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Video-installation
(DVC), mixed-media, color, sound, 20 min
“Yang Dan, professor of neurobiology at the University of California,
recorded the activity of neurons in the brain of a cat. So she made
a realistic representation of the image a cat conceptualizes from
reality. This subjective image from the cat she compares with the
‘real’ picture of the recorded reality. Frank Theys flew
to San Francisco to interview the professor. This interview is the
first thing you get to see as soon as you enter the gallery. Here
you can also compare images from Dan’s research: the input (what
that cat is shown, e.g. a scene from ‘Indiana Jones’)
and the output (what the electrodes register in the brain of the cat:
how Harrison Ford looks like through the eyes of a cat). These images
are shown on video, but also on print, where you can even more clearly
see the resemblances and the differences.
In the back of the gallery a TV monitor is placed on the floor with
a video of two young cats playing with a fly. Endearing images of
how kittens are watching a fly. But nobody thinks about what the kittens
will do in a few seconds with the fly which is even less charming
than what happens with the cats in professor Dan’s lab, when
the electrodes are placed on the brains in their skull.
Fortunately Frank Theys is an artist and not a scientist. Because
- at present at least – they are still the most in touch with
how people perceive reality. Theys knows perfectly well how he has
to move our perception into a certain direction. Some parts of the
exhibition are therefore also put into scene by him. Theys is not
a Panamarenko, he is not an apprentice-magician, but a master-artist.
Such one as Vélasquez who portrays himself and the as king
dressed up spectator in ‘Las Meninas’.” Pieter Van
Bogaert, De Financieel-Economische Tijd, woensdag 20 december 2000
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| PICTURES (click
to enlarge) |
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