“As the mind explorers the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.”
From Man and his Symbols, conceived and edited by Carl Jung.
For this artwork I borrowed the title “Man and his Symbols” from the book mentioned above by Carl Jung, M-L von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Aniela Jaffé and Jolande Jacobi.
What spoke to me was Jung’s insistence on the importance of imagination, that the imaginative life, whether expressed in dreams, archetypes or stories, should be taken seriously.
As we all know, many similar or even identical symbols can be found all over the world. Jung explains these similarities through the concept of the collective conscious. It can be regarded as a sort of bubble, where our instincts, archetypes, and universal signs are stored. A modern day analogy would be the Cloud, where we store images, ideas and information.
What connects all this is that I once dreamed about a range of symbols which appeared to be a mix of Runes and other signs originating from various cultures. As these intrigued me immensely, I made several artworks around them.
In this stop motion video consisting of 460 photos, the doors facing outward depict the symbols in various constellations, whereas the inside represents the attempts to unravel their meaning.
I sometimes use the red figure as a representation of humankind, like in “Humanity everywhere”(see https://www.raboo.info/humanity-everywhere/), sometimes even representing myself.
Medium: Digital still camera Sony DSC-F828
Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T - 35mm
Resolution: 1920Ă—1440
Video Length: 00:00:30
