Image: Mladen Hrvanovic

Image: Mladen Hrvanovic

Concept

For a dialogue to form, the process requires another. When another is presented the dialogue becomes a dichotomy. Do we adopt another persona according to who we are talking to and how genuine is that chat? According to David Bohm, no one wins a dialogue; a dialogue is an exploratory process and does not work towards a goal. However, Mikhail Bakhtin held that relationships and connections exist among all living beings, and that dialogue creates a new understanding of a situation that demands change.

Dialogue can be seen as an exchange but this exchange is not always equal or amicable, it can manifest into an emotional charge, disagreements, it may lead to conflicts, irrationality, fake romances, or jealous contingencies. Does dialogue hinder us or further us?

Alex Wilk

Pull, light. 2009, 67 x 32 cm, Steel, candle and digital print

Drink, Drink. (Clothes Peg) 59.4 x 84.1 cm, Digital print on self adhesive vinyl.

Drink, Drink. (Grater) 59.4 x 84.1 cm, Digital print on self adhesive vinyl.

Drink, Drink. (Juicer) 59.4 x 84.1 cm, Digital print on self adhesive vinyl.

Contemporary life is saturated with biased dialogues, disguised as fair conversations but in reality are weighted and predetermined in their direction and outcome. This silent rhetoric that is inescapably present in our lives heavily directs my practice. It is coupled with a fascination with the human affinity with meaning: our ability to reflect, project and absorb it. I enjoy taking an absurdist stance when creating my work, deliberately trying to negate meaning by scrambling the usual codes of communication employed in advertising and the language of diagrams, though relishing its impossibility - negating meaning certainly creates it.
www.alexwilk.wordpress.com
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