Ieder mens is een op opzichzelfstaand element. Ieder mens is een ‘zelf’. Ieder mens is een ik. Elk ‘zichzelf’ is een eigenhandige en zelfstandige constructie. Een bouwwerk dat ons isoleert en verwijderd van de ander.

Wij mensen zijn echter sociale wezens die willen communiceren. Kunst als een medium, kan ons hierbij dienen.
Door met empathie te kijken naar een kunstwerk, kan de kijker tijdelijk gebruik maken van een andere ‘zelf’ (van de kunstenaar). Om zo een glimp op te ervaren van de universele verbondenheid van de mensen. Wat uiteindelijk leidt tot een verruiming van de ervaring van het eigen ‘zelf’.

Lees vooral ook de tekst die zij opstuurde. 🙂 En laat me graag horen wat je van mijn vertaling vindt..

Look me in the I. – Art as an act of transference of the self

With Matthew Lloyd and Hanneke van der Werf

Every self is a particular construction on its own and of its own. A quantity of elements organized in a peculiar order by which they are governed. And each one of those organizational methods is a characteristic filter through which the exterior world is perceived and according to which the self acts upon its surroundings.

Each human is a capsule, a self contained element. Each human is a self.  Each human is an I.

The essential nature of the I seems in fact to be one of isolation with no possible escape, for this is the only possible way of existing in a physical domain. This intricate loneliness everybody is inevitably tight to is a barrier that disconnects. Disconnects and distances the existent immense sea of Is from each other. In this way, the self can easily become impenetrable, unreachable, confusing, easily leading to distorted views.

However, at the same time, humans are paradoxically and inherently social beings, quality that leads them to build bridges through communicating, which is the interchange of the expression of different selves, of different Is. It is this act of an attempt to connect, to building bridges that makes them question, that makes them feel a necessity of understanding, of considering, of analyzing, of clarifying. The structure of the I needs deconstruction, needs to be broken down.

Many times art is used as a resource of deconstruction of the self, reminding the 20th century philosopher R.G. Collingwood’s conception of art as an imaginative expression, a creative projection of the self into the social sphere. The secret universe becomes thus exposed; bluntly, honestly. Open to considerations, open to questionings.

Art becomes then a mediation process between the intimate secluded self and the other  Is constituted by the viewers. The communication between the intimacy of the artist and the public is made by means of empathy. A transference of individual experiences makes the viewer temporarily inhabit another Self, thus creating a sense of human universality, a common ground, which in the end contributes to a better understanding of an alterity, igniting a process of questioning and deconstruction of the architecture of the I of the spectator.

Met als toevoeging iets over de kunstenaars:

Mathew Lloyd: Lloyd’s method of antithesis’s between art and life when released as an extreme form, act as a main attraction for his work. The approach of this binomial concept is to reveal spectrums whose fundamental role is to become subject of a re-identification of and within themselves. The artists’ works is seen arguably not to exist solely as a material object, but as a vehicle with which to articulate a conceptual idea.

Hanneke van der Werf:  Hanneke explores the experience of the emerging wholeness of life and how to communicate it. She wishes to report, to share a sense of a fluid universe. With everything she has and is, she looks around her. The constant flow of information makes an amalgation with everything she had and was.  She builds images from this fluid point, so she can share how touching and beautiful, huge, painful, entertaining, packed and silence she experiences life. For her, expanding observation goes equally with the expanding of freedom.