Everything changes. This is the law of entropy.
Against it, humanity has built technology —
striving for permanence, for the unchanging.

 

In Japanese thought, this same law takes another form:
諸行無常 (shōgyō mujō) — the impermanence of all things.
But where entropy is merely a fact,
諸行無常 carries something more:
an acceptance of passing, and a tenderness toward it.

 

The Noh mask holds this within itself.

 

At the centre of this work stands a young woman's mask.
Three arrows extend outward — vectors of time.
Each points toward a different destination:
biological aging, material decay, technological evolution.

 

Technology can preserve the image of a mask.
It can make permanence feel possible.
But to preserve the image is to lose the spirit.
A Noh mask that cannot change
is no longer a Noh mask.

 

That which cannot be saved — is 諸行無常 itself.

 

And when humanity ends, when technology disappears —
the image of the mask disappears with it.

Everything is a fleeting moment
within the law of entropy.