Exhibition - Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

21 Nov 2024 — 23 Nov, Exhibition - Paradise, Groenewegje 136, 2515 LR Den Haag

An exhibition by MA Artistic Research at Paradise.

Curatorial assistance by Alicja Melzacka

Graphic design by Renata Mirón

Featuring works by:

Luisa Badino, Raquel i Coll Juncosa, Kelsey Corby, Larissa Esvelt, Golnoosh Heshmati, Yelim Ki, Ida Leijting, Ewan McSorley, Asrafun Nahar Ruhin, Omarleen, Tair Uria, Choi Wong, Quinn Zeljak

Introduction

by Alicja Melzacka

Thirteen artists presenting their work here are participants in the Masters Artistic Research programme at KABK, and having worked with them at intervals over these past few months, I’ve developed my own understanding of what that research could be. It is many things, but also one particular thing—many came into the programme with a well-oiled practice, using the MAR as an opportunity to shift gears. Painters becoming installation artists, curators working with sound, performers not performing... It’s not just about remediation (the incorporation of one medium in another), but about exploring different degrees of complicity or alienation between content, form, and, most importantly, context—working in proximity and relative to one another’s practices. By supporting one another and exchanging knowledge, while resisting homogenisation, these artists form a community of difference.

The title of this exhibition is borrowed from Noam Chomsky, who used it as an example of a sentence that is syntactically correct (in terms of the sentence’s structure) but semantically nonsensical (in terms of its meaning)¹. We found this to be an interesting analogy for how this project came together. In this process, we didn’t try to make all the elements make sense together or choose a single theme for the exhibition. Instead, we wanted the works to form a thought-out whole syntactically—in relation to one another and to the space. Besides, who says that you cannot interpret meaning from Chomsky’s sentence? Figuratively speaking, ‘green,’ for instance, means ‘inexperienced,’ therefore, a ‘green idea’ could be understood as a new, fresh idea.²

In the same way, we’re sure that unintended (?) meanings will emerge from the combinations of works in this exhibition—for you, just as they did for us.

The open-source e-conferencing service Jitsi that I often use allows the user to invent a room name or use an automatically-generated one. I noticed a peculiar thing about the algorithm that generates these names—it seems to follow Chomsky’s principle. Repeatedly refreshing the page results in randomised sequences, each ripe with contradictions and seeming meaninglessness:

Distinct Deserts Capture Miserably, Literary Messes Express Slowly, Sever Roads Smile Overly,

Embarrassed Quotations Cook Yesterday, Strong Cases Patrol Almost, Imminent Workforces Resume Never…³

As opposed to conventional names—like ‘budget check-in’ or ‘curatorial meeting’—these are supposed to be ‘safer,’ better at preventing meetings from being hacked. And indeed, nonsensical sequences are harder to predict or memorise than coherent ones.

When reading a text consisting of syntactically and semantically predictable sentences, the reader relies on many shortcuts. There is no need to fully read the sentence to grasp its meaning; familiar context helps interpret any potentially ambiguous words, and letters within individual words can even be rearranged without the reader ever noticing. But with ‘nonsensical’ sentences like the ones above, these shortcuts don’t work. We can’t rely on our inherited reading and comprehension habits. I think that’s what makes them so infuriatingly interesting. A bit like this show, we hope.