Points de référence

Points de référence (Reference points) examines the notion of shared experience through aphantasia. It is an immersive space, the projection of a troubled mind for which reality is uncertain and changing.

Aphantasia is the inability to represent a mental image. We are all on the spectrum between aphantasia and hyperphantasia. It affects pictorial auditory and olfactory images and profoundly influences the way we think, remember and perceive the world. We design our reality based on these perceptions and memories. Our brain takes the oceans of information that flood our senses and transforms them into a subjective inner world that seems immutable. Over time, the memories that construct this reality change and become out of sync with those of others, even if they are common experiences.

When our worldview changes, we modify our memories to address cognitive dissonance. Furthermore, we tend to see and hear what we expect to see and hear, and everything leads us to believe that this is the reality, and even that this reality is shared by others. We don’t have the same reference points and we don’t have the same memories; it’s a miracle that we understand each other, if indeed we can be understood at all.

This installation plays with the limits of the visual system, so artists and spectators, although present at the same time, perceive very personal realities. Afterwards, as they compare them, they build a new composite and collective reality.

Artists :
Jonathan O’Hear and Carolina Restrepo

Exhibition
07 – 19 june 2022
Mo-Sa 4pm-7pm / Su 11am-4pm and on appointment

Flux laboratory
5, rue de la muse
1205 Genève
T +41 22 308 14 50