HVW8 Gallery Berlin presents
JAYBO MONK
‘APOPHENIA’
OPENING: DECEMBER 15, 6 – 10 PM
DEC 15 – 22, 2018
Apophenia (/æpou´fi:niə/) is the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things. The term (German: Apophänie) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as “unmotivated seeing of connections a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness”.
He described the early stages of delusional thought as self-referential, over-interpretations of actual sensory perceptions, as opposed to hallucinations.
Jaybo Monk reflects on the perception of random data in our virtual world and social media. The most common examples of Apophenia are people seeing faces in clouds or in the moon. If Apophenia is about drawing connections and conclusions from sources with no direct connection other than their indissoluble perceptual simultaneity, then maybe virtuality is our new reality. Weed seeds grow into plants that may be rich in THC and other cannabinoids. The idea of reality is more real than reality itself. Ideas are taken without being questioned and we are living in a world of binary choices only. We are dead in a dead time where not seeing anything intelligible is the new normal. We are damned to dream towards reality and not away from it.
The paintings and objects presented in Apophenia are constructed within the idea of time spent to keep everything in a present moment which is a moment of no reflexion in itself. Through layers in his paintings and associations in his objects and sculptures Jaybo Monk wants us to re-appreciate time where the past and the future are the foundations of reality – and not the virtual present controlled by our smart phones and other illnesses.
Drinks by Warsteiner
HVW8 GALLERY BERLIN – LINIENSTR 161, 10115 BERLIN
OPENING HOURS: WED-FR 2-7 PM, SAT 12-6 PM