"Our eyes constantly perform Rapid Eye Movements as we track and trace the information on our LCD screens. We feel mesmerized, half asleep. To most of us the logic that governs that virtual space is a complete mystery. It might be the same logic, however, that sustains our fear for the messiness of life; a fear that has seeped into our living rooms.

In many disciplines, being allergic to messiness is no issue at all – in history, however, it is. Because, as Susan van Veen makes crystal clear, history is formed by transmutation and discontinuity. Susan navigates between that dreamlike and physical world, to dig up ‘immaterial gems’: those Rare Earth Minerals that form an intricate network of visual, rational and intuitive correlations. These suggest that a Warburgian ‘secret life of forms’ hides behind the image on the fluorescent screen.

Each perfect imprint of information leads to the next reflective surface. The hand of a Namibian miner that dug up those rare earth minerals intimately joins the hand of Botticelli’s high-res Primavera, whose hand in turn melts into the one that directs the dream."

-Jasper Coppes