The longing for unambiguousness in a complex world

In the last one hundred years, our knowledge of the cosmos, our world, and what happens in it, and our understanding of ourselves as part of life in this world and this universe, has expanded enormously. And in the last thirty years the rate at which we acquire new knowledge has grown at a breath-taking speed. All this has changed our view of the world and ourselves. Yet, even so, our consciousness still finds it difficult to grapple with the implications of what this newly acquired knowledge means and to adequately assimilate them.

Can you love a building?

Ever since our species first became sedentary, the creation and construction of stone monuments and purpose-built buildings has formed part of every culture. Many testimonials to human prowess in architecture from antiquity are still standing today and remind us of the astonishing achievements of our ancestors across the whole world – from the pyramids of Egypt and the temples of the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans to the gigantic statues on Easter Island and the ring of standing stones at Stonehenge.

A Musical-Topographical Try

When excavations in prehistoric caves unearthed a flute which palaeontologists dated as some 30,000 years old, it was apparent that not just fascinating cave paintings but the productions of sounds from such instruments as flutes was already part of the repertoire of cultural techniques possessed by our ancestors.

If the world had no substance …

Humans trust in their senses. We tend to believe what we see and to hold what we don’t see for non-existent. We tend to hear what is loud and overhear what is quiet. We tend to assume that what is big or appears big is important, powerful and even threatening – as the case may be. We tend to take whatever is small as insignificant and harmless.

Winds, Turbulence and the Power of the Unseen

No one can see the wind. Wind is an invisible but extremely potent force. It shows its power in the far reaches of the universe just as on our planet by moving and transforming.
The mariners of former centuries steered huge sailing ships across the oceans of this world. They were experts in the wind and knew how to set their sails to extract maximum effect from its power.

The Metabolism of Being

Everything that exists in the cosmos will pass away eventually. Yet nothing that passes away will cease to exist. Our life on Earth is the result of extremely fortunate exceptional circumstances and was first made possible by the dust of dead stars. It was the dust of dead stars that gave birth to our chemical periodic system. A one-of-a-kind metabolism of absolutely vital importance.

Thank Heavens for Banksy

Can artificial intelligence create art? It’s difficult to imagine that this will ever be the case. To create art you need the consciousness of a free spirit. Whether artificial intelligence will ever dispose of the consciousness of a free spirit seems to me highly unlikely. If this should happen then human intelligence and creative power as we know them today will have transitioned to a symbiotic coexistence with artificial intelligence. Will this ever happen? If it should then we shall have to wait at least a few more decades before it arrives.

A Little Bit of Magic

The turbulence of gigantic ocean waves is an overwhelming display of what we call dynamic complexity – a theme that was dear to OUBEYs heart ever since the 1970s and which we continually encounter in his paintings in a variety of guises.

God Only Knows

The brilliant film director Stanley Kubrick was convinced that every one of us has a “twin” in this world – perhaps even several. People whose spirits and souls are related and intimately connected even when they don’t know one another and will never actually meet. Such connections are of a purely spiritual nature which is why they defy not just geographical distance but separation over centuries of time itself. Whether these twins will ever discover, recognize or even find one another is something that can never be planned for. It simply happens or it doesn’t.

Time has Come for a Cosmocentric View of the World

“The constant of the speed of light separates us humans from a physical experience of the universe. This constant puts us in a kind of quarantine whose frontiers we can only overcome with the help of imagination.” – OUBEY (1992)

Humankind is intoxicated with speed. Over the last three hundred years, as development cycles have become ever shorter, the development pace of our scientific discoveries and technical achievements has increased exponentially.

OUBEY, Rilke, The Panther and me

Despite the differences in our personal make-up, OUBEY and I were in perfect agreement when it came to what I’d call the main things in life.

One of these points of common understanding was our love of poetry and especially the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke which had reached and moved both of us very early on in our lives before we met.

Time Out of Mind

We cannot stop time. But we can forget it.

On the deepest level time always means life-time and as such it is the most valuable property that any living creature in this world can have. Only the spirit (said Erwin Schrödinger) and unconditional free love (say I) stand above time.

Encounter with 10 year old boy from Uganda

At every stopover of the OUBEY Global Encounter Tour visitors have the opportunity to do an “Open Encounter” with an unknown painting by OUBEY on their own. This ten year old boy took the chance to do so in December 2015 at our stopover at NIAAD in Uganda.

Encounter Liz Howard

Liz Howard goes through a journey of emotions driven by the secret language of OUBEY’s painting. She even starts to sing inspired by elements and lines within the painting and transforms them to sound/music. The power of her voice and her physical presence is tremendous. Liz Howard is a mezzo- soprano with a deep love of gospel and soul.

OUBEY Complexity (Trailer)

Welcome tot he complex university of the art of OUBEY (3 min video)

A Breathing Space

The MINDKISS Project has now been running non-stop for over ten years.

The Magic of Maths

Is mathematics an invention of the human brain or does it exist independently of us? Do we just discover and explore its mysteries?

Art Is like Love

Art is free of any obligation, said OUBEY. Art is a daughter of freedom, said Friedrich Schiller.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS special and unique? #5: Transcendence – Leaving the trodden paths of art presentation

With its Global Encounter Tour OUBEY MINDKISS is breaking rules by turning things upside down. The Tour brings OUBEYs art to places where people meet anyway and for any reason – except the reason to encounter art. That´s an experimental enterprise of a kind. Let´s see what comes next.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS special and unique? #4: Using “Not Knowing” as Driving Source and Force

When paintings by OUBEY start travelling the world in their unique yellow flightcase, we don´t know whom they will we meet and what will happen when they arrive for an Encounter in New Zealand, North America or Africa. And their hosts don´t know either. They don´t even know which of OUBEYs paintings will be the one to encounter them. That´s special and quite unusual.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS special and unique? #3: Innovative Use of Media and Computer Technology

OUBEY was ahead of his time, a visionary futurist with a strong power of imagination, addicted to science, science fiction and technology. His use of the Amiga 500 computer to create a new kind of art – the amazing PhotonPaintings – was pioneer state of the art at his time. So it´s clear that the MINDKISS Project loves to use innovative high-tech concepts for their exceptional
presentation of OUBEYs work. It´s medium and message as well.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS unique and special? #2 Immediate Encounters: Exploration instead of explanation

The project strictly ignores the rules of the established art markets. It´s all about “the joy of insight” as OUBEY once said: sharing, exploring and discovering the secrets of his paintings through immediate personal encounters.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS so special and unique? #1: Excellence of Public Appearance

Every piece and product is a masterpiece and as such it makes the project´s public appearance to be a unique masterpiece, too.

What makes OUBEY MINDKISS special and unique?

According to our this year`s 5thAnniversary we are proud and happy to answer this question in a compact series of five crucial sessions, starting with the map of the exorbitantly expanding universe of OUBEY MINDKISS.

Best Fitted to Cope with Complexity

Held in Vienna in November 2013, the Global Peter Drucker Forum on “Managing Complexity” was the third stopover of the OUBEY Global Encounter Tour. In the run-up to the Forum an article from the MINDKISS project with the title “What we need are inquiring free-ranging minds” appeared in the Drucker Society’s blog and received a highly positive resonance. Professor Peter Kruse, the much cited friend and partner of the MINDKISS Project sadly died this year. What he has to say, indeed the whole article, is still as fresh and relevant today as ever. This is why we are now, on popular demand, finally publishing it complete and unabridged on the OUBEY Blog.