Moving Message 1992

LED display sign with holo­grams of texts, English and German, 1992

The 12, A4 holo­grams of texts have been framed together in steel frames, in three rows of four, 83cm x 78 cm 

The LED displays a moving message with various combi­na­tions of the three words YOU ARE WHY. The dictum YOU ARE WHY, not only poses the most funda­mental of exis­ten­tial ques­tions but is also word-play — the phonetic spelling of the artist’s name URY, in English.

Accom­pa­nying the sign are twelve holo­graphic pages of quota­tions, framed in rows of three by four. The format emulates the Urim and Thummim, an ancient Jewish oracle. Taking issue with the ​‘Word’ of the bible and the name of the father, which have been upheld as Law from time immemo­rial, from Moses until Freud, Tanya Ury attempts to locate her own posi­tion within the Judeo/​Christian tradition.

“The word racine (root) has taken on a some­what vulgar tint nowa­days, rubbed in ideolo­gies that have racist conno­ta­tions. We must reduce it to ashes and wait for its rebirth. Then we will hear a very beau­tiful word. I thank Jean Racine, I return to my racines with Racine. The signi­fiers of our great writers work on us; the common proper name, the proper common name affects us, as readers, and espe­cially the one whose name it is. We must all deal with the uncon­scious effects of our proper name. We find this aspect of language’s inter­ven­tion in our destiny on the flesh of our imag­i­na­tion. We work on writers whose names are bearers of textual effects. That doesn’t mean I am attracted by authors whose names are at work in the language but simply that there aren’t any names which don’t produce signi­fying effects. Genet constantly puts his name to work in the French language. Entire works were born from his name. There is corneille (crow) in Corneille’s texts: the bird, the rela­tion to eleva­tion, to flying, to a certain type of bird. If we take up Leviticus again, we will find all kinds of crows. Racine must trans­late the effects of roots (racine) in all his texts, espe­cially the roots (racines); since the proper name belongs to the order of roots, it is the lightest and most intan­gible root we have. It roots us, in language and beyond, without our knowing precisely where. One author whose name was not without signi­fying effects – of which he was perfectly well aware – is Kafka. In German, Kafka means chouca = corneille (crow). He too is a bird. He knows it, plays with it, inscribes it. In Wedding Prepa­ra­tions in the Country and Other Posthu­mous Writ­ings and in the Diaries there are several instances of this type of small apho­risms that work on crows1. It’s magnif­i­cent. The crows main­tain that they can destroy the sky.

The crows main­tain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt about that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impos­si­bility of crows.2

It’s possible or it’s impos­sible, no one can go and verify. Perhaps that’s what going to the root is, going toward the unver­i­fi­able. As for Clarice Lispector’s name, who could invent a name more promising of light or vision?”3

P. 145 – 146, ​“Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing”, Hélène Cixous, 1993, Columbia Univer­sity Press /​New York, ISBN 0−231−07659−2

1 Franz Kafka, Wedding Prepa­ra­tions in the Country and Other Posthu­mous Prose Writ­ings, tr. C, Kaiser and G. Wilkins (New York: Schocken); Diaries 1919 – 1923, tr. Martin Green­berg (London: Mandarin, 1992)

2 Franz Kafka, Wedding Prepa­ra­tions in the Country, p. 51

3 Clarice Lispector (December 10, 1920 – December 9, 1977) was a Brazilian writer. Acclaimed inter­na­tion­ally for her inno­v­a­tive novels and short stories, she was also a jour­nalist. en​.wikipedia​.org/​wiki/…

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Ury has also created other artworks that might be consid­ered visual poetry. Moving Message 1992, incor­po­rates an LED sign displaying the words: you are why; Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000 is a photo series combined with poetry and wrestle­with­y­ourangel 2001, is a neon sign produced together with the neon sign neonazi 2001; the title of a double photo portrait lesser is me more or less 2003 plays on the name of the German Post-Impres­sionist Lesser Ury, as does the title of a further double portrait or else 2007, which refers to the German writer Else Ury. The title of a third photo-portrait Beelze­bu­larin 2005 (in the Promised Land series) reveals itself to be an anagram of the biblical Bezalel Ben Uri. half dimen­sional — semi detached 2010, combines the first of the half dimen­sional poems with the photo­graph semi detached.

concrete – a collec­tion of works (including poetry series)

Presen­ta­tion

1992 – 93 Group exhi­bi­tion, British Telecom New Contem­po­raries on tour, curated by Guy Brett, Derek Jarman & Marina Warner: Orion Newlyn, Corner­house Manchester, Angel Row Nottingham, Orpheus Belfast, ICA London (group) on tour during (GB)
1995 Logo image: YOU ARE WHY in New Femi­nist Crit­i­cism, Katy Deep­well, Manchester Univer­sity Press (GB)
1999 Logo image: YOU ARE WHY in Aufbrüche — Migran­tinnen, Schwarze Frauen und Jüdische Frauen im Kulturellen Diskurs Deutsch­land, Ulrike Helmer Verlag, König­stein 2000 (D)
2004 Logo image: YOU ARE WHY as fron­tispiece for Tanya Ury’s website
2007 (23.3.) On the online Femi­nist Art Base: www​.brook​lyn​mu​seum​.org Logo image: YOU ARE WHY, The Eliz­a­beth A. Sackler Center for Femi­nist Art, The Brooklyn Museum, New York (USA)

Infor­ma­tion

Quota­tions in the holo­graphic texts of Moving Message are from:
The Collins English Dictionary
A Dictio­nary of World Mythology, Arthur Cotterell 1979, Guild Publishing, Book Club Asso­ciates, London (GB)
Geness 1, New English Bible
The Newly Born Woman, Cixous and Clément, Manchester Univer­sity Press (in trans­la­tion) 1986, ISBN 0 7190 1909 5
Selected Bibli­og­raphy: Karl Schwartz. Lesser Ury, Berlin 1920 (Jewish Arts)
Als Kranken­schwester im KZ There­sien­stadt, Resi Weglein
The Jewish Almanac, ed.Richard Siegel and Carl Rhiens,
Bantam Books 1980, ISBN 0−553−01265−7
Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud, The Newly Born Woman, Cixous and Clément,
Manchester Univer­sity Press 1986, ISBN 0 7190 1909 5

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