About Gravity

Lightness is a characteristic of today's world. Aeroplanes have overcome gravity, and the transparent facades of high-rise buildings seem to defy the laws of physics. This, however, is a misleading perception. In this large-scale essay, Joseph Hanimann explores the residues of gravity, finding them in works of art, in literature and in lifestyles which deliberately resist the dictates of lightness. The drive towards weightlessness, transparency and speed seems to create a counterbalancing and deeply-felt need for constancy, quiet and slowness.

Hanimann combines numerous single observations into an alternative reality of modern times, uncovering interactions and references that cast familiar views of our epoch in a new light.