SCRIPTED - Exhibition 2004
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STEPHANIE LIM
ARTIST STATEMENT

"Try to Read the Colors, not the Words" is a semiotic project playing with words and their associated colors which generally being accepted by public. This project contains conceptual psychology of thinking by shifting the interactive interface to what viewers are being engaged by. By presenting such illustrations, the audiences are decoders of identifying the shifting color-meaning of the word. As an artist or creator of this semiotic project, dealing with new meanings and new associations are the key challenges in making this piece. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to challenge users' reinterpretation of their own conceptual acceptances or relationships to culture.

The compositions of this semiotic project are exhibiting in four arrangements, in order to enlighten unmediated perceptions of individuals. They are displayed into different structures; one shows gradual changes in size from big to small; one reveals missing elements; the last two illustrate vertical and horizontal displacements with respect to each other. People generally explore the idea that the use of color has an important role in structuring and thus in understanding visual works and meanings. By shifting combinations of words and their associated colors which commonly being accepted by public, this project is presenting words, like red, orange, yellow, green, and etc. which substitute into unusual arrangements. For example, the word ’Red’ is colored in green. Therefore, in order to “try to read the colors, not the words”, audiences are confused or uncertain of their interpretations.

Because modern art privileges uniqueness, to say that a work’s symbolism is understood within cultural systems or traditional iconographies, was equivalent to calling it inauthentic. This outcome continues into contemporary art when language praises originality in student artwork and does not effectively represent the idea that interpretation and meaning of color takes place within a field of systems of representation and associations. The language used by people implies that such associations are not based in symbolic conventions, but are natural, unmediated “human” responses. Such language is, in some way, the outcome of modernist criticism, which may include references to the use of color in other traditions, but describes meaning as unique symbolism internally generated for each work out of the consciousness of the individual artist.

In "Try to Read the Colors, not the Words", audiences are encouraged to see the complexity and contradictions of the various word combinations associated with color arrangements, in which ensuring that there is no one meaning is correct. Thus, color will be the examination of the complexity of visual phenomenon and of created systems of representation. This art piece will yield insights into the role of the visual artist in generating meaning and value in changing times.