Human is the entrails of a cave
VICTOR RIBAS
Installation (2020)
''Human is the underside of a cave''
We are used to the fact that man controls nature. It changes the surrounding space with one goal-to make it safe and comfortable for yourself. Everything that surrounds us is our extension of our body-repeatedly reinforced with more durable and replaceable materials, and thus improved. If you listen to the poet Konstantin Kedrov, you can see that our home is our body turned outwards, but not physical, but spiritual.

"Man is the underside of the sky
The sky is the underside of a person."

Kedrov called this sensation, which is perceived not only by the mind, but also by all our senses working simultaneously at this moment, as an "insider". This proves that the UNIVERSE IS OUR IMMORTAL BODY, our body turned into the universe, but we are also the UNIVERSE turned inside out.
His philosophical discovery refers us to the highest moral law of Emmanuel Kant:
"the starry sky is above my head, the moral law is in me" and reveals this unusual sense of the world in which all the space around is part of a person.
If the modern dwelling is formed by the body of a modern person and is its inverted prototype, then the same cannot be said about the ancient dwelling of a man — a cave. Rather, ancient man himself became a derivative of his refuge created by nature, bringing to us in the outlines of his body the natural curves and living forms of the earth's interior. Perhaps it was then that a person had the ability to instantly assess such vital qualities of the room, which we find ourselves in for the first time, as safety and the ability to protect against natural phenomena and animals. Gradually, it was transformed into an aesthetic sense that unmistakably compares the beauty of the room with its usefulness.
Viewing caves, catacombs, and underground passages is no less exciting than exploring architectural masterpieces. The contemplation of the inner space of the Earth takes place with the inclusion of all the senses, it resembles an acquaintance with a person — each space has its own personality, character, beauty or ugliness, it attracts or terrifies. The human body seems to have absorbed the best qualities of its ancient shelter and, according to the philosophical metaphor of Konstantin Kedrov, visually represents the inversion of the underground space: "Man is the underside of a cave." The artist Victor Ribas, exploring the human body with laser beams, draws on it the very boundaries between the inner and outer space of a person, which with all its intellectual and emotional experience looks like a volume, a concentration of all that is human in a person, and, on the other hand, as a protective space that, like a saving cave, can become a refuge for another person.