Scar as Sign - Dispatx Art Collective Winter 2005

By: Oliver Luker

"A work of art is not an instrument of communication. A work of art has no connection with communication. A work of art contains not the slightest information. There is instead a fundamental affinity between a work of art and the act of resistance. In this way, yes. As an act of resistance, a work of art has some connection with information and communication." (Gilles Deleuze, 1995)

Our bodies, relationships and environments are defined by information built up over time, as if there were an implicit will governing what should be preserved. Through dislocations in the storage process, wounds can be generated, and attempts to erase these wounds from our memories give rise to scarring. In their turn, lasting scars are then converted into objects of great significance. To talk of these significations is to talk not only of the object itself but also of all that it signifies. Human memory is thus made up of a tension between defects and the processes undertaken to hide them.

The works making up the third edition of Dispatx Art Collective explore the concept of Scar as Sign in a diverse manner, confronting concepts from personal experience and showing their significance in a much broader sense.

The notion of sequence is a recurrent aspect of the projects. In Ataduras (Bonds), by Rafael Andreu, the protagonism of the line sequentially marking both figure and ground poses questions concerning permanence. Scars don't change - though nor do they remain static. We carry our marks with us, yet their production introduces a discontinuity greater than that produced by time alone. Natalia Guarin's triptych, Memoria de un Hito (Memory of a Landmark), shares this dynamism. The work shows a series of conflicting states within the process of undressing and self-exposure - a process interrupted and left unresolved by the presence of patches covering the skin.

In Band-Aid Poem, by Chio Flores, we again come up against a self-contained dynamic structure, although here the idea of sequence is not the most prevalent. The placing of words over supposed injuries produces and interesting use of language. The impact of the poetry is precisely that it has been written on patches covering a body - one is led to ask what it is hidden and why, and to relate the language to the effect of its presentation. A similar exploration is undertaken in Kate Addamine's Three to my None. The identification and importance of marks is fundamental in her poetry - there is a struggle with the foreignness of the other, personified by certain marks on their skin. This sensation of distance and separation reduces gradually until, in the last poem, the focus falls completely on the writer's own body - where she tries to explain the past and, at the same time, define both her own intentions and those of this other.

If Secuelas (Sequels), by Maribel Oldigs, is also a strong expression of the tactile nature of the scar, her piece goes further and explores interpretation and translation of marks. The trace of that which is no longer there is recorded in the material and calls our attention to the unknown, shifting the focus of the work to what is hidden. In Cicatrix, by Joel Cooper and Dominic Lash, the interpretation of marks is the nucleus of the work. Through the juxtaposition of musical composition and improvisation, they establish a dialogue between interpretive systems and the sensitivity of the creative musician. The condition of any musical instrument is fundamental to the sound it produces, and in this work it also determines how these sounds are subsequently arranged. These processes are also made evident in Punto Cruz (Cross Point) by Sergio Horacio. His work interprets damage to buildings in the street through transferring them to his body, associating the deterioration of the city with the processes and effects of a chronic illness.

The work done by Circo de Pulgas, a Spanish art collective who collaborated on this issue, suggests reflection on the spontaneous nature of the scar - the way that these are marks which are generated daily, not only on our own bodies but also on those around us, and how we give them meaning a posteriori.

Looking at the implicit and explicit nature of scars, CINELOCURA's video Yo te Marco (I Mark You) explores the violence of signs that are given power through marketing and advertising. In an explicit manner, he invites us to ask to what extent we are influenced by the marks of consumerism. Also touching on a social theme is the statement Herida de Vida (Life Wound) by Jacinta Pichimagüida. In her text she explores the social position of woman based on the wound which defines her as one - the vagina and all that it implies.

Robert Romeu I Lleixa, with a series of diverse paintings called Tall I Cicatriu (Wound & Scar), shows us that which is implicit in the theme. Through the process of addition and subtraction, which generates a richness of texture in the paintings, what remains unspoken is the WHY of the scars, the reason for their presence. The scar is presented as a formal object, and yet somehow the invitation to understand further allusions remains open.

There are two works in the issue that are based in the intensely personal - Severance and Fontanelles. The first, a series of poems by Oliver Luker exploring the scar as object/defect, is less focused on images than it is on investigation at a sonorous level. Through the use of a strongly physical language, he explores the fragility of the body from a perspective that does not invite contemplation. The rhythm generated by a carefully chosen terminology, both brutal and tender, confronts the reader with the memory of the wound that the scar attempts to hide. In Fontanelles, Aaron Belmont's narrative consists of a series of actions linked together through a recurrent image. In the text, the scar is manifested as an external image which has passed through a spontaneous process of observation, analysis and synthesis and converges on the memory of a person. Here we see how those legible signs in our immediate surroundings can relate to and mix with our memories to form a single mark, a single scar.

The thirteen projects presented in Scar as Sign, the third edition of Dispatx Art Collective, are developed around core axes at both personal and social levels - exploring themes that consistently draw upon concepts such as memory, history, causality and time. Although exploring the theme in different ways, these works have in common the fact that they resist forgetfulness - their importance is derived from speaking of that which is no longer there, and of what it means.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

About Dispatx Art Collective:
Dispatx provides the tools of a social internet for the development and presentation of contemporary art and literature. Visitors are invited to interact with the artists via the online display of their working processes, and to create unique private collections of the finished works. Through this process we seek to establish a new curatorial discourse based on artistic working practices.
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