2023/24 — Duration: to be defined Linoleum floor strip (6 metres), printed lipogram, video First presented: to be defined
The name derives from lipograms, literary compositions in which one letter of the alphabet is systematically omitted. Two protagonists read a lipogram printed on a linoleum floor strip six metres long. They proceed along the strip reading the text aloud. With each repetition the text loses one more letter and with it part of its sense, until it is reduced to a sequence of sounds with no recognisable meaning. The passage happens by degrees: from complete words one arrives at phonetic fragments. In the video the same principle of subtraction is applied to movement. The performer translates the lipogram into a sequence of gestures, then repeats it, each time eliminating one of the movements. With each cycle the sequence grows shorter. The procedure is identical to that of the text: one starts from a complete structure and removes one element at a time. The linoleum strip functions both as a reading surface and as a stage space. The rule is mechanical: at each pass one unit is eliminated — letter or gesture — and one continues with what remains.
Entropic regime. The text loses a letter at each pass; the gesture loses a movement at each cycle. The string degrades by subtraction. The circuit runs towards zero: each repetition is shorter than the one before, until nothing is left to remove.
Photo: Cristina Crippa Produced by artQ13.