Ayala Reznik

          In This work, I arranged a screening of my own performative artistic process. The video documents the different stages and techniques I employed to create an abstract painting. The video was projected onto an empty canvas, while the final product (i.e. the abstract painting whose creative process is documented in the video) was displayed on a wall opposite the empty canvas. In this way, I attempted to show how the object (the empty canvas) can be isolated from its often dominating role as signifier: by projecting this performance/documentary piece onto the canvas, its intended signification was also projected; this signification was not permanent or fixed, however, but rather temporal and relative – bound to the content of the video, so long as this one was being projected. This is to say that, because its intended signification was externally imposed, the object was perfectly capable of subsisting without the need to serve as signifier – and yet, all along, it nevertheless retained its essence as the potential medium for all signification. No longer confined to express the intended signification, the object thus becomes the blank slate upon which all signification is inscribed thereafter. Finally, by having the final product (the abstract painting) opposite the empty canvas, I hoped to emphasize the distinction between cases in which the object strictly serves as signifier (the painting) and in which its role as signifier is yet to be established (the blank canvas).

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            object serves as a mode of access to what is signified by means of it. But the question arises: is it possible to isolate the object from all signification? Should the intended signification be wrested from its object, the object would be revealed as a mere screen onto which signification is projected. But is this naked screen itself bereft of all signification? is its instrumental function as a vehicle for communicating what is signified therefore without signification as well?