Jenny Holzer and Power of Language- Jade

Although my thesis is specific to interactive art, mostly video games and online art, Jenny Holzer use of text in public spaces are interesting, provocative and to extent interactive. All art is interactive; the reaction and mental process that the spectator or viewer experiences through the interaction from the form and concept of the work.

 xenon on bregenz’ alte pfarrkirche zum heiligen nikolaus, lech, 2004

Jenny Holzer was born in Ohio, 1950. Holzer is critically examining the means to disseminate her ideas within public space, the impact of information on the individual psyche, on how we think and how we communicate. She has been taking her messages to the streets and in public buildings, using media and technology that would enable her work to blend into the physical and social landscape. Her work often blends in among advertisements in public space e.g. New York Times Square. 

xenon on berlin’s matthäikirche, 2001

I love her work with electronic LED signs and especially projections of xenon light.  Holzer writes her own text and often appropriates texts from poetry and other sources. Holzer address issues that are thought in silence or are behind closed doors, meant to remain hidden. She evokes questioning of consumerist urges, violence, oppression, lamenting death and disease, power, sexuality and feminism.  Holzer’s use of language provokes a response and enlightenment in the viewer. The text functions as comments on the environment they are projected onto, stimulating awareness of our social conditioning as conveyed by the very landscape in which we may be confronted by them.

xenon on baltic centre for contemporary art, gateshead, england, 2000

Link below is a video of one her works:

http://www.jennyholzer.com/Projections/site/Tongeren2004/

Excerpt of Jenny Holzer, Truisms (1977-79)
“a little knowledge can go a long way
a lot of professionals are crackpots
a man can't know what it is to be a mother
a name means a lot just by itself
a positive attitude means all the difference in the world
a relaxed man is not necessarily a better man
a sense of timing is the mark of genius
a sincere effort is all you can ask
a single event can have infinitely many interpretations....”

More works:

Jenny Holzer, Washington, 2004

Jenny Holzer, New York, 2004

- Jade