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Jan Estep

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On Certainty

[2010-2011] The time-lapsed video On Certainty, 2010, records the artist (myself) writing a philosophical joke in large letters on the wall. It begins, “I am sitting with a philosopher in a garden …” accompanied by the sounds of birdcall and the forest. The words continue to describe someone transfixed by a tree, wondering if it is real. His skepticism leads him to a mental and emotional space that seems strange to a passerby, as the narrator explains the philosopher’s dilemma. The viewer feels a similar strangeness by the delay of the words being written out by hand as the mind tries to anticipate what comes next. The text is excerpted from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book, On Certainty, from which the video also gets its name. The related video On Certainty, Take Two, 2011, records another narrative, this time a meeting with a Buddhist monk, who offers a very different perspective on the problem of naming and certainty. The text is adapted from Pema Chodron’s book, Start Where You Are.

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