Press Release

The Pleasure of Language
August 24 - September 28 2002
Opening: August 24, 17.00 hrs

Brandon LaBelle, Peter Frucht, MEZ (Mary Anne Breeze), Netochka Nezvanova &
Jaine Evans, Imogen Stidworthy

The popularity of chatrooms on the internet and the speed of electronic mail
have led to an enormous growth in communication, and with it, changes in the
use of language and the creation of countless vernaculars. The Netherlands
Media Art Institute organises from August 24 untill September 28 The
Pleasure of Language. In this exhibition the artists are concerned with
language in various manners. By employing new technologies a number of works
reflect the body of thought and ways of working of artists at the beginning
of the last century - like Hugo Ball, Marcel Duchamp and Theo van Doesburg -
, placing these ideas in a contemporary perspective. The artists respond
through image, text and sound to and participate in the ways language-use as
well as the communication process are changing.

In his installations the audio artist Brandon LaBelle focuses on the
dynamics of spaces, objects, bodies and language. His interest is primarily
in the harmonic possibilities of language: how the various consonants and
vowels collectively form an architectural whole that enables us to form
words and sentences, and subsequently how they achieve and influence
communication.

The misunderstandings which arise in communication are central to the work
of Peter Frucht. Influenced by his long presence in chatrooms on the
internet, in Frucht has selected snippets of various internet conversations
in