I asked myself what can be created in a world where meaning seems to be slipping away and reality feels/is like a Kafkaesque nightmare. Embracing the nonsense is the answer that I have found.
According to Albert Camus, the tension between the longing for meaning and accepting the absurdity of existence presents a challenge for artists seeking to create the absurd. The creation of the absurd requires a revolt against the search for meaning and a rejection of perpetuating illusions or hope.
In my exploration of nonsense, I became particularly intrigued by Mohaml or Tazriq, a genre in Persian literature that reached its peak in the seventeenth century. This form of nonsense poetry features a strong composition and structure, deliberately subverting language conventions and logical reasoning. Tazriq doesn't imply explicit or implicit meaning; instead, it invites readers to embrace the nonsensical for its own sake. This genre can be viewed as an artistic rebellion against conventional and established poetic traditions.
"Toad's Wool" is my endeavour to be centered in pure absurdity. It can be seen as a reflection of the absurd, accepting the tension between coherence and the absence of traditional meaning, as outlined in Camus' essay and is presented in a three-part mixed media installation.
“For an absurd work of art to be possible, thought in its most lucid form must be involved in it. But at the same time thought must not be apparent except as the regulating intelligence. This paradox can be explained according to the absurd. The work of art is born of the intelligence’s refusal to reason the concrete. It marks the triumph of the carnal. It is lucid thought that provokes it, but in that very act that thought repudiates itself. It will not yield to the temptation of adding to what is described a deeper meaning that it knows to be illegitimate. The work of art embodies a drama of the intelligence, but it proves this only indirectly. The absurd work requires an artist conscious of these limitations and an art in which the concrete signifies nothing more than itself. It cannot be the end, the meaning, and the consolation of a life. Creating or not creating changes nothing. The absurd creator does not prize his work. He could repudiate it. He does sometimes repudiate it. “
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays