Brigitte Kowanz | Discover, 2017 | max goelitz

2017

Medium

LED and acrylic glass

Dimensions

145 × 100 cm

Edition

Ex. 1/3

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156121

The light work Discover (2017) by the Austrian artist Brigitte Kowanz stands in the tradition of her longstanding engagement with the binary Morse Code, which she repeatedly uses as a formal element and carrier of a second level of meaning in her works. Discover is composed of eight black acrylic glass tubes arranged vertically, one above the other, which gives the title of the work in binary Morse code. Each tube, or each individual letter, is a combination of long and short light pulses. Discover thus calls for the detection of light as a carrier of information and mediator of language. In the words of the artist: “What interests me about language is that it creates or constructs reality, just as light makes it visible. […] By bringing them together, they make each other visible. Morse code is comprised of elementary forms: lines and dots, circles and rectangles, short and long. [...] It is a very minimal language, with which any complexity can still be represented. The information transfer takes place in the space between on and off, light and shadow." Since the late 1980s, Kowanz has frequently combined light with characters and linguistic codes to visualize the complex relationship between seeing and understanding, perception and recognition. Light becomes both material and information carrier at the same time, not only illuminating but also generating meaning as an independent phenomenon similar to language and writing. Further of Kowanz works with Morse code were exhibited in the Austrian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.