Digital Wondering 17

Norwegian artist Ingrid Eggen examines non-verbal communication and symbolism, often dismantling and distorting body language. In a world where emoji’s have come to stand in for complex emotions and feelings, these photographs touch on our involuntary gestures, reflexes and instincts, and the messages they convey. In the Werkschau she will show eight new works: ‘In the displayed work I’m interested in how living things continuously develop new physical and psychological capabilities in response to changed living conditions caused by cultural, technological and environmental developments.

 

Eggen also tries to imagine how these developments will cause non-verbal language to change and new compositional structures to emerge in a way that creates permanent changes in our movements and reaction patterns, causing shifts in the mind’s ecosystem: ‘Imitation is a basis for human learning and encompasses synchronising our movements and actions to those of our models. In mental processes, learning includes imitating emotions, which according to the philosopher René Girard, is a basis for human behaviour and culture. My works are based on studies of bodily adaptation and response and try to show how mental processes, thoughts and experiences may affect us physically. The interesting question is what motivates us and how far we can be bent, stretched and constricted, and still rise again and take on new shapes, indicating new possibilities of bodily restraint and bodily communication.’

                       

Her project relates to a trust in oneself, as opposed to a trust of others. She continues: ‘Instead of mirroring another individual’s gestures and behaviours, these fingers reflect on themselves. Through an adjustment and reorganisation of the anatomical structure that the hand consists of, they try to find new ways to carry themselves forward, in response to the consequences of change and a growing distrust of surrounding circumstances.’

 

Biography