![Temple Burn - panoramio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Temple_Burn_-_panoramio.jpg)
Ephemerality (from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, from digital media to types of streams. "There is no single definition of ephemerality".
With respect to unique performances, for example, it has been noted that "
hemerality is a quality caused by the ebb and flow of the crowd's concentration on the performance and a reflection of the nostalgic character of specific performances". Because different people may value the passage of time differently, ephemerality may be a relative, perceptual concept: "In brief, what is short-lived may not be the object itself, but the attention we afford it".
[Ronald Beiner, ''Political Philosophy: What It Is and Why It Matters'' (2014), p. 10.]
Ephemerality and nature
Geographical features
An ephemeral
stream
A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...
is that which only exists following
precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
.
They are not the same as intermittent or seasonal waterbodies, which exist for longer periods, but not all year round. Ephemeral streams can be difficult to "conceptually defin
; those that are discontinuous, due to altering between aggradation or degradation, have the appearance of continual change. Furthermore, the characteristics of terrain and rainfall are profound in affecting ephemeral streams.
Ephemeral waterbodies experience formative change upon the end of a hydroperiod.
"Due to lack of continuous hydrology data, the designation of sites as ephemeral or intermittent is necessarily tenuous".
Ephemeral streams feature a low degree of hydrological connectivity.
![LakeBadwater](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/LakeBadwater.JPG)
Small wetlands are often ephemeral and ephemeral ecosystems are often aquatic; ephemeral wetlands, streams and ponds are a varied and global occurrence.
In
northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
, ephemeral freshwater systems are abundant and are "critical to the maintenance of forest biodiversity".
Hydroperiod, predation, competition and food availability are among the "highly heterogeneous" elements of these features.
In tropical biomes,
amphibian
Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...
s often reside in ephemeral habitats during dry seasons; opportunistic species utilise similar and ephemeral habitats for food, sleep or mating. Environments akin to ephemeral ponds can be very significant sites of reproduction for amphibians; many other organism make use of ephemeral ponds, pools and streams to breed.
Those which do utilise these sites are significantly constrained by time thus they mature, reproduce or disperse before evaporation. Ephemeral pools lasting only days or weeks are exclusively used for breeding by
Fletcher's frog
Fletcher's frog (''Platyplectrum fletcheri''), commonly known as the sandpaper frog or black-soled frog, is a species of nocturnal, terrestrial frog native to eastern Australia. It is primarily found in wet sclerophyll forests along mountain ran ...
regardless of the precarious survival of offspring.
Fletcher's frogs use these sites to exploit them, by-passing predation and competition.
Tadpole
A tadpole is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found i ...
s, however, are hindered by ephemeral streams, as can surrounding systems.
Limited and unpredictable food availability means ephemeral waterbodies may be rife with
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
. Specific adaptions to ephemeral pools are abundant. Human alterations to the habitats of ephemeral nectar that
flying foxes
''Pteropus'' (suborder Yinpterochiroptera) is a genus of megabats which are among the largest bats in the world. They are commonly known as fruit bats or flying foxes, among other colloquial names.
They live in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Austra ...
consume has led to urban migration. Climate change significantly affects ephemeral freshwater systems and changes in climates may be precisely identified by the ecosystems of ephemeral pools.
Ephemeral
habitat patches have repeatedly been assessed as detrimental to
metapopulation
A metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The term metapopulation was coined by Richard Levins in 1969 to describe a model of population dynamics of insect pests in ...
persistence, although metapopulations aren't always negatively affected by ephemeral landscapes. These patches occur as a result of the habitat's turnover. Ephemeral streams have, relative to their perennial counterparts, lower species richness; the streams are "potentially demanding" for inhabitants, although some species do reside. The ephemerality of a river network is a particularly significant element in the
hydrological
Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...
transmission of
waterborne diseases
Waterborne diseases are conditions (meaning adverse effects on human health, such as death, disability, illness or disorders) caused by pathogenic micro-organisms that are transmitted in water. These diseases can be spread while bathing, washing ...
, via a direct and indirect presence in the transmission cycle – the nature of the disease and area covered are important factors as well. Diseases like
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
,
dengue fever
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms typically begin three to fourteen days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characterist ...
,
chikungunya
Chikungunya is an infection caused by the ''Chikungunya virus'' (CHIKV). Symptoms include fever and joint pains. These typically occur two to twelve days after exposure. Other symptoms may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling, and a ra ...
,
zika
Zika fever, also known as Zika virus disease or simply Zika, is an infectious disease caused by the Zika virus. Most cases have no symptoms, but when present they are usually mild and can resemble dengue fever. Symptoms may include fever, red ...
and
schistosomiasis
Schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever, bilharzia, and Katayama fever, is a disease caused by parasitic flatworms called schistosomes. The urinary tract or the intestines may be infected. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody s ...
are found in ephemeral waterbodies due to their
vectors relation and/or reliance.
Examples of ephemeral streams are the
Luni river
The Luni is the largest river in the Thar Desert of northwest India. It originates in the Pushkar valley of the Aravalli Range, near Ajmer, passes through the southeastern portion of the Thar Desert, and ends in the marshy lands of Rann of Kutch ...
in
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Ugab River
The Ugab River is an ephemeral river in north-western Namibia. Its lower section forms the border between Kunene Region and Erongo Region but its catchment area extends well into the Otjozondjupa Region. Ugab's source is near Otavi. From there th ...
in
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...
, and a number of small ephemeral
watercourse
A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams are ...
s that drain
Talak in northern
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languages[Todd River
The Todd River (Arrernte language, Arrernte: ''Lhere Mparntwe'') is an Ephemeral, ephemeral river in the southern Northern Territory, central Australia. The origins of the Todd River are in the MacDonnell Ranges, where it flows past the Alice ...](_blank)
and
Sandover River
The Sandover River is an ephemeral river in the Northern Territory of Australia located in northeast Central Australia. It is the only major tributary of the Georgina River that does not rise in western Queensland. Instead it flows from the e ...
in
Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and i ...
as well as the
Son River
Son River ( hi, सोन नदी, also spelt Sone River) is a perennial river located in central India. It originates near Amarkantak Hill in Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi district of Chhattisgarh and finally merges with the Ganges River near Pat ...
,
Batha River
The Batha River is an ephemeral river in Chad. As with any rivers or lakes in this region, its existence depends on the amount of rainfall. The river's delta is at Lake Fitri in Chad. Batha River carries water west from Ouaddaï highlands Ouaddaï ...
and the
Trabancos River.
Any
endorheic basin
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
, or closed basin, that contains a
playa (dry lake) at its drainage lowpoint can become an ephemeral lake. Examples include
Lake Carnegie
Lake Carnegie is a reservoir that is formed from a dam on the Millstone River, in the far northeastern corner of Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey. The Delaware and Raritan Canal and its associated tow path are situated along the eastern shor ...
in
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
,
Lake Cowal
Lake Cowal is the largest inland lake in New South Wales, Australia. The lake is ephemeral, being fed by the small Bland Creek and by the occasional flooding of the Lachlan River. Despite this, it retains a considerable amount of water in about ...
in
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
,
Mystic Lake and
Rogers Lake in California, and
Sevier Lake
Sevier Lake is an intermittent and endorheic lake which lies in the lowest part of the Sevier Desert, Millard County, Utah. Like Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, it is a remnant of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Sevier Lake is fed primarily by the B ...
in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
. Even the driest and lowest place in North America,
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth.
Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the ...
(more specifically
Badwater Basin
Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America and the United States, with a depth of below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in ...
), became flooded with a short-lived ephemeral lake in the spring of 2005. Costelloe et al. (2009) describes
salt lake
A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...
s found in the
arid
A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ar ...
zone of Australia as profoundly ephemeral.
There are also ephemeral islands such as
Banua Wuhu
Banua Wuhu is a submarine volcano that rises more than from the sea floor in the Sangihe Islands of Indonesia. Historical records show that several ephemeral islands were formed and disappeared. A high island was formed in 1835, but then dwindl ...
and
Home Reef. These islands appear when volcanic activity increases their height above sea level, but disappear over several years due to wave erosion.
Bassas da India
(; mg, Nosy Bedimaky) is an uninhabited, roughly circular French atoll that is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. Located in the southern Mozambique Channel, about halfway between Mozambique and Madagascar (about further east) ...
, on the other hand, is a near-sea level island that appears only at low tide. On account of changing demarcation, shores exist as ephemeral.
Only a small amount of southern
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
's
secondary forest
A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...
s reach maturity, indicating that they may be "generally ephemeral".
Deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
forests, via the seasonal change of leaves, are subject to natural ephemeral changes.
Ephemeral pools located in forests are commonly known as "vernal pools", often lasting in a seasonal manner.
Landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
s feature ephemeral changes of both natural and man-made origin.
Furrows
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
,
haystacks and
sheaves are ephemeral aspects of a landscape.
Biological processes
Plants whose life cycle is significantly less than the time of a
growing season
A season is a division of the year marked by changes in weather, ecology, and the amount of daylight. The growing season is that portion of the year in which local conditions (i.e. rainfall, temperature, daylight) permit normal plant growth. Whil ...
are deemed ephemeral.
Winter annuals
An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical ...
,
Epilobium
''Epilobium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae, containing about 197 species. The genus has a worldwide distribution. It is most prevalent in the subarctic, temperate and subantarctic regions, whereas in the subtropics and ...
and
Senecio vulgaris
''Senecio vulgaris'', often known by the common names groundsel and old-man-in-the-spring, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is an annual herb, native to Europe and widely naturalised as a ruderal species in suitable disturbed hab ...
are examples of ephemeral plants.
The conditions for ephemeral plants are markedly present in deserts.
Animals can be ephemeral, with
brine shrimp
''Artemia'' is a genus of aquatic crustaceans also known as brine shrimp. It is the only genus in the family Artemiidae. The first historical record of the existence of ''Artemia'' dates back to the first half of the 10th century AD from Urmia La ...
and the
mayfly
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the ord ...
being examples. The
placenta
The placenta is a temporary embryonic and later fetal organ that begins developing from the blastocyst shortly after implantation. It plays critical roles in facilitating nutrient, gas and waste exchange between the physically separate mater ...
is considered an ephemeral
organ
Organ may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a part of an organism
Musical instruments
* Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone
** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument
** Hammond ...
present during
gestation
Gestation is the period of development during the carrying of an embryo, and later fetus, inside viviparous animals (the embryo develops within the parent). It is typical for mammals, but also occurs for some non-mammals. Mammals during pregna ...
and
pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
.
Ephemerality is a component of
olfaction
The sense of smell, or olfaction, is the special sense through which smells (or odors) are perceived. The sense of smell has many functions, including detecting desirable foods, hazards, and pheromones, and plays a role in taste.
In humans, it ...
, breathing, speech and memory, aligned with permanency in the latter.
With regards to witnessing an artwork in a museum, limited research indicates that the ephemerality of solely gazing at the artwork results in greater remembrance compared to the resulting memory from taking a photograph. Psychologists have studied why ephemerality may improve memory retention; social psychologist Karl E. Scheibe, conversely, suggested that ephemeral images are only memorable if repeated.
The ephemerality of memory leads objects to assume the function of begeting remembrance on account of their greater stability.
Ephemerality and society
Ephemeral objects
Objects which are ephemeral, per one perspective, are those whose compositional material experience chemical or physical changes and are thus permanently altered; this process occurs in a matter of decades. Furthermore, ephemerality can be perceived as defiance of value or duability; common uses of the term indicate a "complicated relationship between temporality and value".
Ephemerality is a matter of varying scale and can affect the entire spectrum of literature, from a "finely bound" Bible to a "hastily printed" handbill: "Paper is the medium of permanence and ephemerality at once". Due to often outlasting their expressed purpose, these objects can be perceived as temporal and ontological oddities; ephemerality has been described as constitutionally liminal.
Ephemerality has been seen as indicative of epochs like the Printing Revolution, a greater expansion thereof, the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
era, the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
, the
Georgian era
The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of Willi ...
,
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
, or the "emergent post-print age".
The likes of food, clothes, novels,
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...
s, illnesses, breath, regimes, persons, glass, ash and ephemera have been said to illustrate and/or be affected by ephemerality.
The
new media
New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...
of the 20th century conditioned perceptions of ephemerality in the 21st century—the advent of the
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
,
camera
A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...
, and
film projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying motion picture film by projecting it onto a screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras. Moder ...
instilled an understanding of ephemeral media. Scholars such as
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
,
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach l ...
, and
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
saw the distinctly and intentionally ephemeral practice of fashion as emblematic of modernity. Ephemerality is
affixed to the present, with the latter considering reality ephemeral, seeing it bound to a present that is contigent.
Baudelaire, who considered
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
to be centered around an interplay of the perennial and the ephemeral, defined the artistic component of modernity by its ephemeral quality.
Sarah Kofman
Sarah Kofman (; September 14, 1934 – October 15, 1994) was a French philosopher .
Biography
Kofman began her teaching career in Toulouse in 1960 at the Lycée Saint-Sernin, and worked with both Jean Hyppolite and Gilles Deleuze. Her abando ...
posited that art is utilised to abate the "intolerable nature of all ephemeral things".
Ephemerality has been relevant to a considerable amount of art; various artists have drawn upon the matter to explore time, memory, politics, emotions, spirituality and death.
The
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
,
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
, Surreal, and Futurist movements all incorporated ephemerality as have
Kuba,
Mono-ha Mono-ha (もの派) is the name given to an art movement led by Japanese and Korean artists of 20th-century. The Mono-ha artists explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, such as stone, steel plates, glass, light bulbs, cotton ...
, and ''
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
''
Installation
Installation may refer to:
* Installation (computer programs)
* Installation, work of installation art
* Installation, military base
* Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian l ...
and Ritual artists.
Perceptions of ephemerality vary between cultures, from melancholy and mitigation to embrace.
Performance art has frequently been described as ephemeral in nature; with regards to historical performances, the traces: playbills, scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and material artifacts are themselves ephemeral.
Literature is ephemeral, including definitions and "all printed texts".
''Ephemeral'' was first used colloquially in reference to printed matters. By 1750, an "expansion of all kinds of ephemeral print" had occurred. Hazlitt contended that such ephemerality was the result of widespread
aestheticism
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be pro ...
, thus the creations were subject to being abruptly disregarded due to the cascading "gaze of fashion".
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
adjusted his poetic standards due to a "perception of ephemerality" that living in New York City instigated.
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade (comics maga ...
asserted that the format of comics, even during degradation, defies ephemerality, although they have been deemed as such. Women's writing, the likes of diaries and political pamphlets, have amassed a status as long being ephemeral, acknowledged by some affected in the then-present. The ubiquity of digital media has spurred the opinion that print material is comparatively less ephemeral.
Elisa New
Elisa New (born 1958) is an American academic who is the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University.
Early life and education
She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Maryland. New's father was an engi ...
and
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...
varyingly opined that poetry is a means of repealing mortal ephemerality, with Akhamatova invoking the aphorism ("skillfulness takes time and life is short").
Ephemeral objects chiefly disappear; when preserved it is often knowingly, having been "rescued from ephemerality", though this practice is still fraught with uncertainty and an object's ephemerality may only be suspended, thus still capable of being transitory.
The legacy of ephemerality often manifests as "traces, glimmers, residues, and specks of things". Literature may contest, document or approximate ephemerality although the immateral nature means that there can only be an approximation: "In other words, there must always be an ephemeral beyond the ephemeral".
Film has been used to document and combat ephemeral aspects of human development. Digital media's encompassing archival process means that information of varying importance can either be affixed or ephemeral, the former seen as the more generally common outcome.
Digital personas, on account of precariousness and whim, can be entirely ephemeral, without any record.
Grey literature
Grey literature (or gray literature) is materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports (annual, rese ...
has prove particularly vulnerable to the internet's ephemerality.
![WTC smoking on 9-11](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/WTC_smoking_on_9-11.jpeg)
''Ephemeral'' acquired its common meaning of short-living in the mid-19th century and has connotations of passing time, fragility, change, disappearance, transformation, and the "philosophically ultimate vision of our own existence".
Sarah Kofman
Sarah Kofman (; September 14, 1934 – October 15, 1994) was a French philosopher .
Biography
Kofman began her teaching career in Toulouse in 1960 at the Lycée Saint-Sernin, and worked with both Jean Hyppolite and Gilles Deleuze. Her abando ...
questioned if "the beauty that conceals the evanescent nature of all things were itself ephemeral".
Rather than melancholic,
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
and
Walter Pater
Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...
viewed ephemerality as valuable; awareness and acceptance were to Freud commendable.
Ephemerality as a human condition
Multiple scholars have viewed ephemerality as intrinsic to the
human condition
The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed fr ...
, a phenomenon of physicality.
A significant amounts of living is ephemeral, considered by some as a component of everyday life: "we might best understand the ephemeral as a routine and constant force...that establishes the presence of the everyday".
Ephemeral aspects are evident in communication, of both digitial and physical origin.
In the digital realm, online interactions straddle permanency and ephemerality, new posts proliferate such that participants adopt a social norm that "the discourse will pass and be forgotten as the past".
Ephemerality is a technologically and socially reliant concept – relative and historically changing.
The rudimentary technology of early radio led to the media broadcast being ephemeral and for a substantial amount of time spoken communication was ephemeral. Written communication, historically and presently, has been influenced by ephemerality. The emergence of new digital media and technology develops what we deem ephemeral, to the point that ephemerality is perhaps an "outdated concept".
![Ephemerality in synchronous communication](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Ephemerality_in_synchronous_communication.jpg)
Within the context of modern media dissemination, YouTube videos, viral emails and photos have been identified as ephemeral; as have means of advertising, both physical and digital and the internet collectively.
''Ephemeral media'' has been described as that which is brief in duration and/or circulation, adjacent to "the primary texts of contemporary entertainment culture". YouTube has "become a hugely successful aggregator of ephemeral media". In 2009,
Ian Christie considered that a substantial amount of modern media, aligned with "rapid proliferati
n, "may prove much more ephemeral than the
flip-book".
Wang Tao, Stevens and
Rubem Fonseca
Rubem Fonseca (May 11, 1925 – April 15, 2020) was a Brazilian writer.
Life and career
He was born in Juiz de Fora, in the state of Minas Gerais, but he lived most of his life in Rio de Janeiro. In 1952, he started his career as a low-level cop ...
evoked ephemerality via female characters;
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
used the rainbow as a symbol whereas grass occupies a
similar role in the Bible;
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
and
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
elicited melancholic ephemerality in showcases of
consumption
Consumption may refer to:
*Resource consumption
*Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically
* Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms
* Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
.
Historically, the ephemerality of dreams was utilised in ample East Asian literature as a metaphor for immaterial reality whereas Baroque writings depicted the matter as analogous to life. Scholar of
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
Stuart Lasine noted that writers have frequently invoked ephemerality as a negative aspect of the
human condition
The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed fr ...
. Ephemerality was profound to
Dōgen
Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; 26 January 1200 – 22 September 1253), also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), or Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師), was a Ja ...
and was intertwined with sorrow and regret; he used "the imagery of ephemerality" in a ''
waka
Waka may refer to:
Culture and language
* Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand
** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe
** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe
** Waka taua, a Māori w ...
'' concerning death.
Ephemerality has received increased attention from modern academics, in fields such as:
literary studies
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
,
art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
, book history,
digital media studies,
performance studies
Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term ''performance'' is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, ...
– "and the 'archival turn' in the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
as a whole".
The ephemerality of dance has engendered concern since at least the sixteenth century.
Curators of
modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
and
contemporary
Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...
art have increasingly expressed a similar interest; curator of said genres Jan Schall described them as varyingly ephemeral.
Ephemerality present in digital literature and poetry has seen
critical
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
*Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing in ...
analysis.
Russell questioned if scholarly conceptions of "the everyday" was deeply intertwined with ephemerality, despite attention to a relation being thus far faint. Social historians and historians of sound have contended their subject's ephemerality by utilising more material forms; creative soundwork has long been subordinate to these forms on account of its ephemerality.
The ephemerality of the internet and features that engender ephemerality, such as
link rot
Link rot (also called link death, link breaking, or reference rot) is the phenomenon of hyperlinks tending over time to cease to point to their originally targeted file, web page, or server due to that resource being relocated to a new address ...
, has elicited concern in regards to scholarly practice.
Ephemerality has been studied in the context of dancing. Witnessing a dance that will be rendered ephemeral is resultingly commodified and of greater desire to prospecting audiences; true is same of
fair
A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks.
Types
Variations of fairs incl ...
s. Muñoz posisted that the physical proximation of dance, which coupled with the "shared rhythm", results in a unified yet ephemeral status of those engaged. ''
La Sylphide
''La Sylphide'' ( en, The Sylph; da, Sylfiden) is a romantic ballet in two acts. There were two versions of the ballet; the original choreographed by Filippo Taglioni in 1832, and a second version choreographed by August Bournonville in 1836. Bo ...
'' sees ephemerality as a notable theme.
Professor of Dance Mark Franko contended that the artform is approaching a state of being "post-ephemeral" while
Diane Taylor viewed the lasting impact a performance may have as negating notions of ephemerality.
The documentation of other ephemeral events: protests, installations, exhibitions, are often meager – public events, of varying size, naturally generate ephemeral material.
"
phemeralityand disposability" have been perceived as components "of an American ethos";
alternative history
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alter ...
novels ''
The Man in the High Castle
''The Man in the High Castle'' (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues be ...
'' and ''
The Plot Against America
''The Plot Against America'' is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the R ...
'' depict
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana (music), a genre or style of American music
*Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...
and the nation itself as ephemeral. Ephemerality has been central to Buddhism; ''
Yogācāra
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...
'' teaches a version of ontology that centers universal ephemerality''.'' Ephemerality has been identified as relevant to
queer cultures;
José Esteban Muñoz
José Esteban Muñoz (August 9, 1967 – December 3, 2013) was a Cuban American academic in the fields of performance studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. His first book, ''Disidentifications: Queers of ...
argued that queerness and ephemerality are intertwined, as the former has been expressed in methods which are prone to fade upon the "touch of those who would erase queer possibility". Freud considered culture as the prevailing element exempt from ephemerality.
Scheibe saw the likes of live theater, travel abroad, stand-up comedy, and political pundits as engendering greater ephemerality by reducing attention spans and sense of personal history.
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Reiko Tomii is a Japanese-born art historian and curator based in New York. Specializing in Japanese modern and conceptual art in its global context during the postwar period, Tomii is one of the art historians publishing in the English language on postwar Jap ...
described ephemerality as a "defining issue of the 1960s". In the 21st century, ephemerality "continues to signify concerns about the overflow of information, its evanescence, and questions of what or should be preserved".
David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his PhD ...
defined
postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
as "a total acceptance of ephemerality".
Architecture of an ephemeral nature appears as increasingly commonplace, on account of global and capricious hyper-mobility and mass displacement.
Marc Augé
Marc Augé (born September 2, 1935 in Poitiers) is a French anthropologist.
In an essay and book of the same title, ''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'' (1995), Marc Augé coined the phrase "non-place" to refer to spa ...
observed ephemerality as key to the likes of airports, malls, supermarkets, offices blocks, and hotels thus rendering them, per his definition, "
non-place
Non-place or nonplace is a neologism coined by the France, French anthropologist Marc Augé to refer to anthropological spaces of transience where human beings remain anonymous, and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places" ...
s". Architecture scholar Anastasia Karandinou argued that the practice's modern relation to ephemerality correlated with digital media's evolution, which she says has enabled new conceptions of space and everyday thinking. Of an indefinite and contentious nature, the definition of a
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
is ephemeral.
See also
*
Ephemeroptera
*
Vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-known are ''van ...
*
On Transience
"On Transience" () is a philosophical essay by Sigmund Freud. It consists of a dialogue between Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke in which they discuss the meaning of transience. It was written in November 1915 and published the next year.
Content
...
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
Christine Buci-Glucksmann
Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Professor Emeritus from University of Paris VIII specializing in the aesthetics of the Baroque and Japan, and computer art. Her best-known work in English is ''Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of ...
, ''Esthetique De L'ephemere'', Galilee, {{ISBN, 2-7186-0622-3
Concepts in aesthetics
Concepts in metaphysics