Art

I am Torsten Schubert, and I work as an artist. This page is about my work and about why it belongs in the Denkraum. For me, a picture and a conversation have something in common: neither of them hands you an answer. Both give you something to look at, and both leave you free to see it differently from the person next to you.

Thinking with pictures

The Denkraum Project is built on a simple hope: that people in many places around the world sit down in small groups and talk about the big questions, each group from its own corner of the world, each with its own voice. My pictures are made in the same spirit. They do not explain, and they do not tell you what to think. They show scenes, and they leave a gap for the viewer.

That is why I like to imagine one picture hanging in a room in Hamburg and, in the same week, being looked at by a group in another country. Both groups would see the same image, and the conversations would almost certainly go in different directions. That difference is exactly what the Denkraum is for.

The Silhouettes series

In every picture of the series Silhouettes there is a small black figure without a face. It stands, sits or waits somewhere in a scene, and the scene itself is colourful, crowded and often a little unsettling. The pictures are digital collages: I combine many elements into one image and then place the silhouette inside it. Some works from the series have been shown in exhibitions.

The silhouette has no face and no story of its own. It is a place in the picture where the viewer can stand. If you take that place, the question is no longer "What does the artist mean?" but "What do I see from here, and what would someone else see from over there?" This is also what we try to do in a philosophical conversation: to look at the same thing from different positions and to listen to what the others see.

Under each picture below you will find a question. These questions are invitations, not interpretations. Take one of them to your next conversation group, or simply sit with it for a while.

Silhouettes: the dance floor. Couples of different ages dance together, and somewhere in the middle there is a faint dark figure.
Question: Who is dancing with whom, and who is only watching?

Silhouettes: the chessboard. Giants of stone look down on small transparent cubes with tiny people inside, set on a chessboard. A silhouette stands among them.
Question: Who moves the pieces, and who decided that there is a game?

Silhouettes: two worlds. A ruin and a barren tree face a tropical scene in which people wear VR headsets. A silhouette sits between them.
Question: Which of the two worlds would you choose, and what would you give up for it?

Silhouettes: the balloon. In a ruined landscape a woman lets go of a pink balloon with a postcard attached. A silhouette sits nearby.
Question: What would you write on the postcard, and who should find it?

Silhouettes: a short history of everything. Mammoths, a gorilla, robots, astronauts and a basketball game share one picture. A silhouette sits among them.
Question: Which of these steps do you call progress, and by what measure?

Sculptures

Besides the pictures I make sculptures, and they stand on the Denkraum grounds in Second Life. There is a pencil that bends toward a sheet of paper, and a small figure in a blue coat who winks at you. A pencil can be a tool, a weapon or a question mark, depending on how you look at it. A sheet of paper can be empty or full of everything that has not yet been written on it. You can walk around these works and see them from every side. A thing often looks different from the other side, and so does a question.

Sculpture: the bent pencil. An orange pencil, bent and twisted into an arc, touches a sheet of paper on which a closed eye appears.
Question: What does it take to write something down, and what does it cost?

Sculpture: the winking figure. A small figure in a blue coat and red hair, walking, with one large eye that winks. In Second Life the eye winks when someone looks at it.
Question: Who is winking at whom, and what does the wink say?

Where art and conversation meet

In the Denkraum, pictures and sculptures are not decoration. They are a way in. It can be easier to begin with a picture than with a person: you look at the same thing, you notice that you see different things, and from there the conversation starts almost by itself. That is what I hope for when a group stands in front of one of my works, in Second Life or somewhere in the real world.

From time to time we also plan art actions, moments in which the art steps out of its frame and invites you to take part. These are ideas, not promises, and we will announce them here on the blog.

Join in

• Visit the Denkraum in Second Life, walk around the sculptures and join a conversation. You will find the location on the World Map page.
• Start a group of your own and put one of these questions on the table for the first evening.
• Tell me what you saw. If a picture led your group somewhere unexpected, I would like to hear about it. You can reach me through the contact form in the sidebar.

Read more about the idea behind the project in the post Welcome to the Denkraum.