Morse Morse Morse

By Dieter Daniels

From ‪Morse by Horse: Manual. Dellbrügge & de Moll; published by Maurer Verlag, 2006


Excerpt:

Just one example is mentioned here: Andrés Ramírez Gaviria’s 2005 video is entitled: -./. It translates the index of Wassily Kandinsky’s 1926 book “Point and Line to Plane” into an abstract sequence of images and sound, and this video’s flashy groove could also, in a pinch, pass as a techno clip. Narration specifies the audio-visual output in conventional film and video. Conversely, abstract concepts produce their own visualization here. Kandinsky’s desire to achieve a mathematical and simultaneously aesthetic legitimacy for colours and forms is thus realized technically, and is taken to the point of absurdity at the same time.

A characteristic shared by these projects is that they transform the technical messaging code into an aesthetic signal. If one thinks back to the first telegraph apparatus made by S. F. B. Morse, then one could speak of art’s ensuing revenge on the medium. Where painting once had to sacrifice a stretcher frame in order to make way for a mechanical system of writing, art now conquers the medium, which has lost its use. There it finds beauty in the rhythm of dashes and dots…