ENGLISH BELOW
Dadara Everything is real. Especially that what we cannot see.
Opening Saturday September 27 - 17:00 to 20:00
Dadara is present at the opening
On view until October 25
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Alles is echt – ook dat wat niet zichtbaar of tastbaar is. Verbeelding is niet slechts een ontsnapping aan de werkelijkheid, het is werkelijkheid. Ideeën ontstaan in de geest en worden via kunst, technologie of taal gedeeld. Jules Verne’s onderzeeër bestond eerst in een boek, Star Trek’s communicator inspireerde de mobiele telefoon. Zelfs als verbeelde dingen niet fysiek worden, leven ze voort in ons collectieve bewustzijn. Iedereen kent elfen, ongeacht of ze bestaan – dat maakt ze reëel in betekenis.
Creativiteit is als een onzichtbare stroom van ideeën, niet meetbaar maar overal aanwezig. Kunstenaars lijken antennes te hebben om die signalen op te vangen en vorm te geven. AI, psychedelica en kwantumfysica dwingen ons onze ideeën over werkelijkheid te herzien. Foto’s en video’s tonen niet meer ‘wat is’, maar hoe mensen hun wereld willen laten zien of voelen.
Werner Herzog sprak over “ecstatische waarheid”: niet de feiten, maar de betekenis doet ertoe. Misschien zien we de wereld niet zoals die is, maar zoals wij zelf zijn. In een donkere ruimte op Burning Man leerde ik: ieder beleeft zijn eigen werkelijkheid. Alles is echt, ook dat wat we ‘verzinnen’. De grens tussen werkelijkheid en verbeelding is flinterdun – of zelfs onbestaand.
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Everything is real. Especially that what we cannot see.
Lewis Carroll once said that Imagination is our only weapon in the War against Reality, but I do believe that Imagination is Reality. We imagine things into Existence.
The first submarine did not travel underseas on our planet, but rather in a novel by Jules Verne. The communicator used by Captain Kirk in Star Trek was the inspiration for Motorola to develop the first mobile phone.
But even if things imagined don’t become physical objects, they still are real in my perception. I can talk to millions of people on this planet about Elves and they’ll all know what they are and how they look. In order to be real, you don’t need to be physical.
There are multiple realities inhabiting our world and some of them can only be imagined. Sparks of creativity are everywhere: spores flying through the air ready to pollinate our imagination. They can’t be seen, but very few will argue that creativity doesn’t exist. Artists seem to have sensitive antennae to pick up those signals and make visible what’s not (yet) visible to most.
In his book ‘The Creative Act’ Rick Rubin writes: “How do we pick up a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined? We create an open space that allows it. A space so free of the normal overpacked condition of our minds that it functions as a vacuum. Drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available.”
The rapid advent of AI is also changing our perception of Reality. Photos and videos have ceased being an accurate image of our physical reality. Rather, they seem to have become a means of portraying our desired image to others.
Werner Herzog coined the idea of “Ecstatic Truth”. He felt that clinging to facts gets in the way of finding and expressing Truth. Altering a bit what ‘really’ happened might help you to express your true Philosophy of Life. After all, photos and videos posted are more than just a depiction of facts. They are also a portal inviting you into a bigger story, open to interpretation.
Do the “self-transforming machine elves” (as Terence Mc Kenna called them) that can be seen through psychedelics really exist? Do the creatures I have imagined in these paintings really exist? Where have I encountered them before? Could these paintings become a portal to guide your mind’s transition into worlds previously unknown to you? People often start the day with a yoga routine. So why not start your day by looking at one of these paintings as a kind of yoga for the mind, making your mind more flexible in imagining other realities.
We can observe all these physically non-existent realities, but in the quantum world of nano particles there are also physical realities, which we can’t observe.
There’s the fascinating philosophical concept of Solipsism, where the only thing we can be sure of is that our own mind exists and the whole reality we experience is only a figment of our Imagination. It was one of the inspirations for my Solipmission project at Burning Man in 2017: I was blindfolded and led into a big black box in the Nevada desert for the entire week of the event. No daylight, only artificial light. But visitors could enter the box to share with me what they experienced outside. I would then record those testimonies by drawing, writing, and painting them on the walls. Experiencing Reality through the eyes of others. It was mindblowing to see how different their individual perceptions were of the same outside reality they all experienced. Proving indeed that we don’t see things as they are, but as we are.
Everything is real. Even those things which aren’t real.
