MIND – THE GAP is a multimedia exhibition by the artist and entrepreneur Herwig Kopp. It is dedicated to the explanatory gap: the space, the omission, the neglected, the left over, the unused, the absent – the dash that links as well as interrupts. It uses art and the findings of brain research to build – or demolish – bridges between the gaps in our thought, in our language, and in our experience.
MIND – THE GAP takes five approaches that shape visitor interaction without predetermining it: (1) collaboration (as opposed to the idea of the individual genius); (2) polysemy (as opposed to univocal interpretation); tropes (mechanisms of comprehension and communication); (4) the experience of all senses (as opposed to intellectual understanding alone); (5) feedback, motivation, learning, and repetition (to augment the resonance of its message). This framework – geared to artists, academics, and a general audience – plays with the explanatory gap, a gap that both connects and severs under the pretense of connection. The installation expands on the idea of the cadavre exquis – creating a diffuse referential system of experimental film, installation, intervention, and performance – to fulfill the horror vacui – the fear that empty spaces could be devoid of meaning.