Self-portrait


Man has finally discovered that the conscious is contained within a web of conventional signs and meanings. A text might be viewed as a structure composed from the atoms of these signs which, pieced together in a variety of combinations, create conventional senses; they are the building blocks of language, and later “language games.” The conscious is a stable, closed, self-sufficient mechanism; it does not open up towards universality, or any reality that is not self-referencing. The visual messages that we receive pass through this web of conventions and reveal themselves to us by way of the information that is already present in our brains. From this process, which we curiously define as a conscious existence, there is no escape route to the outside world. The chain of “symbolic order” is self-contained.

By experiencing the “absurd,” it is possible to break this vicious cycle. The world of the absurd is not a conscious one, but a free-flowing existence in a present characterized by oblivion, which makes no reference to the dimensions of time and space. In this sense “absurdity” and “liberty” are synonymous. Every text, every image drives our conscious to fall into the trap of drawing on conventional, pre-existing compositions.

I try to combine images and texts in an unpredictable manner. I want them to seem as though, on the one hand, they are connected in some enigmatic way. On the other, however, I want them to demolish any hope of logical association…


The full text is published in "tema celeste" No. 85, May-June 2001.




Tamara Khundadze