Cognitive Dissonance
2020
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 125 x 170 cm
Commissioned by Survival Kit 11
Courtesy of the artist
The pleasure of experiencing uncomfortable moments. Uncomfortable experiences that result in growth or at least in transfer of emotions. Reading emotions as a fulfilling process, which makes a provocation worthwhile. Making mistakes, constantly: the unpredictability of interaction is fostered by mistakes. Not admitting them, but if one happens to admit, then doing it Without Showing. Without Losing. Observing mistakes in communication as a pleasurable process. The sense of superiority against that background. The sense of superiority as a piece of merchandise. Longing, wishes, desires and even—possibly—needs as the currency. Observation and control as the market.
Yes, observation, data gathering, and control together equal the market. With these instruments, the market will show me the necessary things, necessary ideas, and education. I will be guaranteed safety but, alas, also subservience. The phenomenon of observation provides me with a sense of hatred, of jealousy. That sense is like bloodflow. I am provided with an incessant sense of anxiety, with only the moments when I am on top as consolation. In the virtual environment, the market is more obvious, yet it happens right here in the street as well. The same kind of surveillance, data gathering, and control. Statistics, payments, streetlights, cops, and security guards. Desire passes by in the form of a beautiful woman. Wishes and needs lie in wait in shop windows and signs. Glances that contain potential desire make me feel useful. The boring, exhausted mass reminds me of my privilege. But if I manage to disgust them with my self-image, it amounts to a victory. Identity, an attempt to recognise the nasty things it embraces, joining narratives—this is my visualisation of this ruthless aspect of capitalism, in which the sense of superiority is a commodity. A pathology of self-respect that cultivates the mistakes mentioned above.
Envija
Cognitive dissonance is the contradiction in a person’s views, values, and/or actions, leading to psychological stress, from which the mind has a tendency to liberate itself by changing the given views or values to vindicate actions.
Artist’s Bio:
The form is only a result that depends on one’s innate signature. My personal sense of beauty dictates that the solution is built from a dense (thought) material. My style of the Socratic purge is not a uniform emotion but a state resembling cognitive dissonance. I base it on and justify it by the complexity of being (intimate) and existence (external). To freeze in front of the work of art as I’m trying to explain it is my pleasure. As pleasurable intellectually as trying to understand—what’s going on?—and freezing again amidst half-truths.