Institut Kunst / Master
Elia Navarro
…the stranger and the white noise
- … the stranger and the white noise is a 3-channel video and audio installation. It themes the idea of the stranger, the foreigner – a stranger today who will remain tomorrow, an individual who is part of a society but is still trying to integrate.
To create this project I have carried out interviews and collected hundreds of hand gestures from several countries around the world. I find gestural language fascinating: it is an accurate metaphor for a culture’s personality and richness, as well as a demonstration of the speakers’ idiosyncrasy. It is both a very touching part of a language and a very difficult matter for strangers to internalise. In …the stranger and the white noise gestures have sometimes been taken out of context. This was done to keep the gestures’ meanings away from the spotlight and, consequently, highlight movement and corporal expression to build non-intentional units of meaning that can be interpreted in different ways depending on the cultural background of every spectator.
- …the stranger and the white noise talks about «gestörte Kommunikation», that are the difficulties found in situations in which one of the individuals is not communicating in their mother tongue and is alien to the dominant culture. The work is about those misunderstandings and subtle nuances that are lost or become corrupted during the transmission. It is about cultural identity and the importance of gender roles in communication. It is about how a small part of personality is lost when communicating in a different language, and how a new one is built at the same time. It is about the search of a new spontaneity. It is about the expansion of cultural, social and emotional horizons. It is about impotence, curiosity; about how both fun and challenging it is to deal with integration day after day.
