Figures of Speech. following pages:

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1 following pages: Figures of Speech Figures of Speech as a series came about when I revisited three earlier works in a floor sculpture titled Silent Element (Figures of Speech) and lecture titled Figures of Speech 1. The revisited works are: The Complex Object (Affecting Abstraction 3), Object and Disintegration: The Object of Three and O Eu e o Tu / The I and the You The reason to revisit these works was that the relation between them was very significant for me and I felt that I could extract out of this relation another narrative, something that I didn t consciously inscribe in the works but that nonetheless was there and very relevant for what I was thinking about. The three works represent a very clear process. The first work consists of the construction of an object in language. Not any or any specific object but the most complex and complete object I could imagine. The second work describes from different points of view the disintegration of an object into a situation that exists only in the relations that are continuously enacted. The third work is an ongoing diagrammatic investigation into how given constructions of subjectivity can be undermined through simple acts like mirroring, placing, editing etc.

2 Manifesto Machine Speech, 15min, 2008 For the Serpentine s Manifesto Marathon I connected Deleuze/Guattari s idea of the abstract machine to the idea of an affectively charged construction of autonomy and subjectivity that I had been working with. This resulted in the development of a dynamic subjectivity, less author-based than in my previous works, and more constructed around the notion of agency. Silent Element (Figures of Speech) floor sculpture, 450 x 530cm and variable dimensions, 2008 After the manifesto I made the first work in which I came back to the three previous works, in the form of a diagrammatic representation, a sculpture without text. I made the floor piece to draw a plane between these older works and as a formal directive to facilitate new enquiries. The text on the following page From I to I-machine is a reforumulation of the concept that was developed in Manifesto Machine.

3 From I to I-machine in: Manifesto Machine, 2008 and rewritten in: Conceptual reconstruction concerning form: Figures of Speech, 2009 [ ] a] The I has multiple existences. To start with there is an I in the form of an actual person, a living and lived person, speaking and spoken to (I You), an individual Me. As well, there is a Universal I, an I that constitutes the possibility to speak beyond the given. An I that speaks in a field of belief instead of knowledge. There is a specific concept I constructed through a particular grammar and discourse. And finally there is the I as I-machine. Here, the specific singular notion of the I as concept is the I as I-machine. b] I-machine is a singularity, an abstract machine with the proper name I-machine. The proper name here does not designate an individual: The proper name I-machine is given to the changing forms of the artist s agency within a practice. I-machine does not function to represent, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality. Thus when it constitutes points of creation or potentiality it does not stand outside development but is instead always prior to it. c] I-machine comprises st able factors and factors that change according to the variables I-machine encounters. Here the stability in the concept-i or I-machine consists of the fact that it constitutes agency that enables speech and the coupling of the words that are generated with actual changes in the state of things. In other words: I-machine ties together that what can be seen as the possibility to speak with the possibility to act. d] The instability of I-machine consists of that which defines it as a body and its effects: The total of the elements belonging to it under given conditions and the total of the intensive affects it is capable of. Although I-machine always has agency, that what it can speak about and that what it can affect, varies, depending on the position it occupies. I-machine therefore takes on different forms. In other words: Each position constitutes a different I-machine. [ ]

4 Figures of Speech 1 Text-based performance with powerpoint, 20min / DVD, 13:54min, 2008 Manifesto Machine and Silent Element (Figures of Speech) were combined into Figures of Speech 1. Figures of Speech 1 departs from the idea of the artist as a constructed author-subject acting within a work of art and is an attempt to articulate the potential of a sense of agency that extends the border of the artwork by producing affects and effects. The performance is built up of two parts. The first part comprises the development of the concept of the I-machine as that what produces affects and effects and is constantly changing. The second part traces the changing forms of the artist s agency (and how agency can be structurally transferred away from the artist) in the previously mentioned works. These works are introduced by a short description and each specific construction of the author-subject is re-articulated as a Position - a speaking position, that is to say, a specific condition of speaking (from) within a work of art that equals the construction of the work and comprises too the construction of its own conditions of reception. slide 47 There are four positions: Position 4 is not based on a previous work, but more a speculation on what could develop when taking in account Virno s writing about the notion of virtuosity in relation to performativity and political action. slide 70

5 This page and following pages: Figures of Speech (diagrammed) Mdf, paint, metal, nylon, foamboard, digital prints, dimension variable, but approximately 7-8 x 13m and 190cm high Figures of Speech (diagrammed) is a spatial elaboration of Figures of Speech 1 incorporating the floor piece Silent Element (Figures of Speech). The flat pieces of the diagrammatic floorpiece have been slightly spread out, to make room for a tube structure with several panels. The spectator can walk into the work and occupy several defined positions in the diagram where one side of the panels explains the specific transference of agency that happens in these places and addresses the spectator as an active party in the triangular relationship between artist, artwork, and spectator. The other side of the panels refers to the work that the diagram and lecture is based on, in a more informative way.

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7 Position 1 When speaking from this position one exists as part of the context that is created by speaking. This context, in return, sets the limits of what can be concretely spoken about. Therefore each speech-act simultaneously constructs and affects the speaker itself. Although what is said is both expressed and perceived as in the present, because the effective circuit between the speaker, the spoken and the context is self-contained, the affects that are produced beyond these limits always exist in the past or the future. panel 1 front side Figures of Speech (diagrammed)

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9 This page and following pages: Figures of Speech (Formation of a Crystal) Installation consisting of 4 wall sculptures, 4 posters and a table Figure 1-4, wood, paint, fabric Posters Figure 1-4, digital prints, 59,4 84,1cm Table, wood, paint, 80x160x280cm The four wall based works - part costume, part wall sculpture and part deconstructable sculptural elements (Figure 1-4) are based on the four positions developed in Figures of Speech 1 and Figures of Speech (diagrammed). This implies that the first three Figures refer back to The Complex Object (Affecting Abstraction #3), Object and Disintegration: The Object of Three and O Eu e o Tu / The I and the You. The fourth position / Figure 4 does not refer to a previous work but to a speculative speech-condition based on the concept of virtuousity as worked on by Virno. Through the concretization of the positions as sculptures a logic of/in language is broken by a formal and material logic that aims at interrupting and fracturing the idea of linear progress implied in the previous works in the series Figures of Speech. The two texts on each poster describe specific the speech-acts and conditions connected to the sculpture and its history, respectively as recollected past (in past simple tense) and passing present (description as image in present simple tense). The table, together with the possibility of deconstruction of the sculptures, points towards a future performance/video in which the Figures of Speech will meet on equal terms in search of a different approach to criticality. exhibition views Hollybush Gardens, London, 2009

10 Figure 1 (Context, Past, Present, Future) Figure 3 (Conditions of Agency) Figure 2 (Collaboration and Subjectivity) Figure 4 (Production of Speech) The four figures (graphic representation)

11 A figure existed as part of the context it produced by speaking. This context, in return, set the limits of what the figure could concretely speak about. Therefore everything that this figure would speak about simultaneously constructed and affected the speaking figure itself. Because the figure consistently spoke from the context produced by that which had already been said, the fleeting present of its speech act was doubled by a past-presentfuture distinct from natural time. A figure speaks with the intention of installing a logic of transformation between disparate conditions. The figure constructs, acts and reflects from the context it is part of. At the same time, the figure exists as part of a process of re-articulation of its own position as a vehicle for the transformation of its concrete form. The figure's speech is both expressed and perceived as if in the present, but because the effective circuit between the speaker, the spoken and the context is selfcontained, the affects that are produced beyond these limits, always exist in the past or the future. Figure 1 (Context, Past, Present, Future)

12 Figure 3 (The Conditions of Agency) Figure 4 (The Production of Speech)

13 IN THE EVENT OF SUSPICION (groupshow) Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, DE Falke Pisano Documentation exhibitions 2010

14 Conceptual reconstruction concerning form: Figures of Speech 2, 2009, 3 framed digital prints, each 61 x 41 cm Figure 1 (Context, Past, Present, Future), 2009, wall painting, wall text, approx. 250cm h x 200cm w

15 Conceptual reconstruction concerning form: Figures of Speech 2, 2009, 3 framed digital prints, each 61 x 41 cm

16 PUBLIC SPEECH (solo exhibition) Transmission Galllery, Glasgow Educational Panels I (Pedagogy and Agency), 2010, wood, paint, digital prints, 190 x 120 x 40 cm

17 Looking for the connection between the perception of speech and the production of speech (with two chapters from Deleuze s Cinema 2 and the text About artistic production as speech-acts, the performative aspect and questions of efficiency in relation to reflection and transparency ), collage 1 and collage 2, 2010, paper, photocopies, prints, ink on paper, 50x70cm

18 Figures of Speech (black version), 2010, paper on paper, 50x70cm Figures of Speech, artistbook, 2010, published by JRP-Ringier, Christoph Keller Editions designed and co-edited by Will Holder