The Matrix of the Unconscious

To what extent are we free to script our own life story? What hidden processes influence the formation of our subconscious? Is it possible to break free from predetermined patterns through awareness and understanding of the processes that affect us?

The "Matrix of the Unconscious" project consists of two parts, each revealing a different aspect of how our unconscious mind, which predetermines our actions, decisions, reactions, and behaviors, is shaped. People have two options for existence: either they become slaves to the matrix that is imposed upon them, or they become conscious of it and use their strengths and weaknesses as authors for their own benefit and that of their surroundings.

Jung and Freud believed that ancestral traumas, family secrets, and repeated phrases from our parents and teachers in childhood and adolescence become sealed in the subconscious and often manifest as Fate or Destiny. However, by shedding light on them through awareness, we can gain control over these influences.

The project illustrates two levels of working with our subconscious.

The first part of the project, "Family Album," is an attempt to transform the ghosts from past generations into a family album. What has happened in our family's past often comes to us as unconscious patterns of behavior, dependencies, and fears. We can accept them as given or investigate where they came from by studying our family's history.

In the first part, artist Alina Takmelova creates a collage from photos of the past on the petals of the unconscious, which hang in space like echoes of the past. These petals resemble ghosts that are sealed in the frames of our unconscious memory, which also forms the matrix of the unconscious. Texts by scientists and psychologists will be presented on the walls to help us understand these ideas and inspire viewers to explore their own lineage and family tree, to open the family album where answers to our most intimate questions may be hidden.

Unconscious threads stretch from the past into our present, intertwining with new modern phrases and enveloping our unconscious mind.

The second part of the project, which we enter through a narrow corridor, draws our attention to what has happened in our lives. It focuses on the phrases we heard in childhood and in society, which formed certain behavior patterns for us. Here, our unconscious mind is depicted as pierced by needles connected to parasitic phrases that shape neither our desires nor our actions. The subconscious is presented as a unified bionic form, a reflection of our self. The phrases are mechanically written in a font that reminds us of phrases from the works of On Kawara. Viewers can unravel this form, freeing it from the needles, just as they can release themselves from external phrases that hinder their self-development.

Together, both parts reveal the "Matrix of the Unconscious," which is formed by the history of our lineage and our social environment. Becoming aware of this matrix is the path to personal freedom and individual consciousness.

Alina Tacmelova