Průsvitný pokoj / Translucent Room

Installation. Translucent paper, ordinary room equipment (table, chair, bookcase, houseplants, etc.), light, texts, markers. Installation for Ferdinad Baumann Gallery, Prague. Exhibition opening 29th of November 2013. Curated by Iva Mladičová.

Instructions for passers-by:

The installation Translucent Room is established on the basis of experiences teaching Czech as a foreign language. It plays with demonstrative pronouns (commonly used together with nouns) which, in their independent use emphasizes the abstract dimension of those words (which we – foreigners and also native childhood speakers, when learning to speak – must first „touch“), finding the gap between verbal and visual or tactile, and making it tangible; as well as making visible the degree to which the nonverbal context is necessary. The installation transforms the ordinary room into an illustration of language textbooks. The description that is created following the instructions leaches the words of specific meaning. The result is a logical abstract text, which works „correctly“ in conjunction with the image, but, because of its separation from visual and tactile contact with reality, creates a cryptic verbal reality.