Online viewing Room Ernst Koslitsch

Thougts about creating a universe

I discovered Philip K. Dick at quite a young age. I loved his books – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The Man in the High Castle and Minority Report are some of his more famous books, later turned into movies and series.

My world being classically chaotic and very spontaneous, I found myself drawn to Philip K. Dick’s confession that he liked to create universes that fall apart, in order to see how his characters would adapt to change. I recognized this formula in my work. In 2007, a few months before my son was born, I found out that the title of my favourite art-fair frieze that year was how to build a universe that does not fall apart in two days.

Unknowingly for the world beyond, it forced me to hold on to this in quiet and to put that title to one side. In so many ways, that artist then was scared of being compared or being called a copycat. That no longer matters to me. We are virtually connected on so many planes and therefore influenced in so many ways, just everyone takes what they need, progress it and then expresses it in their own personal way.

If someone compares me to another famous artist, I am flattered, not hurt, but I still know that I am me and I see me in my work and that is the most important thing. I cannot stop myself from painting or building something just because it might resemble the art of somebody else. I do not do art that way. I stand in front of my pieces of wood or my canvas and then a process of flow occurs.

In life there are all kinds of ways in which you can build worlds. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, opened doors to a huge world, in which you could travel and in your own way build your own world or worlds. The author J.R.R. Tolkien, built a world on paper that unleashed a fantasy in our minds. These worlds are all interwoven and inter-inspirational.

Ron Hubbard is a perfect example. He created a religion with over 40,000 followers, based on his fictional novels. Through ideologies portrayed in books and film we can connect and analyse ourselves, facilitating ourselves in formulating our story; in my case it has always been Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) created a futuristic world on screen that influenced decades of people. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs co-founded Apple; they built worlds. Wozniak was a huge Star Trek fan. The main Star Trek actors, William Shatner  and Leonard Nimoy as Spock, were testimonials for Nasa. Uhura, the female bridge officer on the Enterprise, played a role in Nasa recruiting women.

Over the years, science fiction has played an important role in our development, acting as a model for a better world. In the case of the original Star Trek series in the 1960s, was exemplary.

Roddenberry often used the setting of a spaceship set many years in the future to comment on social issues of 1960s America, including sexism, racism, nationalism and global war. The main crew consisted of a complicated alien (Mr. Spock), a black man and women on the bridge and a Russian bridge navigator (this was at the time of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union). Star Trek also depicted one of the first interracial kisses on the screen. Today you can create worlds in an even smaller scale. The only tool you need is the internet and social media, here you can build all kinds of worlds, fictional or real.

This is the matrix that fascinates me.