#465 Head Stone

In the present, language and matter are bound together in what we might call the truth. We perceive the exterior through a semantic process and express our minds by shaping the fabric of reality with language. In the instant moment, we can verify these notions by reexamining our sensory input. They separate again once the moment is over and the present turns into the past. That’s why we call it history. The truth is gone, and all left is our story of what happened. Memory places another layer of language around our experience.

On the other hand, matter doesn’t know time; it only exists and follows the laws of causality. Modern physics has no solid theory of a directional passing of time. Albert Einstein even called it a ” stubbornly persistent illusion”. But a new form of physics called assembly theory describes that time is constructed from the complexity of things. The evolution of life from simple matter to organisms and objects creates and captures time. Time is measurable in objects developed by life. It makes sense because time is irrelevant within the realm of dead matter. Perhaps one can argue that language and time are intrinsically bound together. They might even be the same.

Speaking Stones is a compilation of paintings made with imprints of ordinary stones.

I see the stone as a metaphor for popular struggle and protest. It is the closest available weapon to the powerless. Throwing stones is a symbolic form of violence. The aim is not to overpower the opponent physically. It demonstrates defiance in the face of power by expressing concretely that the premises of the situation aren't acceptable. The stone speaks but not in a language open to negotiation or dialogue. A conversation means accepting the context in which it takes place and is thus always, to a certain degree, a form of submission. The language of stones is the language of mute matter. A form of silence that nevertheless speaks clearly and directly. The stone represents the resistance in itself from a place outside of language.

The stone is an entirely exchangeable and ordinary object that exists everywhere. At the same time, each stone is unique and has its own beauty and unfathomable mystery for anyone open to seeing it. This duality fascinates me. A stone is perhaps the closest we can get to a thing-in-itself, bound as we are to language. Sealed around itself, oblivious to the outside world. Simply existing. In a way, we can never truly understand. Infinite in its everydayness. Specific and concrete in its presence.

The series features works with an appendix placed on top of the work or close to it. This object is exterior to the image plane, the illusionary "window" in the picture, but is still an intrinsic part of the whole. It connects or makes visible the two dimensions of an artwork - its inner logic and its relation to its surrounding.
The title references the famous Coca-Cola campaign and Immanuel Kant's notion of the thing in itself. It means that subjects can only experience the phenomena as they present themselves through perception. It is always fundamentally different from what the things are outside language boundaries - in themselves.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.