The basic idea

To place a detached stranger in different situations to see what happens.  It is a strategy to make the circumstances (physical, linguistic, social, religious, familial, and technological) more obvious. A stranger with no relation to the surroundings is more aware of cultural codes than a person who is part of the culture. To look at a figure like that make us more aware to.

The project "State of Mind" is based on a a sculpted head. Placed in various contexts it become a fictional person who tell stories about the circumstances under which he / she is present. This person is called "State of Mind" and has an ambigious sex, age, and cultural belonging. He / she is appearing in different conditions but with the same facial expression and lands in situations as one would do for the very first time. One could say that "State of Mind" is a probe sent into strange or familiar environments to become a neutral and calibrated meter, measuring the "temperature" of the physical and social surroundings. We are free to interpret the the circumstances as on would with an alter ego. Empathetically, with our participation we become the stranger who in a way become a substitute for our dreams, desires and beliefs.

Facial expression
Escaping any decisiveness about the state of mind. An facial ambivalence balancing between indifference and emapthy, seriousness and irony.

Role models:

• Alfred the figure from MAD magazine ,although in a humoristic way, is popping up everywhere with the same smile on his face.
• Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
• Fredrik V of Danmark by Carl Gustaf Pilo.

The first head was modeled in clay.
This were later on taken cast of and used in paintings, sculptures, installations and photo montages.

Related:
The film "Barry Lyndon" by Stanley Kubrick where Barry; the principal role, is trying to adopt to various circumstances.
The film "The Man Without a Past" by Aki Kaurismäki.