Topographical Portrait

The work consists of 12 cylindrical steel display cases holding acrylic containers filled with oil. Inside, they hold silicone casts of the artist's skin. The self-portrait maps out the surface of human beings, showing parts of the body's skin, ears, hands, feet, elbows, knees, and the stomach with the navel, man's original link with the outside world. Here the hand is nothing but transparent skin, a sign of human frailty; a shell where the rest of the world is gone. The hand is a negation, supine and inactive. The work questions the notion of existence; the body is fragmented. Do we even exist as entire, whole bodies in space? The work gives visual form to methods of measurement while also pondering how man is linked to his surroundings. The work is characteristic of Torben Ebbesen's approach, which combines science and philosophy and juxtaposes unlikely materials in startling combinations.