人类圈

Ben G. Fodor: NOOSPHERE

C-Prints on Dibond, framed

In the cycle noosphere, Ben G. Fodor addresses a changing view of the world that becomes possible under the conditions of globalisation and mass migration.

At the time the series was created in 2007, the artist, who fled Hungary in 1981, noted: "Through exile, one is gradually attains a state og being for which I have subsequently found the term 'in the orbit of the mind‘. The experience of exile is the space capsule from which I can begin to photograph. What I try to see from this perspective with the camera is a new universe - literally an 'invented' universe, concocted from photograhically found objects. The images show real, familiar objects and scenarios, photographed without special lenses and not digitally processed; but photographed in such a way as to allow for a completely new look at things.

A vibrating layer of zeitgeist wraps around the surface of the earth, like in a beehive before the bees swarm out. This social climate change demands new perspectives: It needs the multiperspectivity of the migrants’ gaze."

noosphere means "sphere of human thought". An "intelligent cover“ around the globe that embraces all mental processes. The term was coined in the 1920s by the theologian Teilhard des Chardin and the biogeochemist Vladimir Wernadski, and revived in the 1980s by media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan. Fodor did not pursue the virtual reality implications of the word, but sought to reinvent the noosphere in artistic terms.

Exhibited a. o.: Main exhibition steirischer herbst Graz 2008 at Minoriten Galerien

An artist's book on noosphere was published in 2007 with an essay by Marc Gisbourne. Cathrin Pichler was involved into the project as a curator.