In our daily lives, we are bombarded with instant – social media and the development of tech and AI means that 99% of things we want to know or see are at our fingertips in a matter of seconds. With this has come a wave of the immediate, everything being available and recorded and public – information and images that stay and are out of our control. While this has its obvious perks, this has also created a wave of those wanting to step away from the hamster wheel and focus on being ‘present’ in the moment – something that can be challenging with all of these distractions 24/7. This is a valid reason why artists who create with an Ephemeral approach are so important – they encourage us to take a moment and observe without a secondary intention as unlike lots of other creations in our lives, they are temporary and fleeting in a way which we must respect, fully focusing ourselves to experience them.

One artist who is famous for doing this expertly is Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. He creates his artworks using unusual materials we wouldn’t normally associate with fine art and creates special and spectacular occurrences that are temporary but unforgettable. An example of this is ‘Sky Ladder’ (2015) whereby gunpowder was used to create a ladder sculpture that reached up into the sky, this was of course created with materials in the sky similar to a firework, and not an actual permanent ladder to stay – it was so complicated to achieve that it took multiple attempts. The harbour above which it appeared was illuminated with the spectacle as a complete surprise as the artist didn’t gather a crowd or announce this was to happen, he simply did it and allowed those in that moment at that time to witness – an extremely authentic version of the ephemeral and being in the right place at the right time. The work took years to plan, but lasted under 200 seconds.

Another element of the ephemeral that cannot be denied is materials that are naturally ephemeral in different environments, like ice. This is something that British artist Max Maxwell explores in his work ‘Dark Star’ which is inspired by thermodynamics which focuses on matter being neither one thing or another but as moving and transforming into different versions of itself. To explore this Maxwell suspended a big block of ice from the ceiling with chains through it with LED lights in the center of the block that slowly get brighter as they reveal themselves through the melting ice. The process of the melting and the lights changing brightness creates a constant moving and changing artwork minute by minute and hour by hour. In addition to this, the artwork also features a metal place below that contains heat and transforms its colour and appearance with every bit of melted ice that drops on it. This work is transformative in multiple ways and encourages the viewer to stay and witness the work through its many different phases, each phase fleeting for the amount of time it withstands the other elements.

What both of these artists can teach us about the ephemeral is that sometimes things are fascinating because they aren’t guaranteed or able to be captured by everyone at the same time, sometimes the things that happen by chance and timing are the most valuable. In a society of crowds queuing 5 hours to get that one Insta-snap and 30-second viewing of a painting, it’s a refreshing idea that there are artworks out there that depend on the moment and bring our focus back to the importance of time and how we use it.