Light Art: “Indirect Realism”

“Indirect Realism” by Leo Jahaan.
LED Light and Sand-Blasted Plexiglass, 2014.
160 cm x 112 cm.

This photo appears courtesy of the Pop Up Art Gallery in Berlin where the piece was first shown.

This artwork depicts the human nervous system – at first it’s difficult to comprehend the sections to the left and right of the head as being human, however this shows the facial nerves when flattened to a 2D surface.

The design of this artwork is based on an engraving first published by Sir Charles Bell almost 200 years ago. Bell was one of the first to conduct an in-depth study of the pathways of the nervous system. One can only imagine his surprise if he could have seen this modern interpretation, the result of his studies depicted as a life-sized internally-lit pulsating object.

The title ‘Indirect Realism’ refers to a philosophical position that proposes ‘our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation. We do not and cannot perceive the external world as it really is but know only our ideas and interpretations of the way the world is. Our ideas of the world are interpretations of sensory input’.

(definitions courtesy Wikipedia)