Jazmina Figueroa. Call Signs

A spiral exposes the progressions of chaos.

»The spiral is an attempt at controlling the chaos. It has two directions. Where do you place yourself, at the periphery or at the vortex? Beginning at the outside is the fear of losing control; the winding in is a tightening, a retreating, a compacting to the point of disappearance. Beginning at the center is affirmation, the move outward is a representation of giving, and giving up control; of trust, positive energy, of life itself. Spirals – which way to turn – represent the fragility in an open space. Fear makes the world go round.» – Excerpt from Louise Bourgeois: »Spiral« (2019) 

Throughout history, shells were used as currency. Their biological architectures reflect the genesis of new currency that is characterized by iteration, in other words, all of that which was and is tallied into previous attempts. The endeavor to sequence entities deriving from the culmination of a whole can be visualized through the study of a shell: the calcified material network – the arrangement of oblique lines and relief-like patterns with obscured interpretive origins. For what it’s worth, all of what makes up a mollusc’s shell is also part of the force that drives movement across the Atlantic Ocean.

»Call Signs«, 2021, by Jazmina Figueroa is part machine-generated and part sensorial. It is based on the subversive, radical traditions of expanded media for information exchange and transference. The project concludes the two-month residency research of Jazmina Figueroa at ZKM | Karlsruhe within the framework of »Beyond Matter«, an international, collaborative, practice-based research project.