Ingrid Eggen works with symbols, signs and elements of communication, exploring different ways to decrypt and bring forward body language. The gestures she uses are both common ones, such as those used in formal gatherings or meetings – i.e. raising one’s hand when wanting to speak– or in more obscure contexts such as activist groups, biblical and occult imagery and fantasy. Distorting these body signals reduces them to powerless gestures, though covertly offering resistance to and commenting on the situations within the motifs. Her goal is to create a new language, through the body’s way of collecting and storing information unconsciously. The conventional is shown as if it was natural to portray life’s absurdities.
“I’m concerned with the body and its affective actions, i.e. involuntary ones, the ones we deem irrational. These actions are on a par with affect theory in that they turn us away from the rational and towards the notion that something more basic informs our actions, such as muscles, reflexes and instinct. How do we act if our senses determine our movements and utterances, e.g. in relation to our decision-making processes?”
The project fuses internal and external emotional experience into one. Kneganger also considers signs and symbols in light of the ongoing simplification of language following the abundance of social media and new technologies. Conversely, our range of expressions of emotion and states of mind has broadened.
Landskrona Photo Festival
September 8-17, 2017
Landskrona
Sweden
http://www.landskronafoto.org/en/fotofestival-2017/
