verortnet is a site-specific
installation conceived for interferenze[n], a collective
exhibition which took place in March 2003 at Prisma Gallery, Bolzano,
Italy.
The installation comprises 150 transparencies hung on a metal structure
whose form is determined by a mathematical model derived from chaos
theory. On the transparencies a series of synonyms are printed in sequential
order, referencing notions of language, place and identity. Specific
to the local geography (Bolzano), words in German, Italian and the local
language are utilized. (German and Italian are also the languages with
which the artist grew up, as her origins are Italo-Austrian.)
The transparency of the slides allows the construction of intersections
both between concepts within the same language and between one language
and the other.
In this way links, differences and continuous (re)combinations of linguistic
microstructures are produced. These differentiated relationships induce
the space to move away from its predetermined topology, towards a level
of greater complexity.
verortnet implies a shift
of the notion of place (=Ort) in relation to its conventional meaninag.
The attention is not directed to the production of geographical or mental
references, which the idea of place implies. Rather the focus concerns
the intersections of points, the interferences produced by superpositions;
in substance it is the more constituted outside of a predefined structure
which is of interest here.