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lexicon

since 2017, ongoing

LAb[au], Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Els Vermang
Size: variable dimensions
Technique: 250gr Steinbach A4 paper, computer generated digital prints

Every rule has its own specific number of iterations, amount of pages, boxed

Every rule is an unlimited edition

2017 ___ - Summer in the city, La Patinoire, Brussels
2019 ___ - IF THEN ELSE, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg City
2020 - 21 - YES: NO, PERHAPS, Mario Mauroner Contemporary, Vienna

There is only one rule: the blank white page must be filled until it is black. Chapter after chapter is added, slowly creating a lexicon with all possible ways to accomplish the given task.

The first step of the process is the creation of a grid, a tessellated and recursive pattern, according to which the process step by step is taking place. This is followed by a visual sequence of written rules. This operation confronts conceptual and algorithmic (rule-based) thinking and establishes a dialogue between semantics and aesthetics.

Following the laws of proportion, the Fibonacci sequence, linear progression, randomness, stochasticity, or the rules of chance... one chapter after another is added, slowly forming a library, a lexicon of all possible ways to achieve the given task. From the simple idea at the beginning, an enormous complexity emerges.

The white sheet is the starting point of any artistic work, and as such the work is a conceptual framework to think about any kind of artistic expression; a framework to think about art as a language that has its alphabet, vocabulary and grammar. Here, filling the page becomes a form of writing, writing with the means of art, writing about art.

This automatic and procedural writing examines the nature of art and our ability to formulate rules, rules to transcribe artistic thinking into written form. Likewise, the lexicon is a work in progress, a first step into a long journey having yet no clear, or foreseeable end.

rule 09 - privat collection Austria
rule 11 - privat collection Austria

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