Lately I’m having this slight obsession with prime numbers. I don’t even know when or how it started. it’s not that it slowly developed or something, it was just there, out of nothing. And it’s kind of weird because we’ve been dealing with prime numbers in maths class during school for more than ten years and I didn’t really think about the whole matter at all but now those thoughts are just there and they’re stuck in my head and won’t go away. Well, try to look at it from a different angle. Not from the mathematical one but rather metaphorical. And maybe even from the human perspective.
Prime numbers aren’t divisible by anything but itself and by one. But I’m leaving that out in the cold for now. They cannot be destroyed by anybody else but themselves. Prime numbers are strong and undestroyable, solid as a rock. At the same time though, they are lonely. Lonely towers of strength. That is the price they have to pay for their invulnerability. I’m wondering what is more worth striving for. Cloistering oneself away and being strong, solid, and undestroyable in exchange, or allowing people to come near and risking a breakdown instead?
And then there are these special arrangements in our system of numeration. There are couples of prime numbers, between which there is always exactly one number. One number, that prevents them from actually getting in touch. 5 and 7 for example. So close together and yet so far away from each other. Both lost in their own way and trapped within. That must be the sweetest pain of all.
Photographer: Bettina Genten
Model: Arthur at Rebel Management
Text: Sarah Walder
