Parole al vento
by Martina Stella
Video project, screenshots
April | May 2020
“Ce qui compte n’est plus l’énoncé du vent, c’est le vent”
Georges Bataille, L’expérience intérieure, Gallimard, Collection Tel, 2015, p. 25.
Parole al vento is an Italian expression meaning empty words and literally signifying words to the wind.
Parole al vento consists in a series of mises en scène of an eight meters long asemic text, written with Chinese ink on a disposable tablecloth.
A performance, one hour long and still shot filmed, records the writing process. Once filled, the asemic written text becomes an object, a presence itself, evolving in space and in relation to its surroundings.
The filmed performance introduces different scenes in which the asemic written text interacts with its environment. The wind animates the paper tongue which moves and inhabits the scene as its protagonist: from handwritten characters on the paper, asemic paper tongue turns into the character of an imaginary stage, an acting presence, a sign in space.
Le discours, s’il le veut, peut souffler la tempête, quelque effort que je fasse, au coin du feu Ie vent ne peut glacer. La différence entre expérience intérieure et philosophie réside principalement en ce que, dans l’expérience, l’énoncé n’est rien, sinon un moyen et même, autant qu’un moyen, un obstacle; ce qui compte n’est plus l’énoncé du vent, c’est le vent.
Speech, if it wills, may blow the storm: whatever my efforts are, by the fireside the wind cannot freeze. The difference between inner experience and philosophy lies within the fact that, in experience, speech is nothing but a means; and as much as it is a means, it is an obstacle. What matters most is not the wind’s speech, it is the wind itself.
Georges Bataille, L’expérience intérieure, Gallimard, Collection Tel, 2015, p. 25.
Translation by M. Stella and A. Pouzargues
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