The homophony limn / limb provides a playful point of departure for a look at language and the body.
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The homophony limn / limb provides a playful point of departure for a look at language and the body. |
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limn: 1. To draw or paint; especially, to represent in an artistic way with pencil or brush.
2. To illumine, as books or parchments, with ornamental figures, letters, or borders.
limb from the Latin, limbus, for border or lining
limb: 1. A part of a tree which extends from the trunk and separates into branches and twigs;
a large branch. 2. An arm or a leg of a human being; a leg, arm, or wing of an animal.
3. A thing or person regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to something else.
Limn is a series of works that explore the interplay of movement and its trace as a form of drawing or writing. The project takes as its focus locomotion as narrative. Even our most mundane travels represent a "drawing" or "writing" of our lives that speaks of the quality of our physical experience, the nature of our interactions, and the influences that act upon our mental, emotional, psychological and physical states. The project explores movement ranging from strictly physical locomotion such as walking, bicycling, and driving, to technologically mediated experiences that represent metaphoric forms of autonomous transport. Communications technologies, from the invention of language and oral tradition to the telephone, radio, camera, computer, satellite and television, allow us to extend our senses (and ideas) across great physical and temporal distances. This ability evokes in us the feeling of having "moved" or "traveled" through space and time. The internet is a perfect example of the conflation of communications technologies and technologies of locomotion. We speak of "surfing" the net and "going" to web sites; the internet is coined an "information superhighway"; and a browser is called "Navigator" or "Explorer". In their capacity to let us "go", these diverse technologies constitute figurative "limbs" or appendages that we use for locomotion in physical space, and in the space of information and communication. The car represents a hybrid "limb" that combines locomotive machine, communications technology, and the body. The inter-relationship of movement and thought as mediated by the automobile is the subject of "the driving diaries". Limb seeks to explore a variety of modes and processes of locomotion in an effort to engage the more subtle form of transport experienced through the imagination. I am especially interested in the transport that occurs when we relinquish the role of "driver" and embrace the will of the road, the path, the trail---the contour of our interwoven thoughts and movements.
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SOME DRIVES
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