preface-extract of the catalogue „Realities – Dieter Wessinger“ (translation)

(…) In his video works Dieter Wessinger confronts the viewer with own individual patterns of behavior and habbits of perception. Constantly seeking and examining „the jungle of realities“ Wessinger experiments with the different levels of the human perception process and its potential of impact. By constructing seemingly funny, senseless or absurd situations - far away from common known realities – he undermines our inner „navigation system“, that usually leads us safely through our (not always) completely defined or determined world. (...)

(…) Its all about the permanent question of reliability or possibility for manipulation of our perception, which happens to be an existential need for our mental health and physical being. (...)

(…) These video works appear unusual, unconventional, worrying, strange, even weard or absurd,... for they seem to irritate our sense of mind and our ability of perception and judgement. But in the end, they don´t give us any reason for blocking uncertainty, they widely open the viewers eyes for their creative potential. (...)

(…) „... but the experience of creating something that not neccessarily has to exist/to be ... and achieves a form for just an instance … is inevitable. - Without it everything would be static-identical, lifeless“, because, „the outside reality“, so Gerhard Roth, „is continuously being constructed as „internal environment“ within the human brain: as a cognitive, aesthetical... and social world. We do not run through the world, it is the world that runs through us“. Latest cognitions of modern brain research renew and confirm Kant´s theory of „the immanence of conscience“ of a world, whichs perception always happens to be „inside“, and freely chooses its individual form of expression.

Dieter Wessinger visualizes the challenge of recognition and understanding; he puts question marks over conventionell patterns of perception and experience by constructing irrational settings with pictural means. In doing so he meets the nearly undescribable field of the complex human perception. So in a way everything seems to end up in the question: Are you sure?

text: german by Agnes Harff-Hilger / translation: Pamela Reiniger