Urban Door
John Oughton
Artwork Part of ‘Chaos‘ (Issue 21)
The Science
Oxford Languages defines entropy as "lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder." However, some recent theories also examine how chaos can evolve into order. Korean architect Minsuk Cho wrote that, "The reason to build architecture is to look forward to its ruin." Entropy is in fact an important concept in fields beyond physics and architecture. According to Marko Popovic, it “is frequently used in many scientific disciplines: physics, equilibrium and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, cosmology, life sciences, chemistry and biochemistry, geosciences, linguistics, social sciences, and information theory” (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.07326). Cities like Toronto are in continuous upheaval, as older buildings and infrastructure decline into chaos, only to be demolished. This door was once the entrance to a business on Toronto's Queen Street East. The rusted chain and lock suggest there is still some order of value to be protected, but the door’s peeling, multi-layered and half-destroyed surface says otherwise.
The Medium
This is a digital photograph, unaltered except for minor tweaks to colour saturation and contrast. It was taken with Sony's miraculous compact camera RX-100 vii.
The Artist
John Oughton is a Canadian writer and photographer. A retired college professor, he has written six poetry books, a mystery novel, and a nonfiction book about teaching. His photos, poetry, short fiction, articles and reviews have been published widely in periodicals, zines, and anthologies. He often reads books about contemporary physics and cosmology written for math dummies.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license