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title: The Shape of Infinity by Jacob Geller - The Boundries That Stop Humans

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# The Shape of Infinity by Jacob Geller - The Boundries That Stop Humans

Jacob Geller, what was his idea in the clip he made? What were his arguments? After watching Geller's **Shape of Infinity**, three specific arguments were stated by him:

> "When you draw infinity theres visual space for implication."
> "When you describe it, you can skip to the point using the leaps abd bounds of language.
> "But there are no shortcuts when you write it down, one at a time.
> "The single most important aspect in each of these stories, artworks, worlds is that the infinite cannot be reached."

What is Geller trying to say here? 

**Shape of infinity** is about Geller relating to artists, writers, architects, game developers, and people who were trying to reach infinity in their own way through their creative speciality. Each of these people helped each other to find more of an understanding to how infinity would be seen or shaped. Could it be pictured or described? From Geller's video, it seems that he was trying to find a way to envision infinity and this is where he had come across the people who were researching and recreating infinity in their work.

The people that Geller looked into who explored the **Infinite** were, **Giovanni Battista Piranesi**, **Marguerite Yourcenar**, **Roman Opalka** and many others. The ones that sparked the most curiosity are as listed below:

### Giovanni Battista Piranesi
**Piranesi's** way of exploring the infinite was through his architecture, he was a very devoted architect however had only worked on one building and it was the restoration of the Santa Maria del Priorato Church and his most famous work was the Carceri d'invenzione. This architectural concept shows a prison but in an unusual style, there are stairs upon stairs but also pillers, it's an endless loop. This was Pironesis's way of recreating the infinite, as we look at the image we can see how the structure of the prison's concept wraps around itself, it is hard to identify the beginning and end. 

**Carceri d'invenzione-**![](https://i.imgur.com/VLEfAAL.jpg)

### Marguerite Yourcenar
Piranesi inspired a certain novelist/essayist **Yourcenar**. She described Piranesi's mind to be interesting, Yourcenar never saw Piranesi as insane the way many people back in his era did due to his sickness, which led his mind to deteriorate (Malaria). She says:
> "Fever did not open for Piranesi the doors, to a world of mental confusion but to realms dangerously vaster and more complex than the young engraver had hiltherto lived in, the dream of a builder drunk on pure volmes, pure space"

> "Such gnats do not seem to notice they are buzzing on the brink of the abyss"

Pure space can not be defined but it can be seen as infinity and an area with no beginning and no end just like Piranesi's prison. The abyss is also a space that is equal to infinity. The way Yourcenar is describing Piranesi and his mind is as if she has understood the infinite itself, in her own way,  through writing and describing it, as a novolist she was. Yourcenar was devoted in telling about the infinite, always regarding to Piranesi's work. 

### Roman Opalka

Lastly, Geller speaks about **Roman Opalka** a French/Polish artist attempting to paint infinity. Opalka decided to paint infinity by writing a number on a white canvas, he would have done this for 46 years every single day of his life recording every canvas he had painted but never finished. Opalka was never able to get to infinity as time was not on his side. Humans are limited to time, Opalka knew that this painting will be the last of him, he describes himself and his work as being- 
> "towards death"
> "I cannot know when I will die. I know that I will die, but the moment when it happens is so infinite... In this sense we are eternal"

Opalka was one who knew from the beginning that infinity can not be reached, however, he had still attempted to reach it no matter what, not even the fact that he was painting towards his death's door. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/kos5GPC.png)

## Geller and my ideas
To sum up everything that has been stated so far, Geller lists all the people who were attempting to bring out infinity with their work but were limited to time. As there are multiple possibilities to what a human can do or achieve. This was the main argument that Geller stated, he compared different forms of creativity, writing, concept, painting, and architecture. There are endless possibilities and each possibility has many more. It's a cycle its what we could relate to infinity. Personally, I feel like dreams have a similar impact, there is never one dream that is the same, it is always different, **infinite** possibilities. There is no purpose for infinity but simultaneously, there is a way people attempt to recreate it without knowing. Everything that Geller spoke about had one outcome, infinite can not be reached just like it can never be painted, drawn or described. Regarding my own perspective infinite can not be dreamed of as it has no physical form it has no **shape**, no beginning or no end. This is the reason why me and Geller relate. Will it ever be reached?

## References

Book:
Piranesi, GB., Piranesi, G., 1761. Carceri d'invenzione. 2nd ed. [Roma]: [l'Autore], pp.178-217.

Images:
Opalka, R., 2022. 1965/1 - ∞, Detail 511130-512739. [image] Available at: <https://www.wikiart.org/en/roman-opalka/1965-1-d-tail-511130-512739> [Accessed 2 October 2022]

Video:
Geller, J., 2020. The Shape of Infinity. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm5Ogh_c0Ig&t=1332s&ab_channel=JacobGeller> [Accessed 2 October 2022].