"Kneganger"
October 3, 2017
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Description
Eggen works with symbols and signs based on communication, exploring different ways to dismantle and distort 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 time-out – and from more obscure contexts such as activist groups, biblical and occult imagery and fantasy. Dismantling and 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 unnatural is cited as the natural so as 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?”
