Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

La Flecha de Zenón (Zeno's Arrow)

Jorge Macchi Argentinian
David Oubiña Argentinian

Not on view

Jorge Macchi and David Oubiña’s Zeno’s Arrow is a humorous meditation on the dichotomy paradox, one of several mathematical and metaphysical conundrums put forth by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea. According to Zeno, an object traveling toward a target will never arrive at its destination, since the distance between the object and the target is always finite and is therefore always divisible by two. Here, Zeno’s paradox informs the artists’ representation of infinitude. The animation takes the form of a countdown whose numbers gradually decrease from ten to one. At the exact moment we expect the "real" video to begin, however, the numbers start to subdivide. Eventually, the line of digits grows so long it disappears, continuing indefinitely, or so we are led to think.

La Flecha de Zenón (Zeno's Arrow), Jorge Macchi (Argentinian, born Buenos Aires, 1963), Animation
Duration: 1 min 20 sec.
DVD, edition of four

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.