PLATO'S CAVE

An opaque "skylight" illuminates the white tiled vault revealing the shadows of passersby. The effect is analogous to the scenario in Plato's, The Allegory of the Cave.

Invited artists will create an installation and a limited edition artwork for the vault space taking off from the many ideas represented in The Allegory of the Cave. In this context—as Plato himself—the artist is a lover and seeker of truth.

In keeping with the Eidia House moniker, “a meeting place for ideas” and “idée force” (the arts as an instrument for positive social change) a dinner and round-table will be held for the artists and invited guests during the duration of the one-month exhibition.

Is our world like that of the inhabitants of Plato's Cave—in fear of the real truth that lies beyond the shadow of the façade? The Eidia House Plato’s Cave posits that the "shadows" are not the reality, and that reality continues to elude us.

Where as, to quote the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek, “Say, are the puppeteers who deal with the shapes political manipulators, so that Plato also proposes an implicit theory of ideological manipulation, or are we, cavemen, directly deluding ourselves? However, there is a deeper problem here, which could be best put in Hegel's terms. One can, of course, start with the naïve notion of people perceiving true reality from a limited/distorted perspective and thus constructing in our imagination false idols which we mistake for the real thing; the problem with this naïve notion is that it reserves for us the external position of a neutral observer who can, from his safe place, compare true reality with its distorted mis(perception). What gets lost here is that we all ARE these people in the case-so how can we, immersed into the cave's spectacle, as it were step onto our own shoulder and gain insight into true reality?” J E P - Number 18 - 2004 / 1 “Burned by the Thing” Slavoj Zizek http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number18/zizek.htm

The limited editions will be co-produced by the artists and Eidia. The artist group Eidia (pronounced idea) is the collaboration of Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf.

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