Arakawa and Madeline Gins screwed by Madoff - a destiny that may not be all that reversible.

ARAKAWA AND MADELINE GINS HAVE LET IT BE KNOWN THAT THEY HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE.

Anyway, that's what it says on their website - Reversible Destiny. They may not have updated that website, however, since they learned that they were scammed by Bernie Madoff.

Because I am a fairly rational and ordinary person who has not decided not to die - mostly because, quite practically, I really don't think that, in the end, I'm not really going to have all that much choice. Still, I'm marginally open to what these two have to say.

Arakawa and Gins ask us this question:

What lengths would you be willing to go to, or how much inconvenience would you be willing to put up with, in order to counteract the usual human destiny of having to die?

Although I have not decided not to die, this is a topic I find of the utmost interest - largely because I think that my generation, the love-'em-or-hate-'em Baby Boomers, is not going to exit stage left with any grace whatsoever. Indeed, I fear that, for the most part, we will be kicking, screaming, sucking up resources, and - as centarians - beating younger folks (those in their 70's and 80's) over the head with our canes to make sure we're first in-line for whatever life-extending potions, gizmos, or bio-engineered subcutaneous inserts are available that can extend our lives by a nano-second.

But it hadn't occurred to me that those life-extenders might be architecture. Architecture that can "can help you determine the nature and extent of interactions between you and the universe." What type of architecture may that be, you might ask yourself.

Well, it's procedural architecture:

...an architecture of precision and unending invention. Works of procedural architecture function as well-tooled works of equipment that help the body organize its thoughts and actions to a greater degree than had previously been thought possible.  Set up to put fruitfully into question all that goes on within them, (works of procedural architecture) steer their residents to examine minutely the actions they take and to reconsider and, as it were, recalibrate their equanimity and self-possession, causing them to doubt themselves long enough to find a way to reinvent themselves.

I actually don't have the imagination to fully translate this into living forever,  but here's an example of what an interior designed by Arakawa and Gins looks like. Live forever? Take it from someone who broke her should tripping over the corner of a rug, this has got death trap written all over it. Wake up in the middle of the night to pee and stroll through this living room....if you don't whack yourself on the noggin on one of those polls, you're apt to trip on that wavy-gravy and nubby flooring and trip, stumble, and fall your way into that pit.

But while I might not have the capacity and wit to figure out that procedural architecture means never having to say (or sing) "your sister Rose is dead," the  Wall Street Journal comes to my rescue! (Note: access to this content may require a subscription, and I assure you that access to this content is worth every penny of that subscription.) I guess they found the part of the website that state's outright: Arakawa and Gins want to use their architecture to "counteract the usual human destiny of having to die."

WSJ is interested in Arakawa and Gins because they are on the long and groaning list of those who made the very unfruitful decision to invest with Bernie Madoff, all of whom are now, no doubt, minutely examining the actions they took and reconsidering them. And talk about recalibrating your equanimity. When Elie Wiesel tells us that he doesn't have it within himself to forgive and forget, well, that's some recalibration. As for recalibrating self-possession, Madoff's victims are probably focusing more on re-possession of whatever watches, cufflinks, mansions, and yachts that Bernie and Ruthie have laying around.

Anyway, as the Journal tells us:

The pair's work, based loosely on a movement known as "transhumanism," is premised on the idea that people degenerate and die in part because they live in spaces that are too comfortable. The artists' solution: construct abodes that leave people disoriented, challenged and feeling anything but comfortable.They build buildings with no doors inside. They place rooms far apart. They put windows near the ceiling or near the floor. Between rooms are sloping, bumpy moonscape-like floors designed to throw occupants off balance. These features, they argue, stimulate the body and mind, thus prolonging life. "You become like a baby," says Mr. Arakawa.

Well, I don't see how "become like a baby" translates precisely into not dying. Haven't they heard of crib death? And their cribs look to me like an environment that it would be pretty easy to fall to your death in. Although, I will admit that from the outside, this design looks kind of cool.

Anyway, this couple - who were, no surprise, have been an important part of the conceptual art movement - have been able to do their work because of income from their investment Chez Bernie.

Their work, which has been exhibited at the Guggenheim, includes a number of "reversible destiny" lofts in Japan.

A typical apartment has three or four rooms in the shapes of either a cylinder, a cube, or a sphere. Rooms surround a kitchen-living room combination with bumpy, undulating floors and floor-to-ceiling ladders and poles. Dozens of colors, from school-bus yellow to sky blue, cover the walls, ceilings and other surfaces.

One tenant claims that he feels a bit rejuvenated by living in one of the lofts. His wife, however, hates that she keeps bumping her head on the ground level window when she crawls through it to hang out the wash.

("That's one of the exercises," says Ms. Gins.)

Over time, the couple had put several million into their account with Madoff.

We all know how that went.

Now, they're trying to sell

...their seminal work, the "Mechanism of Meaning," a series of 84 8-foot-tall panels that took them 10 years to complete, for about $17 million.

Unfortunately, with the depressed economy the few museums who would be interested in the work may not have that kind of scratch these days - although there may be some weird cachet to the artists having been duped into Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

Barring a sell-off of their collection, the couple fear they won't realize their dream of building a "reversible destiny" village with homes and parks that would combine their theories of life into one community.

It's one thing to learn that the Shapiro Foundation won't be able to fund as many hospital wings and university buildings. But this! What an outrage!

Frankly, I'm unclear about whether Arakawa and Madeline Gins really believe in "reversible destiny" in a literal sense, or in a mere metaphorical sense. But one thing that has become clear to me. Bernie Madoff may not have been a scam artist after all. Maybe he was a conceptual artist all along, and he's going to let us in on the high concept any day now.