How Not to Die

摘要

Madeline Gins always signed her letters the same way: "In reversible destiny mode, Madeline." In 1987, Gins, the American artist, architect, and poet, and her husband, the Japanese-born artist and architect Arakawa, founded the Reversible Destiny Foundation on the conviction that death was not inevitable. The foundation, a collective of artists, poets, and architects, worked tirelessly on its project to turn back time; its means to do so were not drugs, diet, or science, but architecture. For Gins, the downhill course of human life could be reversed through a built environment that expands the limits of the mind and the body. Gins died on January 8, 2014, at the age of 72. According to those close to her, she did not talk much about her own life and illness; her spiritual belief in not dying was more powerful than any physical or biological ailment. However, in a series of open letters from 2012, mostly addressed to Arakawa (who had already died in 2010 at 73) and published relatively close to her own passing, Gins hints at a dread or anger toward her own possibly imminent death.