12/07/2013 – 18/08/2013
Hollow in the Paper
Hollow in the Paper* was initiated through readings of two intertwined notions proposed separately by Duchamp. The initial text included the succinct idea of a transformer to utilise slight, wasted energies – with these mostly bodily energies being, for example, “sneezes and sighs” or “the movements of fear, astonishment, boredom and anger”. And the second notion being the infra-slim, infra-thin or infra-mince. A term chosen for its “human, affective connotations….not an exact laboratory measure”. A somewhat slippery and elusive term which amongst many manifestations is suggested as a “conductor’ that eases the natural and infinite passage from one dimension to another”.
At a similar point in history, when these ideas were conceived, Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone Institute was investigating Orgone energy as an anti-entropic, cumulative and omnipresent force, exploring an alternative idea of how we perceive and direct energy. Georges Bataille also published The Accursed Share, where his theory of a general economy gave particular emphasis on understanding the portion of excess energy that is inherent within any system of production and exchange.
The works within this exhibition reflect on the process of becoming: on transductions of states of energy; and of processes of perception and ‘flexible subjectivities’. Amanda Davies, Fiona Lee and Maria Kunda, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Pat Brassington and the Teaching and Learning Cinema, present paintings, prints, performance, Orgone altering devices, and heightened states of consciousness as a means of exploring various states of the infra-slim.
* “The hollow in the paper between the front and the back of a thin sheet of paper….To be studied!…” appears in Duchamp’s descriptions of the infra-slim