About Artistic Production as Speech-Acts...(shared reading)

In the video Chillida (Forms & Feelings) (2006) Falke Pisano examines her affective relation to a series of David Finn’s photographs of sculptures by Eduardo Chillida, a Basque sculptor. Going through the pages of a photo-book, she traces the relationship between the characteristics of specific objects, their depiction, the experiences of the photographer and his daughter, as well as her own preoccupations and emotional responses to the images.

"An 'artist-generated' structure is not public as a whole, but parts are made visible in constructed public moments, pertaining to specific instances of the artist's choice. These moments are part of an exchange happening on the surface which is the place where affect is produced. Moreover, it can be said that each moment of communication embodies an entrance, and as such, it can prompt the addressed party in the communication to an engagement that activates a larger part of this structure." (p.17)

"Part of communication is the making of a divide between what is kept private and what is made public. Transparency does not necessarily have a relation to performativity and some of the questions that I ask myself at the moment relate to this :

The question of effectivity : How does something (a work, a speech-act etc.) function an a public space?

To what extent can one construct (make visible) conditions of production as a way of creating meaning and to what extend are they predetermined ?

What is the most effective relation that can be made between predetermined and unavoidable structures of representation, power, institutions, and the intention of the artist as a speaker?

What other kind of space is created when one makes a (different) division betwen artist and spectator and what consequences would that have for the visibility of the conditions connected to the moments of communication. What would gthe effect be on the potential of engagement at these entrances?" (p. 23)



Fragments from : Falke Pisano, Figures of Speech, 2010, Christophe Keller Porductions, Zurich
(aquired by Lieve in Wiels 9/2010)