The l lies between the words and the worlds. Between the words lies the world. Between the worlds lies the word. The l between the words and the worlds lies. As anything placed in between, its character is ambiguous. The l lies between the words and the worlds. Between the words lies the world. Between the worlds lies the word. The l between the words and the worlds lies. As anything placed in between, its character is ambiguous. The uppercase of i overlaps the lowercase of L, creating an imprecise zone of contact between the upper and the lower. As above, so below.
Foreign Language for Beginners explores the dynamics of a hypothetical first contact, at the intersection of science and science fiction. It’s a guide of conversation with the world outside the word by way of word, sound and movement, inside a room.
Presented as part of Pulau Semesta, Cozzzmo edition in Yogyakarta.
Biography
Irina Gheorghe
Irina Gheorghe studied painting and photography at the University of Arts Bucharest and is currently doing a PhD at GradCAM, DIT, Dublin. Her current work explores the notion of deviation as a technique of estranging the everyday. As tools for this estrangement, she is interested in how the language of modernism can become a platform for interstellar communication and how the absurd structures our relationship to a world beyond perception. Irina Gheorghe also works as part of the artist duo The Bureau of Melodramatic Research to investigate how passions shape contemporary society, as well as our affective relationship to an unhuman universe. Selected performances include Preliminary Remarks on the Study of What Is Not There, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane (2017), Foreign Language for Beginners, Research Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2017), rhiz Vienna (2016), Atelier 35 Bucharest and tete Berlin (2015), The Way to Go, eXplore dance Festival, WASP Bucharest (2016), Protect Your Heart at Work (with BMR), Times Museum Guangzhou (2016), Above the Weather (with BMR), Wing Hong Kong and MNAC Bucharest, (2016). Selected solo shows include Alien Passions (with BMR), Skolska 28, Prague (2014), The Bureau of Melodramatic Research (with BMR), Galeria Posibilă, Bucharest (2009). Selected group shows include The Return of Memory (with BMR), HOME Manchester, (2017), Feminism is Politics! (with BMR), Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (2016), The House Is Looking For An Admiral To Rent (with BMR), MNAC Bucharest (2016), Heroism Rises in a Warehouse, Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest (2015), The Heart Is Deceitful Above all Things, HOME Manchester (2015), Parasite and Mimicry, CAC Vilnius (2015), To the Reader (with BMR), bak Utrecht (2013), etc.