the inutilious machines of post-war pataphysicians and speculative designers."

(TOO COOL 3)

"In Pataphysics, the concept of Ether can be linked to the idea of the intangible and the abstract. Ether, historically considered as a medium that fills space and carries light waves, is reimagined in Pataphysics to fit its framework of imaginary solutions and abstract concepts.

Ether in Pataphysics is not a physical substance but a conceptual one. It represents the medium through which imaginary phenomena occur, akin to how traditional ether was once thought to carry light. This Ether transcends the physical world, existing in the realm of the imagined and the absurd, aligning with Jarry's vision of a reality beyond conventional understanding.

Ethernity in Pataphysics is about timeless existence within the framework of imaginary solutions. It is not bound by the physical limitations of time and space. In the pataphysical sense, Ethernity may represent the perpetual continuation of the absurd, the nonsensical, and the exception to all rules, mirroring Jarry's own literary style.

Borrowed from Lucretius, Clinamen in Pataphysics refers to the unpredictable swerve of atoms, the primordial deviation that creates worlds; symbolizing the randomness and exceptions that define pataphysical phenomena. This ties into the Ether and Ethernity as mediums for the unexpected and the absurd.

In the Ether of Pataphysics, Clinamen is the force that defies linear causality, opening the door to infinite possibilities."

(TOO COOL 5?)

Iglesia del Surf del Cristo Risueño de la Costa LTD. MMXXIIII ©