How the life of Brian could come to an end on 30 December, 2043

Published on Thursday 5 March 2009 21:06

MOST people know the precise time and date they were born and celebrate each passing year, hoping to live to a ripe old age.

But now an artist has gone one step further and worked out the exact day he will die.

For Brian Hewitt, the day he will meet his maker is 30 December, 2043.

Hewitt, 39, a former Nasa scientist-turned-artist, has used computer technology to measure intricate body movements including his heart beats, breaths and blinks to calculate when his life will come to an end.

Mr Hewitt's digital projection "reckoning vO4", which counts down the seconds to his death forms the centrepiece of his first solo show "Life Time" opening today at the Corn Exchange Gallery in Leith, Edinburgh.

Mr Hewitt said that discovering when he could die had been a "thought-provoking moment".

He said: "It would be hard for such a moment not to be poignant. I thought about all my plans for the future and how time was not unlimited.

"But the date 30 December 2043 is not so much the end of my life as a measurement of time itself passing, of the scale of life.

"The number of seconds ticking away in my life is huge but it also makes you realise just how precious life is."

Chicago-born Mr Hewitt, who graduated in physics and audio technology at the American University in Washington DC before working at Nasa, said he had always been fascinated by numbers and art gave him a way of expressing the complexities of humanity.

Mr Hewitt, who won an international scholarship to study at Edinburgh College of Art and graduated last year, added: "Quantum physics can be a personal issue.

"It was convenient for me to use my own life for this exhibition but it is really about everyone.

"It is my only way to express how amazed I am by it all.

"Some people will think it is all a bit morbid, but I don't mean it to be seen that way."

His walk-in cube at the gallery has a constant array of numbers projected on its walls, which change every second, with the clock set from his birth on 25 May, 1969.

At noon yesterday,

the tally for the number of deaths in the world was 2,017,223,171.

However, on the bright side, the number of births was 5,181,290,496 and the number of stars formed was 399,542,127.

But last night Professor Tariq Sethi, professor of respiratory and lung cancer at Edinburgh University, said it was impossible to accurately predict when a person would die and could be considered unethical because the reasoning behind it was not validated.

"You can get a kind of feel for which patients are long or short livers from looking at their family background and lifestyle.

"But the artist in question cannot predict how his body will respond to infection which might put a strain on his heart.

"The environment has such a big impact, as does diet and smoking, meaning there are so many variables he cannot predict even if he thinks he has his own personal lifestyle under control.

"You also can't predict how and when stress will affect you – the stock market crashes and changes your life for the worse, leading to health problems."

Prof Sethi added: "When I was younger, a patient with lung cancer always wanted to know how long he had to live. I told him he had around 18 months. He sold his house and travelled round the world. But two-and-a-half years later he was still alive and came back to no house or money and a lot of financial worries.

"I think it is very bad psychologically to try to predict our deaths.

"On one hand, you might joke about taking early retirement, but I think it could lead to all sorts of foolhardy decisions. I think we are better off not knowing."