Folly of the Impure

Man finds ways of creating meaning by looking for connections to verify the categories and systems we put in place to control and understands the chaos in and around us.

We see our own face in the eyes of others, mostly wondering about what and who’s living in there. What stuff are we made of? Which figments and parts are common traits, and what is the individual’s unique signature? What content resides in the thin threads connecting us to each other and ourselves?

“Folly of the Impure” is looking at the neurological connection between religious activity, the ecstatic, and the creative, all activated in the same part of the brain. The project is divided in three Categories:

Category I “Headspace”, selfportraits from MR images mounted with the notes documenting the workprocess in Category II & III.

Category II “Light!” centers around the concept of ex-stasis, where the experience of being or standing outside oneself, induces a temporary state of euphoria.

Category III, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite…” consists of the springs from my mattress and an associative Petridish-collection of everyday relics.

With gratitude to neuroscientists Mathijs Baas and Michil van Elk at the university of Amsterdam for friendly exchange and for so generously sharing their research.