The accidental Wandering problem

Resolving the "Accidental Wandering Problem"

People stiffen at any attempt made to portray them. Their facial expressions become twisted and distorted. The face becomes unfathomable, resisting interpretation. When we become conscious that we are being depicted, even when we are willing participants in this image-making of ourselves, we only solidify ourselves, giving away only artificiality.  Unguarded moments might be captured on camera, framed, captioned and offered as true representations. These images however are more a record of the impressions of the photographer rather of the nature of the subject itself. This process is a kind of “resistance to oblivion,” a form of progression caused by reversing forwards.

In all this the viewer chooses the meaning to be taken from the image and stores it in the colossal visual archive of the mind. In comparing and contrasting it with other images stored there, the viewer tries to make sense of the image. In doing so a visual language is codified.“Different forms of language do not carry a common substance. Or if they do, it is so inconsequential that it cannot determine the relationship of those forms with one another. The connection between different forms of language is negligible and misleading. It is very much like the similarities of games, or family resemblance.” * A great image sets free a viewer from his own preconceptions. It is open to interpretation and alteration; it has textual flexibility and linguistic playfulness.  Isn’t any kind of human linguistic game adjustable?

Viewer would be a player, in this game. inviting an exploration of different linguistic possibilities to interpret any form of life. Nahal Bahrman’s illustrations are narratives customized to any viewer. Her works do not lead to any single final interpretation. They are colour-blind, never yielding to any one dominant colour. Colour-blindness is the only common ground among all the linguistic possibilities of her work, as determinative as an alphabet or grammar in any language. Her work is a notepad from which are dissected stories which are all of equal weight. With her art, the semantic common ground between the artist and the viewer is narrowed down to a day which begins, for example, with the artist being bitten by a mosquito and the viewer having breakfast in bed.  The common certainty of both artist and viewer is the day itself. This is perhaps the simplest metaphor to explain reading Nahal’s work. *Ludwig  Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), "Philosophical Investigations" (1953)