Enseigne [Tapuscript]

Enseigne [Tapuscript] is a permanent installation designed in response to a brief from Art Campus, producer of works of contemporary art distributed within the network of French university campuses, and bearing a relation to the campus’ heritage and architecture. A white LEDS digital display panel is hung on an external or internal wall of a campus building. Flickering, unstable letters appear, are replaced by others, then fade out only to reappear in a different order. Sometimes, a word seems about to appear, but the movement stops and it disappears again, leaving space for a new search, a new meaning, a new word to write. The words that hesitantly appear are borrowed from and intended to represent the vocabulary specific to the fields of research and training, but also to life in general on the campus concerned. Day and night, the words try to form, as if typed by invisible hands hovering over a far away keyboard. Sometimes timid, sometimes confident, the fragile movements of this ‘tapuscript’ seem to echo man’s own efforts to learn, investigate, progress. The faltering writing calls into question not only linguistic codes but the fundamental motivations behind research and learning: Who made this? Why? How? Who do the words belong to? Who is seeking them out?

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