Notch, Issue 001: Potential Energy

Potential Energy is anchored in asymmetry—a person has potential in relation to a future state in which they have accomplished more. The ball at the top of the ramp realizes its potential when it rests at the bottom, as does the toiling writer when his words finally take shape. The space between present and future is the neck of an hourglass in which ideas transform from the vague realm of the imaginary into something that can be shared—a metamorphosis that is invisible to all but the creator.

For this issue, we asked our artists to meditate on the top half of the hourglass. In response, we received Madeline Haze Curtis’ confrontation of boundlessness, Nibha Akireddy’s paintings in progress, Dagoberto Gilb’s depiction of a tipping point (real or imagined), Brice Afonso’s video queering the inexorable march of evolution, Clara Zimmerman’s analysis of Bergson’s potentiality, and many more remarkable conjurings.

List of contributors