Solid State Dream

Open Forum is honored to present SOLID STATE DREAM, Fynn Ribbeck’s first solo exhibition in Berlin. Like many artists in his generation, Ribbeck is interested in the point of intersection between our digital and corporal worlds. In Ribbeck’s work, this area of intersection is surreal and blurred, bracketed by the dream world. A monumental two channel video installation sets the context for a group of sculpture and wall works.

In the video, we experience a hypnotic and completely animated world, filmed by an “analog camera” which Ribbeck built in virtual reality (including its own particular film and lenses). The piece depicts an artificial thought, a recurring dream on loop, emulating images not seen by the eye, but by the mind. We encounter staggeringly banal imagery: the gym, a tree, a cat. Within the exaggerated architecture and surreal color palette, our mind both seeks and projects meaning to the dreamlike symbology.

Characters and objects from the video seem to cross the digital barrier and emerge into the space in sculptural form. Ribbeck creates the sculptures in virtual reality and then printed them as a pattern on skin like, silicone material. After cutting out the flat shapes, Ribbeck rebuilds the sculptures in the physical world by intricately sewing their pieces together.

The wall works are multi layered and are inspired by traditional cell animation, where each frame of a film would be painted onto a transparent celluloid sheet and then photographed by a camera
the pictures show overlapping frames of subtle movement. Hinting at animation,
the each piece’s layers are derived from 3d models that have been unwrapped to the 2 dimensional.

At the turn of the 20th century, the emerging field of psychology responded to the acceleration of our experiences brought on by modernity. It was thought that analyzing dreams could provide a map that would lead us to an understanding of ourselves in this new world. As we continue to journey into the digital, we encounter an even more accelerated and vast world of experience. Perhaps surrendering to a computing power larger than our capacity, letting go of analysis and dreaming, is a way forward on this path.

Nick Koenigsknecht