Liminal Place

In my recent work I have produced sculptures and installations, in which I disrupt the regular arrangement of sentences and words. The resulting lack of order is then manipulated in such a way to obtain a new tangible reality. My aim, with these projects, is to explore the unknown realms between language and not-language, between communication and silence. Silence is often seen as the reverse of language, however silence is an integral part of the message, as not only does it divide and link sentences, but it is also to be found inside of them and is, furthermore, inhabited by them as well. To communicate is to put into language (spoken, written, digital, visual, sound), a process which establishes the boundary between static order and incomprehensible chaos. This boundary between order and chaos is constantly in a state of flux and forever being redrawn.

Finding relatable meaning in today’s flow of data plays an important role in understanding the world we live in and our place in it. Information overload may cause stress and fragmentation. Silence may often seem the only alternative in this threatening disorder. However this data glut also contains the opportunity for creativity and connection.

With the digitalization of the media, our own semiotic production is becoming more and more complex and abundant. Signs are proliferating. There is hardly a space without writing in it or a quiet time to be found. Silence stands in the way of the speeding up of life. Additionally, the built-in silences in speech and writing are being shortened or eliminated by new media technologies. In fact, our knowledge is increasingly experienced, shared, learned, recorded and stored digitally. Our identities are increasingly shaped by faster modes of communication and by the footprints created in the process. When new signs take the place of silence, the relationship between communication and silence becomes more intimate, more microcosmic, and takes on altogether new forms.

The figure is retreating from the sensory overload in order to interpret and connect this chaotic information glut. The pause or introspection is paramount not only to understand the contrasting, fragmented flow of information she is continuously subjected to, but more importantly, the ‘thinking pause’ also becomes a constitutive element of thought itself and therefore of creation. The moment of inspiration comes when chaos and its absence come together.

The figure’s outer layer, made of parcels of text and images, aims at capturing the complexity of human beings, as well as placing subjectivity in correlation with social and cultural factors. In this project the fragments of knowledge become part of the figure; they seem to flow into each other to form a new whole. This new whole, however, is never static or finished. As an innumerable amount of events and encounters concur to form and shape every individual one could also say that human beings are made of various fragments (memories, images, text and people we meet) and therefore made of parts of others. Accepting the fact that we are made of parts of others, may involve dealing with a subjectivity, which expands beyond the subject itself to include otherness and chaos within. Read more