Antwerp City Collection

In the video film Toymodel of Space, Panamarenko sits in the pilot's seat of his V1 Barada Jet – a small, single-person fighter jet in balsa wood, a sort of V1 with sawn-off wings – while he propounds on the nature of the universe. The ambitious aim of Toymodel of Space is articulated on the box of the video: namely, to reveal 'the mechanical model behind Kwantum'. Panamarenko presents Toymodel of Space as a new way to understand the workings of the cosmos. Toymodel fits within a much broader theory, rooted in Panamarenko’s preference for pre-Einsteinian physics. Panamarenko’s point of departure is a skepticism towards every 'given'. He believes in personal intuition as the artist's driving force. He investigates and recalculates everything himself. From science, he distills his own diversions, theories and concoctions. In Toymodel he calls Einstein's quantum theory into question - owing to it's being too complex - and proposes an alternative based on a much simpler, mechanical model. For Panamarenko, the true picture of Nature must be far simpler and wondrous. The practical purpose of Toymodel of Space is equally describable in simple terms: the accomplishment of a 'real' manned flight by making use of forces already present in the universe.