TEXT AS A VISUAL FORM

[ENG] 

This text is a reflection on an artistic activity carried out in the public space of Venice in May 2024. The project consisted of a light intervention, consisting of the projection of the texts „art is an act of determination” and „art is responsibility” onto the architecture of the city – columns, facades, square slabs. The work fits into the trend of conceptual and intervention art, examining the limits of visibility, meaning and the impact of light as a carrier of ideas in the context of the unique urban fabric of the city. The activity took place in parallel with the 2024 Art Biennale, which gives it an additional dimension of dialogue with the global art world. ________________________________________
Introduction
Venice, a city with a unique topography and photosensitive architecture, is an extremely intense field for reflection on the relationship between art and space. As a place highly saturated with cultural, historical and artistic symbols, Venice becomes not only a stage, but also a living participant in the artistic activity. In this context, the light project carried out in 2024 aimed to create a temporary intervention that uses light as a medium of communication and architecture as a semantic screen.
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Context of the Biennale
The action took place during the Venice Biennale – an event that has shaped global artistic discourse since 1895. The Biennale, although monumental and institutional in itself, often inspires actions of a peripheral, interventionist, critical nature. This text projection was precisely such a form: intimate but visible; ephemeral but striking in its meaning.
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Light as intervention
The texts “art is an act of determination” and “art is responsibility” were projected in various locations in Venice: on the columns of the Doge’s Palace, on the marble slabs of St. Mark’s Square, on the façade of the Gothic gallery hosting Willem de Kooning’s exhibition. Their locations were not accidental – they concerned symbolic nodal points of the city, where architecture is a carrier of history and power. In this approach, light became both a commentary and a question about the creator’s responsibility and determination as an act of aesthetic and ethical will.
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Text as a visual form
Inspired by the concepts of asemic writing and typographic minimalism, the form of the text was designed in a clear and rhythmic way. The use of a vertical arrangement of words (on columns) or horizontal (on the square) emphasized the relationship of form to surface. In this sense, the work fits into strategies known from actions such as the realizations of Jenny Holzer or Lawrence Weiner – where language functions as a material, but also as an artistic gesture【1】.
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Architecture as a screen of meanings
The project was not about „illuminating” architecture, but about its transfiguration through meaning. The wall of a Gothic church, a Renaissance arcade, a stone floor – all these elements carried their own history, which was temporarily rewritten by text. Light made them active carriers of a contemporary message. This action, although impermanent, generated a strong tension between the past and the present, memory and the current.
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Reception and intention
The choice of English language was aimed at the universality of the message. The project was not participatory in the traditional sense – it did not require interaction – but assumed the active presence of the recipient: a passer-by, a tourist, a resident. The slogans, through their brevity and seriousness, acted like modern mantras. They did not offer simple answers – but created space for reflection on the place of art in social life.
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Conclusions
The light intervention in Venice was not only an artistic gesture, but also an examination of urban perception, a test of the visibility of meaning and an experiment with textual form in space. It was an attempt to clash the transience of light with the durability of architecture, as well as a record of the spiritual and intellectual presence of art in times of visual and semantic overload.
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Bibliography
1. Barthes, R. (1977). Image–Music–Text. Fontana Press.
2. Holzer, J. (1990). Protect Protect. Hatje Cantz.
3. Weiner, L. (2007). Statements. Primary Information.
4. Kristeva, J. (1984). Revolution in Poetic Language. Columbia University Press.
5. Eco, U. (1979). A Theory of Semiotics. Indiana University Press.
6. Agamben, G. (1999). The Man Without Content. Stanford University Press.