Seven dismantled video monitors are lined up in a room, which is completely white (walls, floors and light).

They are laid out in the following manner: two monitors, on the far left, recall not only the pages of a book, but also, the antagonism male / female, inside / outside. In the centre, four monitors are grouped together, representing the continuity and line of the text. The seventh monitor, on its own at the right, is a sort of period, a full stop.

The images - landscapes, natural elements like water, stone, rocks and animals like the snake or people walking and reading out texts – move from left to right, from one monitor to another. The written texts are superimposed on both the spoken texts and the images. They are spoken by (in order of appearance) Jacques Derrida, Anne Angelini, Myriam Tadesse, Jacqueline Cahen, Joseph Gugliemi, Bernard Heidsieck, Claude Royet-Journoud, Pierre Joris, Irène Pool, Georges Quasha and François Jacqueson.

Images filmed in the Cathar region – a land of Gnostics – introduce us immediately to the heart of the texts that Gary Hill wants us to discover here: the Gnostic scriptures, discovered in a jar at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, 'disturb' certain Christian tenets. What interests the artist in the 'nose' is the idea that man achieves knowledge through an introspective research, which is based on a duality. This is anchored in the material state and spiritual quest. An immersion in the physical nature of the universe, as in the material nature of the spoken and written text, allows a human incarnation of the word. The process of fragmenting the image, the body and nature is coupled with a decomposition of language, both the text and the word. This pulls spectators into a relationship with a whole network of spoken images, written voices, read texts and drawn words. The aim of this is to let spectators reconstruct their truth and movement, in full awareness of the dynamic.

The ambiguity of this is that while the artist de-constructs the text, he constructs the image. New structures begin to emerge from the chaos, uncertainty and disaster. And so, the image will be born from the unnatural union of what is heard, written and spoken. The word will emerge from a fusion of its material nature and its meaning.

Meaning is what the artist is constantly seeking.

Christine Van Assche