In a cosmic impression, in which many stars shine against a black background, many elegant conductor paths swing towards the center of the digital painting, which is visualized in black and white. In the background, the traces expand further before bundling again. The bundled data is meant to abstractly represent a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations in the life or the vita of the fictitious person William: Piano lessons, Study of physics, doctorate, Participation in military projects, Internment, Institute director and president, Memorandum against weapons. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of William’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.

This work is protected by copyright in all its parts.
© 2023 by Heinz Hermann Maria Hoppe. All rights reserved.
Color and tone value representations on monitors deviate from the original.

‘Time in Space I’ : : : Digital Painting
In a cosmic appearance, in which many stars shine against a black background, conductors oscillate and interpenetrate. The digital painting is visualized in black and white. The bundled data is meant to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire image surface and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations of life or the vita of the fictitious person Anna: Editor of a regional daily newspaper, Studied art history, Traineeship, Columns for national magazines, Journalism award for lifetime achievement. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments, which dissolve the classical, rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of Anna’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic appearance, in which many stars shine against a black background, layers of conductors oscillate and interpenetrate. The digital painting is visualized in black and white. The bundled data is meant to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations in the life or the vita of the fictitious person Ben: Apprenticeship, Work in locomotive factory, Evening courses at technical college, Foundation of mechanical engineering workshop, Construction of agricultural machinery, Industrial. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of Ben’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic appearance, in which many stars shine against a black background, conductive paths oscillate in spiral form. The image is visualized in black and white. The structure of the bundled data is supposed to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations in the life of the fictitious person Hannah: Training as a nurse, Nurse in an intensive care unit, Mother of two children, Night duties and weekend shifts, Working under pandemic conditions, Suffering from cost pressure and nursing shortages. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the picture plane.
‘The Life of Hannah’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic appearance, in which many stars shine against a black background, conductive paths rotate in a spiral. The image is visualized in black and white. The traces are supposed to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire picture surface and follow the data tracks, give in keywords the most important stations of life or the vita of the fictitious person Elizabeth: Attended elementary school, Training as a cook, Educator in a boarding school, Eight children, Passionate painter, Longtime illness. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that dissolve the classic rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of Elizabeth’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic impression, in which many stars shine against a black background, many elegant conductor paths swing from left to right within the digital black-and-white painting. The structure of bundled data is meant to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations in the life of the fictitious person Marie: Attended a special school for the learning disabled, Cleaning public toilets, Suicide of the partner, Care of the father, Knee arthritis, Unemployed. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of Marie’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic appearance, in which many stars shine against a black background, rectilinear rays cumulate in a focal point. The image is visualized in black and white. The clustered data is meant to abstractly represent a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data paths, give in keywords the most important stations in the life or the vita of the fictitious person Leon: Secondary school leaving certificate, Apprenticeship as cook, Military service, Schizophrenia, Drawing infinite columns of numbers, Therapies in psychiatric institutions, Alcoholic. The edge of the picture is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the picture surface.
‘The Life of Leon’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
In a cosmic impression, in which many stars shine against a black background, conductors spiral upwards. The image is painted in black and white shades of gray. The bundled data is supposed to abstractly stand for a human life. Calligraphic inscriptions, which are distributed over the entire surface of the picture and follow the data tracks, give in keywords the most important stations in the life or the vita of the fictitious person Anton: Apprenticeship as retail salesman, Unrequited love, Car racing lover, Self-employed truck driver, Hit by drunk driver, Several operations, Inability to work, Addiction to pills, Suicide. The edge of the image is divided rhythmically into segments that break up the classic rectangular contour of the image area.
‘The Life of Anton’ from the picture series ‘Time in Space I’ / 2023 / Digital painting exposed on Ilford B/W-photographic paper glossy / Limited edition: 3 + 1 AP / 13,287 pixels (H) ∙ 23,622 pixels (W) / 44,3″ (H) ∙ 78,8″ (W) / Handwritten signed, titled and dated with year.
The image section of a digital painting shows a detail with a grainy surface texture in an approximate 1:1 representation.
Image detail from the digital painting ‘The Life of Hannah’

Comment
Author: Heinz Hermann Maria Hoppe

Time in Space : : : Digital Painting

Our personal history is coupled to the time into which we were born and to the place in which we experience it as ‘our world’. It is into this time and space that we place the cornerstones of our life’s journey. We continuously pay the price for our sexual reproduction, we age and die. Until then our heart beats, all the time, the beat of evolution. Life in time and space remains a mystery, even beyond the complicated formulas of Einstein and Hawkins and beyond the abstract idea of an infinite, cold space.

Time is relative. Some insects are born in the morning, are capable of procreation at noon, and are dead in the evening. Even with the help of a single atom, a time interval can be determined when it is trapped in the vacuum of an atomic clock: one millionth of a billionth of a second, defined as a femtosecond, lasts the beat of electrons forming a kind of pendulum. Such a phenomenal clock is not even one second slow in 15 billion years.1

The Roman philosopher Seneca described that we do not have too little time, but that we waste too much time. A life without goals, accumulated with voluntary servitude and with superfluous drudgery or with idleness and with pleasure-seeking, was not life in his eyes, but simply time passing.2

Since the Age of Enlightenment, most people no longer understand their destiny as being given by God. Alpha and omega, beginning and end, are therefore also in our hands. To live is therefore to choose. Since then, every morning offers the chance for a new beginning. However, answers to decisive questions of life are still far from being found. Like our ancestors, we reflect on our past in order to derive directions for the future from our experiences. In the meantime, our life time trickles away ‘like sand between our fingers’. The short present, as the only possible time to act, is quickly history, because our attention is predominantly on the future. Rituals and habits are thus strung together as we organize our daily lives with an eye on the smartphone.

Time is not money, but life. Existing as if we were going to live forever can end up being a nasty surprise. When a heart attack or a serious accident appear on the ‘stage of life’, it can be too late for central questions: “Is that supposed to be all?”, “Why didn’t I spend more time with the people I love?”, “What was the purpose of my life?”.

Our present seems to have lost its spatial structure again. Acceleration is paired with disorientation. Progress is questioned. Hatred and brutality are on the rise. Hopelessness and indifference are reflected in the faces. The ‘tunnels into the future’ are full of fears.

The clock of life reliably continues to beat in time until our personal destiny will join the course of history. Our earth continues to hurl itself tirelessly at 67,000 miles per hour in its orbit around the sun. ‘Of course’, we don’t notice anything about it.

List of sources:

1 See Elizabeth Dias, How We Make Sense of Time in: New York Times from December 31, 2021 (Date retrieved: January 03, 2022, 10:40 UTC).

2 See Seneca, Von der Kürze des Lebens, Reclam 2007, P. 7 ff.

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