42 Answers
42 Answers
The answer Forty-two is the best-known and most popular quote from Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. In the series, ‘42’ is the response to the deliberately ambiguous question ‘about life, the universe and everything’. It expresses how you can’t possibly answer an undefined question.
The answer is succinct but, even so, the question has not been asked. This is the concept behind this series of works.
These are 42 answers to questions which have never been asked, and which were never intended to be asked. The camera replaces the questioner: it is the intruder, and is where it should not be. In other words, it gives the answer to a question which no-one has asked. It becomes the sovereign who need no longer explain or even justify their answer. It is not an enquiry about truth, but rather an undisguised glimpse, a voyeurism, which makes one’s own impotence therefore bearable.
42 answers, but what on earth was the question again?
My Favourite Vegetable
Ridentes Animalia
Laughing Animals
Yoga
Koordinatenbilder
"The contribution to the improvement of the human genome by those
who accidentally remove themselves from it in a spectacular manner!"
The ‘Darwin Awards’ (for those who most impressively remove themselves from the human genepool) are curated each year by Wendy Northcutt, a microbiologist. Take the winners of the 1999 Darwin Award, for example:
In most parts of the world, the change from summer time to winter time passes relatively smoothly. However, on 5th September 1999 in Jerusalem, the changing of the clocks had drastic consequences for some Palestinian terrorists………..
Israel insisted upon a slightly earlier change to winter time, in order to accomodate a week of prayers before sunset. Naturally, Palestinians refused to live according to ‘Zionist time’. As a consequence, for two weeks no-one was quite sure exactly what time it was.
Early on that Sunday, at exactly 5.30a.m. Israeli time, two synchronised bombs exploded in two separate Israeli towns. Three terrorists were found dead in their cars. It was initially assumed that they were bungling amateurs who had caused the bombs to detonate early. More thorough investigation, though, uncovered the real reason for the explosions taking place at such an ungodly hour.
Die Bomben waren in einem von Palästinensern kontrollierten Gebiet hergestellt worden, und wurden natürlich nach der Sommerzeit eingestellt. Die verwirrten Kuriere hatten jedoch bereits auf Winterzeit gewechselt und beim Abholen der Bomben offenbar vergessen, zu fragen, nach wessen Uhr der Zeitzünder eingestellt worden war. Folglich waren die Autos zum Zeitpunkt der Detonation noch auf ihrem Weg zum Zielort, und ließen die Terroristen etwas verfrüht das Zeitliche segnen.
The bombs had been made in an area under Palestinian control, and the timers set to detonate on Daylight Saving Time. The not-so-clever drivers had, however, already switched to standard time; a fact that they neglected to consider when they collected the bombs, and therefore didn’t ask which Time the bombs had been set for. Due to their carelessness, the bombs were still on their way to the target when they detonated, sending the terrorists somewhat prematurely to their demise.
DarwinAwards.com © 1997 – 2000
Reference: Margot Dudkevitch of the Jerusalem Post
Ron Kampeas of the Associated Press
