A is in love with Ä
carbon (burned oak charcoal) 15x200 cm, oak tree plank 25x120 cm, smell of burned oakwood, 2015-2019
The cut out letters are burned and the carbon surface appears as a yield of this process. An oak plank is present in the installation as a finite source of material and the particles shaved from this plank are burnt in intervals. The burned pieces produce the smell that fills up the exhibition space, and are separated from the plank through a round glass surface. The work demonstrates possibilities of abstraction inherent in language and application of such methodology through states of material transformation. This methodology plays towards anonymity of entities: A and Ä – similar forms, can be human or not; and a channel of interaction: love – voluntary or involuntary, like gravity. It focuses on levels of abstraction through removal of subjects, removal of water and other organic elements through burning, and dissipation of the smell of burned wood in the space. The smell that comes out from burning the oak creates a mental space for the audience to imagine themselves with a counter-I. Like a ritual, or ceremony, the exhibition staff are instructed to feed the fire and spread the smell in the room.
