Ad Nauseam Ad Infinitum*




   Writing without anything to say

is the equivalent of

purity.         For the act is

           administered through writing alone, and in a sense not pre-ordained by any preceding act, which in
this case, should be speaking. When one has nothing to say, there should be silence. But silence is not
the opposite nor the absence of writing. The idea of writing does not belong to nature’s binaries.

                                                           Unlike most active pursuits, the writing project does not coincide with
functions that could be reversed. Eating, as a process and activity of active pursuit, could be imagined to
have a backward-condition, one would just have to consider the uncomely effects of vomiting or
regurgitation. But writing—does not have any backwards procedure. One cannot just simply un-write, and
the act of non-writing, per se, is a moment of stillness, which could not be logically regarded as contrarian
to any specific act. Movement is too general. This brings us, of course, to the idea of erasure. What if one
does in reverse, as with the tip of an eraser, the gestures applied in marking words on a paper? Isn’t that
writing in reverse? It is a reverse movement but not necessarily that of writing.                  If the words
were already written, and had come into fruition, the thought had already made a mark on the mind, just
as speech could never be simply undone. The process of erasure, therefore, is only the reverse of the
specific gesture which is the marking done on the surface. Now what about gestures? Isn’t the gesture
involved in                  writing equivalent with ‘having something to say?’ Gestures are, after all, devices for
communication. Now this is where everything becomes convoluted. Writing, without anything to say,
should also transcend gesture—the action required for writing itself. Real, pure writing therefore is one
without gesture, without markings, without surface. But one should not just carelessly derive that this all
comes down to the act of ‘thinking’ as equivalent to writing


             without any material or procedural outcome.

                                    No, thinking in itself could never be writing. However tempting it is to dismiss that
thinking is integral to the purest act of writing, one must diligently refrain from the idea. The purest act of
writing is not anywhere close to the faculties of thinking.

                                            Let thinking be part of its own categories: abstraction, analysis, and meditation.
Pure writing,        at its very essence, is a mind seeing and listening simultaneously, while forming words,
phrases, symbols, and signifiers, that travel in an endless vacuum from                     one universe to

                another.



*(Text, Wall)

Ad Nauseam Ad Infinitum**

Victor Balanon’s latest solo exhibition, Ad Nauseam Ad Infinitum, asks some important
questions about art-making and the pursuit of creativity. Throughout the years, working
as artist, animator, and videomaker, Balanon puts under scrutiny the painstaking
process that artists must go through in keeping themselves ‘creative.’ For him, once
creativity becomes constant, it also becomes routine. And since the artist’s job is to stay
original and creative, there should be a need to ‘recalibrate’ at a certain point, because
creativity, when it becomes infinite, can also become no different from dullness.


This show demonstrates the artist’s own take on art’s renewal. Removing art from the
idea of spectacle and returning it to primal forms, basic processes, and repetition in
movement, the show becomes an opportunity to experience a kind of meditation on
beginning again.


With his signature monochromatic compositions that involve both object and animation,
Victor Balanon’s works, once again, contribute to new possibilities on conceptualist and
constructivist approaches that tackle notions of art-making itself.





//CLJ