Re-dit-en-un-in-learning

“Re-dit-en-un-in-learning” emphasises and concludes the linguistic training. This film has been co-produced with Van Abbemuseum, where echoes of this installation will occur (from 28 November 2020 to 25 April 2021) and is a sequel to Prouvost’s earlier foray into her unconventional lexicon from 2017, entitled DIT LEARN (using the French for speak, thus pronounced ‘de-learn’ in English), produced for Walker Art Centre, in which the viewer was verbally harangued and visually disoriented by a strobing collage of words and images, translations and slippages that destroyed the edifices of meaning, recognition, voicing and seeing. In that work we were urged to remember that a hammer means ‘no’ and a lizard means ‘yes’ – “this shoe means car,” continues Prouvost in her voiceover, “You cannot find the words for the images you see… All becomes one.” Upon leaving the Re-Learning center, the induction is over and the real-world examination begins, with the ideographic effects of the technique now translating object and signs into Prouvost’s language.