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The intervals between our discoveries and their practical effects have also become increasingly short. For a long time this development process was focused on planet Earth – the only planet we know on which millions and billions of people, animals, plants and other lifeforms can live, simply as creation produced them. Without any artificial oxygen supply or other aids. The Earth is – and will remain until evidence to the contrary is supplied – the only planet in the Milky Way on which we and the bewilderingly vast diversity of species specific to the Earth can live and survive without the need for high tech equipment.

And even though the fortune of this fact becomes more evident with each passing year as our understanding grows, in the countless thousands of years of our evolutionary history, we humans have never managed to forge a bond of friendly coexistence with the sole planet in the Milky Way galaxy which offers us such a wonderful home. Now you might object that nature is also cruel when it overwhelms us with hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods that wipe out thousands or hundreds of thousands of human lives at a single stroke.

Yet our “ancient ancestors”, as the Maori called their forebears, were also visited by Ice Ages which nobody living today could possibly have survived (at least nobody growing up in western industrialised societies) and they still had everything that makes life pleasant from food to a warm oven in the house. People and other lifeforms on Earth have seen much harder times than those we are living through right now. Nevertheless they treated this planet with love and respect.

And now we’re looking for new planets to call home both inside and outside of our solar system. This is to be welcomed. If it wasn’t a smart or sensible move, evolution wouldn’t have allowed things to develop thus far. OUBEY was as convinced of this as I am. The driving force behind this search is our deeply rooted longing for a much bigger, broader home – the home from which we actually come. It’s the cosmic home, the home of all the universes, galaxies and stars to which we – as earthly creatures on planet Earth – owe our very existence. It should be very evident that we are not just delving into the origins of where we come from but that we also wish to return to them.

Yet because of our very nature as human beings, time will continue to keep us in that quarantine of which OUBEY once spoke. If such limits are to be overcome, they will be overcome by beings who are so fundamentally different from us through their connectivity with advanced artificial intelligence that they might as well be beings from some science-fiction novel. They will no longer be recognisable as ourselves, they will be a different order of beings. This too is good and meaningful if evolution allows it.

A second deep-rooted longing comes into play in the search for extra-terrestrial habitats for people. Undoubtedly this is one of humankind’s most primeval desires and at the same time a conditio sine qua non in the sense of a logical consequence of the desire to find new bases and homes in the cosmos. Because we will only find such new homes if we are able to greatly extend our own lifespans. As seems likely, this could happen in the next few years or the next ten to twenty years at the latest. And it will inevitably lead to an updated version of the age-old dream of eternal life, and perhaps a kind of provisional immortality will indeed be achieved one day by the people who come after us.

Absolute immortality will never be achieved in this universe nor indeed in any other. Absolute immortality would mean the end of all kinds of evolution. And why should evolution rush forward to its own end – just because a species called humankind became aware of its own mortality a few thousand years ago? And in doing so began to dream the dream of individual everlasting life. If there is something I do believe in, then this is the inner logic of the story of the creation of everything, including us humans – with all its seemingly illogical contradictions and deficiencies. Now it might well be that we could have been both important and useful for this evolutionary process for a period of from 35,000 to 40,000 years. But this period too will come to an end. On Earth, and increasingly in the solar system of which our planet forms part, we have created a human-centric frame of reference in which the human being is the benchmark and measure of all things. We have moved from the geocentric world view of ancient times to the heliocentric system of the Renaissance and the human-centric system of modern times where the human being is “Master and Commander”. And even though the findings of astronomy and astrophysics, not to mention the basic research in physics undertaken in recent decades, have made the theoretical underpinnings of this world view wildly outdated, in practical terms it has still not lost any of its immense power to shape our consciousness.

Yet for the universe in all its unfathomable magnitude, breadth and depth, we are of no importance. This is also the view of the world famous astrophysicist and cosmos researcher Professor Lawrence Krauss. Indeed, it would do our consciousness good if we could at long last move progressively into a cosmocentric view of the world, one that is commensurate with our current knowledge of our significance in the cosmic shape of things. Maybe this would help us to do a bit better on this planet.

 

If you like to read more, please see the National Geographic´s article: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/03/astronauts-space-earth-perspective/

At the same time our society adheres to the view that whatever carries a high price tag must be intrinsically valuable. Otherwise why would so many people find that an expensive pair of jeans must be much better than a cheaper pair? Often enough it’s just the brand value of a product that determines the price difference between goods of the same material value.

The evaluation of companies on the stock exchange is a more complicated matter. Based on suppositions about the future development of a company’s share value, it’s the psychology of investor behaviour that decides which company’s shares are to be bought or sold. From the standpoint of such speculative profit expectations, questions as to whether a company operates solidly and sustainably, and makes clever investment in its future – and thus represents genuine value – by no means always play the decisive role.

And art as a commodity?

But how does the relationship between value and price play out when it comes to art? Here we generally find a combination of the two mechanisms. If an artist and his work have achieved the same level of name recognition as a leading brand, the same work that once went for a modest sum will now fetch an astronomical price – often in hopes that the value of this artist’s work will continue to rocket on the art market. Art as investment.

In particular for young unknown artists, the predictions made by a gallery owner or art dealer about the expected long-term development of the value of their work for prospective buyers can be of existential importance. This is where we find the same psychology of betting at work as we find in investors. Nobody knows for sure whether things will turn out exactly as the experts say.

Freedom of creation as a luxury

Thanks to OUBEY I came to realize that art which has the extraordinary good fortune to be created in complete freedom from the market can develop its own very rare and very special quality. And when art that has been created in this way is not up for sale and thus comes with no price tag attached, then this freedom can also be transferred to the beholder and endow the encounter with a quality as exceptional and rare as that which imbued the process of its creation.

Such freedom can also be seen as a particular kind of luxury. The case of the marvellous painter Vincent van Gogh, however, shows that this supposed luxury of free creation can come at the cost of serious hardship and deprivation. As he hardly sold a single painting during his lifetime, he was totally reliant on the financial support of his brother for his very existence. Yet from such involuntary freedom he painted pictures of stupendous power in a style as revolutionary as it was unique. Today the same paintings that nobody wanted 120 years ago reach record prices at auctions. Yet the true intrinsic value of these paintings was exactly the same at the time of their creation as it is today. It is simply there – independently of any price.

Appreciation and esteem that come from within

If price cannot set the value of a work of art then the way is open for another non-material form of appreciation that comes from within. Possession is no longer the point of the exercise but rather pure discovery and pleasure. This is why I will never sell OUBEYs paintings even though I am often pressed to do so. I have freed myself of the rating system of the commercial art market.

The value of OUBEYs art is revealed to me in the resonance his paintings evoke in people when – free of all forms of commercial speculation – I place them in an open-ended process of discovery through others. This is just as experimental as it is deeply satisfying. People tell me that looking at certain pictures makes them happy. This is not something that can be computed in terms of money. It’s personal and it’s life-enhancing.

Yet for a child play always has its very serious side. Because in play children are working through and shaping their own experience of reality by living out their phantasies and their ideas. This is motivated by pleasure and is always of their own free will. Nobody can force them to do it.

True art can only be created in freedom

Some people succeed in carrying these qualities through into their adult lives or they relearn them as we can see in the case of Picasso to whom regaining a child’s freedom, spontaneity and carefreeness in his artistic work was of such importance. Because art which is born in freedom has its own particular and special quality and high value. For me this is precisely the vital insight that Picasso‘s remark yields.

Yet the art market follows other rules. Like every other market it is geared to a purpose and subscribes to the rules of business – and the world of business is a world of adults. Artists want to secure their existence, dealers want to make a good deal. Artists should deliver sellable works so that money can be made.

Yet how can an artist retain his or her inner freedom when the works they produce are tailored to the market demand? There’s no universal answer to this question. Each artist must decide for him or herself when answering it.

The power of inner strength

OUBEY gave his own version of the answer after his first and highly successful commercial exhibition by withdrawing completely from the public eye for twelve years. “I’m glad that I did it and I’m very pleased with its success. Only if I continue this way, I’m going to lose the spring of my art”, he said to me a few days after the exhibition opened. And then he took the freedom that he needed to continue to draw from the purpose-free gushing spring of his own creative energy. He followed the power of his inner strength. He could not and would not let himself be influenced by what the market expected.

And thus in seclusion a major body of work was created which is now coming to the light of day – with one single purpose which is to make it accessible to people all over the world.

Now perhaps you might find this some exotic artist’s story that has little to do with your own life. But that’s not what I think. I believe that it always does each and every one of us good to do something that is not linked to some immediate or material purpose. It does us good when we now and then shake off all thought of purpose and do something only because it fills us with pleasure and inspires us – quite independently of what others might think about us.

In the course of time some of these poems have become endowed with a special meaning and importance. One of them is “Der Panther”:

 

The Panther

In the Jardin des Plants, Paris

Striated by the bars in front, his sight

Has grown so weary it can hold no more

As though behind each thousand bars dim light

Reveals another thousand set by law.

 

His supple lithesome soft paw canter

In tiniest cramped circles realised

Is like a gig of strength in whose dead centre

A mighty will stands paralysed.

 

Yet sometimes, though, the pupils noiseless shutter

Is raised – then in an image well might dart

Across the limbs taut stillness flash and flutter

To end its being in the heart.

 

From: Rainer Maria Rilke – New Poems (1907)

Translation by Paul Morland

 

Specialists in German literature have often made brilliant analyses of how the powerful aesthetic at work in the poem derives from the masterly use of linguistic and non-linguistic elements. This is highly commendable and of great value.

Yet ultimately, for me, however, the particular level of the aesthetic impact made by this poem is that from the day I first read it many years ago up to the present I have never set foot in any zoo again.

 

 

The limits of time

The over 30,000 year old drawings on the walls of the cave at Chauvet in the south of France that were discovered about 25 years ago and thankfully revealed to us by Werner Herzog in his documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams awaken in spectators a thrilling feeling of immediacy despite the huge gulf of time that separates us from the moment of their creation. It’s as though we were pitched at a dizzying height traversing huge gorges of time on a spiritual rope bridge, as though the limits of time were abolished in the moment of viewing. 

A rare freedom

These prehistoric wall paintingss stand for themselves. In this sense they are similar to OUBEYs art and are also related to it in another sense in a highly individual way. They are hidden treasures that have remained untouched and unseen for a certain period of time. Their existence in concealment confers on them a freedom of a kind that can scarcely be found today. This freedom is implicit in them and transfers to us when we view them. We can discover them, enjoy them and let them work on us in a rare kind of pure immediacy.

From 2005 to 2010 we were working behind the scenes to be absolutely certain that the public presentation of a first small part of OUBEYs work was professional enough in its preparation to match and mirror in every way OUBEYs understanding of art and life.

The pyrotechnics of the book release, the Experience Film and the Web Opening on 23 March 2010 in the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe marked the move from behind the scenes to the glare of the limelight. What has developed and grown since then has been truly tremendous. Its course is charted and can be followed on OUBEYs website, in the social web and in the map of the “Expanding Universe of OUBEY MINDKISS“.

The 5th anniversary of our first appearance in a growing worldwide inquiring public interest was celebrated last year in exactly the same place from where we first launched the whole project in 2010 – at the ZKM |Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

And now the time has come for us to pause and take a breathing space. We shall take time-out to ponder and reflect on all the incredibly diverse and intense experiences we have made in recent years, and all the insights we have gained and been enriched by. This is something we’re really looking forward to.

We shall use this breathing space to delve deeper into the coming worlds of OUBEYs previously unpublished works which constitute an uncharted territory of vast proportions. Then we shall resurface with new paintings and new ideas, and even now we’re thrilled by the prospect of sharing these pictures and the ideas OUBEY attached to them with the world. When this will be exactly, we cannot say. It’s an open-ended process which will march to the beat of its own drum and take its own time, and we shall be sure to give it all the time it needs.

During this time, however, we shall continue to publish our blog and continue as usual with a monthly posting that leads deeper into “OUBEYS World” of thought and creation but also into the world of the OUBEY MINDKISS Project.

We hope that we can continue to count on your support in this new venture and that you will continue to follow interactively whatever course it takes.

It forms part of a long conversation that was recorded as part of the preparations for his first and only exhibition in 1992, and it took place ten years previously in 1981/82 at the Institute for Structural Design and Building Construction at the University of Karlsruhe where OUBEY was then studying architecture.

“The year before I went to university, Fritz Haller became director of this institute had been so heavily influenced by Eiermann, which was a great stroke of luck for me. His assignment for those of us in our second semester was that we should design shelving and furniture characterized by a certain variability.

While T.H., with whom I used to work, designed utilitarian furniture, I designed a new mathematical model based on axiomatic reasoning, on what’s known as rotation vectors. This is a mathematics based on vector calculus that doesn’t use the vectorial representation which defines linear structures by points in space, but factors in the movement aspect in space as well.

To put it very simply, the basic building block in a three dimensional grid in vector calculus is an arrow in a coordinate system with a y and a z axis. You can extend it or compress it and you can build a Euclidean solid geometry on it. This all can be transferred to a matrix system. As the rotation vector, the arrow moves in the form of a spiral at the speed of light as a constant of its own rotation, depicts a sphere and returns within a second to its point of departure. It either spins to the left or the right. The sphere describes a line in the form of a spiral, the spiral scans the inside surface of the sphere, and you can move the sphere. The speed you need to move it at is the speed of light because only then is simultaneity assured. And because a sphere can only be depicted when a point in the line scans a space with the highest possible speed known in the universe.

There was no such model in the whole of mathematics. This is what I designed back then. Not bad at all actually. I’m curious to know if it will become important at some point in the twenty first century. Basically it would be a new kind of mathematics. No longer 1+1=2, because the 1 is a form in itself. A universal form which you don’t need to add to other forms.

And it was accepted. Haller accepted it as an outcome for foldable furniture. He told me it was fascinating and that I should continue in this line. That was really the most important thing of all. I came to this model when I set out on calculus for furniture, foldable furniture, but ended up in new descriptions of universal space. But that’s me all over. Somehow I start to puzzle about ants and end up with the weirdest ideas. And I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.

All I really did was to notice what happens when you try to fold objects in space to bring them into a more compact form, possibly for more efficient storage. Only this practical aspect faded into the background. What interested me was what really happens at these critical points when surfaces or chair legs are rotated. And I found that that I couldn’t get very far with standard mathematics, but that basically each hinge needed its own mathematics to describe its ability to hinge.

And you can only have a general hinge ability when you first define mathematics for this rotation vector. And then this mathematics consists of geometrically limiting this universal possibility. In other words, you’re no longer making mathematics by building something or adding something and creating a formula for it – like a lever principle, for instance “square meters times two, divided by eight” where you describe the load borne by the hinge, the cutting forces, by describing the forces inherent in the carrier – you’re making universal mathematics.”

However, OUBEY didn’t continue his investigations into the rotation vector but turned instead to other interesting questions and, increasingly, to art.

The encounter between a mathematician and OUBEYs art has always been on my list of desiderata for the Encounter Project. And in September 2011 it came about: Professor Karl Sigmund, a mathematician who is a world authority in his own field came face to face with one of OUBEYs paintings in Vienna.

Interestingly, the subject of mathematics was hardly touched on in what he had to say. This video is now online; click here to view it.

Even Albert Einstein wondered why mathematics works so well in science and how is it possible that mathematics can offer such a good description of our visible universe. The spiraling swirl of a nautilus shell resembles the spiral shaped form of the galaxies. What significance does this have?

It seems that everything which physically exists can be described by numbers and equations. The number of petals of a flower follows the same principle as the number of seeds in the head of a sunflower, as the underside of a pine cone or the ideal proportions of a human face.

The numbers 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 … play a special role here. The underpinning principle is what’s known as the Fibonacci sequence:

named after the 13th century Italian mathematician who discovered that certain numbers occur particularly frequently in nature. In mathematical terms it goes like this: you begin the sequence with the simplest integers: 1+1= 2 and then keep on adding the last two integers so you get 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21, 13+21=34 and so on. A puzzle? Sure, to some extent. But a puzzle that makes sense. Could it be that we’re in the middle of some gigantic universal game? OUBEY – who could work his way easily through even the most complex and daunting mathematics – really relished this idea.

It’s the same with the famous number Pi. Everyone knows it but who knows what it really means? It tells us which colors appear in the rainbow and what the note C on a piano should sound like.

And in antiquity Pythagoras, whose theorem most of us know and many of us could even quote, explored the relationship between mathematics and music: octaves, fifths and fourths are determined by the different length ratios of vibrating strings. These are expressible mathematically – 2:1 for the octave, 3:2 for the fifth and 4:3 for the fourth. And the planets too in their orbit round the sun also follow fixed numerical ratios.

It seems obvious that certain numerical ratios create balance and harmony. Are they the expression of a hidden order in nature that – it could well be – ultimately consists of numbers? “The Universe is written in the language of mathematics” Galileo once said. And it seems he was right.

Galilei also appears in OUBEYs drawing below from the early 1980s, where he spontaneously jotted down the names of all the researchers, scientists and philosophers whose thoughts, discoveries, inventions and predictions he held to be fundamental in building an understanding of the nature of our existence.

From Pythagoras and Plato over Galileo, Newton, Leibniz and Einstein through to the countless numbers of researchers and scientists of our own time, we are endowed with a growing fund of knowledge and discovery fixed in consistent numbers, calculations, equations and conclusions in the shape of formula and principles on whose basis scientists can now land a robot vehicle the size of a car on Mars or a Rosetta Space Probe on a comet – far off in the depths of space, remote-controlled from Earth.

One of the fascinating things about mathematics is that it can make the most impossible predictions which prove to be true the moment humans develop the technology capable of substantiating them.

200 years ago, when the planet Uranus deviated from its usual orbit around the Earth, mathematical calculations led to the idea that this deviation must be due to the gravitational influence of another planet – an undiscovered planet that had never been sighted. Neptune was discovered by pure mathematics long before we could see it.

There was a similar case with Peter Higgs, who more than 50 years ago used mathematical calculus to predict that an entirely new subatomic particle – an elementary building block of the Universe – would be discovered as soon as humans were capable of constructing a machine in which subatomic particles could collide at near the speed of light. Three years ago the gigantic particle accelerator CERN near Geneva succeeded in doing precisely that. The new particle bears Higgs´ name and the man himself was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.

And just recently mathematical calculations were used to “predict” the existence of a new planet in our solar system. It’s only a matter of time before this latest prediction from mathematics will becomes visible to us. This can last more than 100 years as we know since the gravitational waves which Einstein stated to exist in 1915 as part of his theory of relativity, have been detected by the LIGO project only this year – presented to the public on 12 February 2016.

“Is mathematics a natural truth or has it something to do with the way we humans perceive nature? For me, it’s simply a fascinating puzzle. I don’t know the answer“, asked Andrew Lankford from the University of California in a statement he gave deep in the LHD tunnel at CERN. That’s pretty much my feeling too.

How wonderful it would have been if only a single math teacher had put just one of these questions just once to us in the classroom instead of continually trying to stuff our heads with incomprehensible mathematical formulae. My brain cells at least would have perked up, and instantly switched to high attention mode. My curiosity would have been aroused and all those years ago I might even have had a faint inkling of what mathematics is actually all about or what it could be. After all, you don’t’ have to understand or master everything, but you do need to have some idea of the significance of what you don’t understand or master.

This makes the memory of a winter night in 1983 all the more fonder, when OUBEY explained to me the principles and meaning of vector calculus. It was the very first time in my life that I took any interest in mathematics.

Source Credits:
ARTE TV vom 12.02.2016: The Great Myths of Math — hhorak.de — de.wikipedia.org — Sam/Wikipedia — Jack Rustin – Beeindruckendes.de

First visit in July 2015, meeting our partners at NIAAD Kampala, co-creating an exciting concept.

From left: Dr. Bruno, Eirik Jarl Trondsen, Dagmar Woyde-Koehler, Dr. Kizito

We made it possible and let it happen: Two days with OUBEYs art at NIAAD Kampala

Paintings and equipment are ready for travelling to Uganda

Three busy days at NIAAD: Preparing the exhibition …

… preparing 60 canvasses for the workshop …

Transforming  NIAAD´s Gallery by covering the floor with a huge black carpet

Friday, 18 December 2015: The Workshop begins – a unique experience for all of us

About 60  participants from all over Uganda come to NIAAD to express their resonance on OUBEYs paintings artistically by creating their own paintings.

 

This painting stays at NIAAD in rememberance of OUBEY and the great experience with his art

These three paintings are going to travel further along with the Global Tour

Exhibition Day on 19 December

Opening speeches by Dr. Bruno, Eirik Jarl Trondsen and Dagmar Woyde-Koehler and two touching songs performed by the beautiful voice of Marci Onsinyo

Relaxed atmosphere inside while viewing, listening, talking and exploring OUBEYs work

 

Relaxed atmopshere outside while eating, drinking, talking and enjoying a sunny afternoon

Open Encounters: More than 30 guests wanted to give it a try and got a special kick from this so far unpublished painting by OUBEY

Click here to get an overview by a two-minute speedmove, and here to see the video of the Open Encounter of a ten year old boy with this painting by OUBEY.

Dr. Kizito, founding director of NIAAD, and Eirik Jarl Trondsen, who made the contact between OUBEY MINDKISS and NIAAD, did an “Encounter with OUBEY” themselves

Let´s see what comes next …

Three of the paintings inspired by OUBEYs art will now be included in the Global Encounter Tour.

Our warmest thanks go to all those who took part in the session. Special thanks to Annabelle (piece at left), Kiffe and  Eirik Jarl Trondsen (piece in the middle) and Dr. Bruno Sserunkuuma (piece at right) for donating their works to the OUBEY MINDKISS Project.

Art is like love. It’s unconditional, radical and cannot be shackled. Love cannot be bought nor can it be negotiated. Love is. Or love isn’t. Art is like love.

Different from love yet often confused with it, people have affairs, liaisons, flirts, crushes, infatuations, obsessions and much more in this vein. Everything that’s thrilling, euphoric, infatuating, seductive, ecstatic, unforgettable, miraculous, fleeting. Caught up in this come expectations, hopes, fears, desires, dependencies, conjectures, calculated benefits, plans and interests.

Understood as love, art is a gift. Gifts are beyond price.

By Samuel Lutwama

After his sudden death, his longtime partner decided the best way to honor his artistic legacy was to bring his work into the public eye, but in the way that would reflect the mind of artist Oubey himself.

Ever heard the old saying, “Behind every great ma, there is a great woman?”

Such can be said of German Dagmar Woyde- Koehler, the wife of German artist Oubey who died car accident in 2004. Then at 46, he had been preparing his first exhibition after a 12-year period of seclusion from the public eye. After his sudden death, his longtime partner decided the best way to honor his artistic legacy was to bring his work into the public eye, but in the way that would reflect the mind of artist Oubey himself.

“I decided the best way to honor his awesome artwork was to that that would reflect his intended mission of sharing, exploring and discovering the secrets of painting through personal encounters,” Dagmar said. She founded Oubey Mindkiss Project and began exhibiting a number of his painting globally.

In December, she made a seventh stopover of Global Encounter at the experimental exhibition where she showcased Oubey’s paintings at Nagenda International Academy of Art and Design (NIAAD), Kampala.

The workshop was opened by Dr. Kizito Maria Kasule of NIAAD and was attended by over 60 participants composed of various celebrated artists, among whom were Visual Arts Practitioner, Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi.

The atmosphere at the exhibition was relaxed as intense according to, Annabelle Wanjiku Reeno, a gifted visual artist from Kenya.

See more here.