#515 Reading Interrupted

Reading proposal 1: Imagine every person as a letter in a vast alphabet. Together, we form words, sentences, and paragraphs that make up our institutions and societies in the great book of humanity. Will the story have a happy ending? Though it looks bleak, all we have to do is arrange ourselves in an order that spells out the narrative we aspire to in our hearts.

Reading proposal 2: Imagine if we suddenly lost our ability to read and understand words. Letters look like weird shapes, and the words sound like gibberish. We could still understand facial expressions and body language, you might say. But imagine they also were incomprehensible. A smile is just a strange grimace. Even further, imagine even a face and everything we see turning into abstract shapes we couldn’t understand. Images need to correspond to something in our minds to be perceived. You might argue that we could still react instinctively and mechanically to avoid pain and attract pleasure like nutrition and warmth. But imagine if we couldn’t. Even these concepts must be distinguished; discernment is language's foundation. Without it, we would float around in a boundless environment without meaning, unable to support ourselves and reproduce. Finally, we would cease to exist. This is a world without language. Language is life. They are the same. In the beginning, was the Word…

See a video presentation here.

Speaking Stones is a compilation of paintings made with imprints of ordinary stones.

I see the stone as a metaphor for popular struggle and protest. It is the closest available weapon to the powerless. Throwing stones is a symbolic form of violence. The aim is not to overpower the opponent physically. It demonstrates defiance in the face of power by expressing concretely that the premises of the situation aren't acceptable. The stone speaks but not in a language open to negotiation or dialogue. A conversation means accepting the context in which it takes place and is thus always, to a certain degree, a form of submission. The language of stones is the language of mute matter. A form of silence that nevertheless speaks clearly and directly. The stone represents the resistance in itself from a place outside of language.

The stone is an entirely exchangeable and ordinary object that exists everywhere. At the same time, each stone is unique and has its own beauty and unfathomable mystery for anyone open to seeing it. This duality fascinates me. A stone is perhaps the closest we can get to a thing-in-itself, bound as we are to language. Sealed around itself, oblivious to the outside world. Simply existing. In a way, we can never truly understand. Infinite in its everydayness. Specific and concrete in its presence.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.