2023, Installation. Mixed media including motorised jute rope and beam projection. 160 x 65 x 20 cm.
Presence and absence of forms.
‘Every form of our creation is representative of ourselves. It is the window of our mind surfaced as visuals, encountering the communion. However, unlike the definition of the word ‘form’, being visible cannot be equalised with it having form in graphic communication design. Firmly anchored in the social consensus of symbolic nexus, forms outside the conventional perception of forms are easily denounced as abstractions. Though it is undeniable that abstraction complicates visual communication, we all have a part in our mind which is impossible to be illustrated in any other way.
I define the pervasive consequentialism of graphic design as the prime cause of this narrow tolerance against abstract forms. Regardless of the process of how it is formed, the context of why it is formed, or even the form as a representation of the author, a form can only be seen as a slice from the end. This might be due to the characteristics of the materials or the image-based mediums of graphic design, but no matter which of either reason causes this phenomenon, form in graphic communication has been purely result-oriented. This grey area behind the resulting form is where this project is placed upon, an attempt to understand abstraction as a medium and to explore the potential of the submerging processes.
The grey area, or from now on, the process, is the visualised traces of time, effort, and mind and I’ve been using capturing as a method to highlight these traces. The rope in this project is set to mimic our creating activities – our nature to form. Against its nature to tangle into a form, the motor delivers a constant shift of entropy obstructing it. As the result, the rope is seen as undergoing an endless process of forming. The kinetic gesture and the incidental whorls of the rope are the momentary forms which recount the fading traces behind the process. However, the footage of these traces is captured and stored, then projected next to the original installation playing it backwards when an audience approaches. The audience seated between the fading and appearing traces experiences the illusional envisage of the form, which will never be physically exhibited. This set of installations is a shift of focus. There is no end to this loop, and therefore, no forms or results are present. However, the overlaying processes suggest each self a different version of the form- the absence of form completing the pure presence of form.’ - Excerpt from the essay ‘Pure Presence’.
