Language: The world of words, signs and gestures, Deutsches Hygiene Museum, Dresden (in co-operation with the Deutsche Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung).
"Language, whether it’s spoken, written, signed or sensed, is fundamental to our understanding of ourselves as human beings. This exhibition is all about the complexity and intricacy of language, its creative power, but also its beauty. Based on our everyday experiences it explores the connections between the words we speak, our gestures and mimics, and the written word. Why is it that only we humans possess this complex and versatile instrument? And how can we become more attentive to the language we use?
The exhibition draws the visitor’s attention, at all sorts of levels, to the wealth associated with the many manifestations of language in all the areas of our lives, from literature to youth slang. In our daily interactions with one another we use and shape language, come up with new words, and lose others. The radical changes in our living environments, linked to global technological, cultural and economic trends, are not without impact on language either. That is true in particular of societies where many people look back on a history of migration and where multilingualism tends to be the norm rather than the exception. As the exhibition demonstrates, the essence of language lies first and foremost in its creative adaptability."
Our video installation 'In camera' (1999 Single black & white monitor installation + sound. Looped) was shown in the context of this exhibition:
"...in the first section of the show entitled “Homo loquens” that is exploring the human capacity for language and its role in defining us as natural and cultural beings. 'In Camera' is a powerful artistic reflection on the theme, impressively capturing – both acoustically and visually - the interior and exterior character of language and that fleeting point between preverbal articulation and verbal communication, thought and expression."
'In camera' was shot from the inside of the mouth, looking out, as attempts to speak are emitted as flashes of light.
Some of the artists, authors and poets shown in the exhibition were:
Theodor W. Adorno, Halil Altindere, Richard Artschwager, Walter Benjamin, Bas Böttcher, André Breton, Shady Elnoshokaty, Max Ernst, Paule Hammer, Jenny Holzer, Klabund, Dagmara Kraus, Martin Luther, Franz Mon, Herta Müller, Yvonne Rainer, Arnold Schönberg, Nancy Spero, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Slavs and Tatars, Bill Viola, Helga Weissova, Erich Kästner, Stefan Zweig, Smith/Stewart
