PhonoMorphoIdiot, 2022
With Andrew C. Lorish, Alyson Provax, Madeline Maszk, and Courtney Stubbert. Presented by Eugene Contemporary Art at ANTI-AESTHETIC, Eugene, OR.
phono: sound, voice
morpho: form, shape
idiot: a stupid person
PhonoMorphoIdiot is a group exhibition that considers the uncertainties and absurdities of our verbal, written, and text-based communication. We exist between a shared understanding and the sensory and cultural edges of language which are shaped by everything from bodily states, fantasies and in-group signaling, to predictive text, targeted advertising and character limits. Whether through image-making, objects or sound, the artists in this show engage with language’s flexibility – often to its breaking point. Channels become convoluted, noise increases, the signal is misdirected or lost. By staying with these failures and frolicking in their wreckage, we may stumble upon alternative modes of signifying and connecting to one another (ECA).
In this body of work, I am thinking about theories of attachment, and how we use language to secure our relationships to what we know and to each other. Using language as a physical material, I grapple with my own desires for secure and stable connections to the world. Cobbled wood structures act as dubious scaffolding for the accumulation of partial utterances. Language that sticks to things, slips through cracks, or wraps itself like a ransom note around a brick to be hurled through a window.
Photo credit: Jonathan Bagby.
