#497 Dream Of A Banana

This work features a banana placed on top of the panel.

See a video presentation here.

Dreams are often considered intangible, existing somewhere outside the material world. But of course, as involuntary chemical processes in the brain, they are deeply material. Perhaps the same can be said of hopes and aspirations. They are hard-wired and precede consciousness. When they have to be expressed in reality, the problems begin, even to ourselves. To be effective and bring about change, they have to leave the realm of raw materiality and be formulated in the language domain. But language has to be grounded in materiality to function. And matter is not easily structured. It is mute and without boundaries. Our distinctions are always muddled when encountering the dirt of the earth. Yet, only there can we make our dreams come true.

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.