Black Cube

In my last video short you see the workings of the World Clock and the mechanics behind the facade. I love the contrast between my crackpot engineering and the multi echoed chant "Build Back Better". The video has a kind of uplifting effect on me, very welcome during these weird staggering days. I think of building these machines as creating 3D collages, and in video it gets even four dimensional. The practice of collecting fragments, a newspaper headline, a photo, a part of a dream, driftwood on the beach, different things combined together... that's my strategy to make sense of the world. Making these things is lovely in itself, but when the result is also amusing it's extra rewarding.

Let me now continue in a whispering tone because it's not just making the piece, finding the right things to combine, it's also helpful in directing the observing gaze. There is this beautiful Dutch word 'toeval' best translated as coincidence. In my language the word forms a contraction of two separate words: towards & fall. I like that notion very much, insights or events falling towards a possibly unsuspecting maker. This is exactly how I prefer to let a work grow. Opening myself to things that unveil themselves, things that make sense in hindsight.

The regular reader of my blog came across the Kaaba in Mecca with the black stone at one corner, touched by the pilgrims during the the Hajj rituals. I wrote about the piece of basalt that I found washed ashore. How the stone formed the center of my World Clock. The small cutouts of world leaders grouped around it, the fragments and the lunacy in the daily news, how it all combined and intersected, forming a theme. The black cube as elusive power conveyor and mystical portal to summon the connection with the unconscious.

At some point during the work at my clock, imbued by the symbolism of it all, I stumbled on the image of Prof. Klaus Schwab in my twitter stream. Mister and Misses Schwab sitting in a conference room at the Davos World Economic Forum. We see them in lively exchange with the Dutch delegation consisting of Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Rutte and Minister of foreign affairs Sigrid Kaag among others. Via Google image search I found a similar picture in a slightly different setting, same room, same carpet and chairs, only a different salon table. This time it's the United States delegation visiting. Present is Jared Kushner, advisor to the (former) President, his wife Ivanka Trump and her father Donald Trump, acompanied by senior level officials.

Prominently placed on both tables we see the black cube again. Oh no, wait a minute Roos! This does not necessarily mean that the cube functions as a symbolic object, evoking sorcery and multi dimensional power fields, aimed at the unwary world population. By no means it signals a reference to Kabalistic knowledge shared by all attendants as hidden undercurrent in all the discussions...

The cube of space as occult concept has nothing to do with this. Professor Schwab's cube could just be a holder for disposable tissues or a design pen set with corespondence cards. Maybe there is a naughty flask of whisky and two glasses hidden inside. Your guess is as good as mine. This is what New York based designer Stefan Sagmeister states about the concept of the black cube: