It was leaning against the wall of his tiny apartment and exerted an irresistible attraction on me from the very first moment.
OUBEY told me the title was “The Journey of the Monads” and explained that monads are the smallest, animated, self-moving, indivisible particles in the universe, both spirit and matter at the same time. Although physically separate, they are all forever connected to each other through communication. He was fascinated by this metaphysical understanding of the universe and the creative genius of the mind that produced it.
Then he talked about Newton and criticized the limitations of his mechanical view of the world, which implied that everything was reversible. Fortunately, Einstein had corrected this by classifying Newtonian mechanics. Natural processes are irreversible. Recognizing this makes a decisive difference in understanding the world and its dynamic complexity. Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine, whose groundbreaking book “Dialogue with Nature” he had just read, would agree.
Leibniz, Newton, Einstein, Prigogine – a fast-paced, impressive lecture, delivered off the cuff on a sunny afternoon! When OUBEY shared the intellectual context of his thinking and work with me, and often with others, those were magical moments – usually in the truest sense of the word.
It was not Leibniz, but his rival contemporary Isaac Newton who achieved fame and fortune during his lifetime. This fact reinforced OUBEY’s critical assessment of public perception when it comes to the question of adapting to the spirit of the times and the respective power relations.
Unlike Newton, Leibniz was not particularly adept at making a personal impression on the wealthy patrons of his time that would have brought him fame and fortune. Busy day and night with his ideas, studies, experiments, and writings, he was not a man of the public. Nevertheless, he gained recognition and admiration in his time, but only a few recognized and understood him for what he really was: a universal genius.
For all these reasons and more, it was clear to me that there had to be a place for Leibniz and his monadology in the OUBEY MINDSPACE.
Interestingly, in the same year that OUBEY MINDSPACE celebrated its premiere, a film was released in cinemas that brings us closer to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz as a thinker and as a human being. “Leibniz – Chronicle of an Unfinished Picture” is the title of this film by Edgar Reitz.
The film is challenging. That’s a good thing. Skillfully staged in the style of a chamber play, it provides insight into Leibniz’s relationship to art and truth while focusing on the creation of a portrait painting of Leibniz.
The commissioned established court painter, embodying the zeitgeist of the early 18th century, wants Leibniz to allow himself to be portrayed as he imagines him. Despite sincere efforts to please the artist, he does not succeed. The attempt fails. “You are no friend of art,” says the painter. “But the best friend of truth,” replies the model.
The court painter is replaced by a young artist, still unknown, disguised as a man. She is concerned with the truth in the picture. She first looks for the right light in the room, wanting to bring Leibniz’s essence to life in the picture. With her statement, “What I don’t understand, I can paint,” she leaves him, who tries to understand everything, speechless with amazement for a moment.
“The reason for art is art itself,” the film has Leibniz say. A principle that OUBEY has always followed in his artistic work.
OUBEY would have paid close attention to Edgar Reitz’s film. On the one hand, because he admired this director of the ten-part series “HEIMAT,” a true masterpiece of cinematic storytelling. On the other hand, because this outstanding director dedicated his late cinematic work to the brilliant mind with whom OUBEY felt so connected.
________________________________________________________________________________
There are six rooms in the OUBEY MINDSPACE. Each of them contains five different Mind Sparks, which in turn contain different impulses. Behind every Spark and every impulse is a story that tells us more about who OUBEY was and what he was like. These stories are told here by me.