T H E L U S T A X

Etymologies

Installation artworks by United Visual Artists is a collection of dot-matrix displays that generate ever changing writings algorithmically:

These canvases of geometric shape are illuminated by transitioning text. Algorithmically driven, the text on indistinguishable origin recalculates, reduces and expands, motivated by but not a direct reflection of human instruction. We witness the presence of a co-contributor who while deconstructing the source text, allegorically deconstructs the concept of independent authorship and more importantly, independent readership. This process of deconstruction questions the role of authenticity and the nature of appropriation in the Information Age. Employing the post-structuralist rationale that literary sources lie impregnated with reference, inherently a product of their own authorial context, the text is reduced to pure patterns which in turn, incite the viewer to rebuild order. The words of Roland Barthes resound “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” as we engage in a process of inference, seeking out logic and poetry, while simultaneously  submitting to the complex, mechanical mind. The unique shape of each canvas serves to highlight how our experience is not only shaped by the content, but by the environment in which it is viewed.