Statement by Clay Debevoise
Shari Diamond, Curator
Showcase at PULSE ART
July 1995 - New York, NY
Parentheses #116
The "Digital Age" brings another of the great revolutions in space and time, erasing distance and flooding memory. We can change things around that used to cage us; we can wander where we used to wonder. Some defend what was once written in stone from electronic editing, but change wins as always. As always blood flows. We can strive to realize the flexibility taught by the new tools we have made. Faith in interconnection is a viable center.
WORD © 1994 Clay Debevoise
It is interesting to me that the boundary between text and image has so completely broken down. Photography, movies, television and advertising expanded visual literacy and heightened oral and associative skills. Never have so many symbols been familiar throughout the world. Instead of mourning the demise of literacy I welcome the rebirth of reverberating icons: of text +/or image. Flags burn in the sun.
Not lines of words but words themselves and the lines within them lead me to colors. What if I take each word to be a flower? Everyone nurtures his/her own vocabulary, favoring certain words for various reasons, from certain experiences. When I listen and watch carefully I hear the leaves and roots of a mundane remark. It doesn't take a large or sophisticated vocabulary to get along in the world: feelings, tastes and smells aren't always enough but some communication with sights and sounds fills the gaps. Multicultural societies cannot depend on uniform language skills, sacred flags or theoretical centers. Close attention to communications we face, on their own terms, makes sense.
"...and death i think is no parenthesis." -e.e.cummings