#428 Obstructed View

This work features six folded cards with short descriptions of sounds. When exhibited, the cards can be shifted by gallery staff so the work can be experienced differently by visitors at separate times.

It was inspired by watching movies with subtitles for the hearing impaired. The fact that written language can function as a substitute for audial or visual input intrigued me. Of course, it can. How would we otherwise enjoy literature? But the reason for this is that sound and vision are perceived in the language register. Not only when watching television but seeing and hearing in general. Perception requires interpretation and is a semantic act. So adding another layer of language doesn't change the experience fundamentally.
Still, some levels of experience escape codification and can't be transferred into language. Perhaps we experience part of reality from outside the subjective position and instead from the place of the physical body. Not separated from the world but united and within the realm of matter. We can describe this experience as being outside the picture. The pictorial field (the illusion of depth being a semantic construction) always has an exterior, something obscured. Perception depends on the border of vision, but the frame itself is never visible.

There is something uncanny with a parallel line of information, not part of the image but at the same time influencing it, like a hidden demand that overrides the experience. I have chosen the sounds written on the cards and perhaps the image depicting a street corner to hint at a "noir" expression.

The series features works with an appendix placed on top of the work or close to it. This object is exterior to the image plane, the illusionary "window" in the picture, but is still an intrinsic part of the whole. It connects or makes visible the two dimensions of an artwork - its inner logic and its relation to its surrounding.
The title references the famous Coca-Cola campaign and Immanuel Kant's notion of the thing in itself. It means that subjects can only experience the phenomena as they present themselves through perception. It is always fundamentally different from what the things are outside language boundaries - in themselves.

Template is a compilation of works made by using pieces of wooden plates as templates. They function a bit as a mould or matrix for the finished work.

Reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List, I use simple and clearly defined actions to shape the filler in my works. This method ensures there are non-cognitive aspects of the production process, which allows for unknown elements to enter.