Drawing from collective cultural memory, An Antithesis of the Tower revisits the myth of the Tower of Babel. According to this parable, the inhabitants of Earth spoke a universal language prior to the construction of the tower. When the tower was completed, one of their gods said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them,” and thus decided to confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.* In An Antithesis of the Tower, a reconstructed representation of the tower of Babel is capsized and turned into a vessel. The representation causes a literal reversal of the myth, underlining the inherent reciprocity between materiality and concept. On the inside of the water-filled vessel, a mixed media juxtaposition of objets trouvés used as citations and signifiers reactivates the narratives of the past, recognising them as a constant in both time and space. The quotidian contemporary devices are connected to electricity sources that activate them through cables, manifesting function in their composition, and running through water, provoking discomfort and tension. Firmly cradled within the reinforced concrete container, computer keyboard keycaps roam seemingly undisciplined, following the laws of physics of the water current, artificially created using the two wave-makers. The confounded letters on the keycaps result in random asemic compositions and connect the inner to the outer structure of the artwork through their previously imprinted impressions, resembling windows. Light is placed in front of the tower, casting its shadow that affirms its mythical hight, now transformed into its metaphorical depth. At the bottom of the vessel, another light source is placed, producing an analogue projection of the motorized, mechanically induced performative happening on the water’s surface. Simultaneously, a contact microphone, positioned in the midst of the whirling letters of the world’s three most used alphabets, transmits the sound of their movement and collisions through an amplifier and a set of speakers. Together they form a polymorphic audio-visual translation; the content of which appears and mutates perpetually; a universal language. In this concrete poem a de(con)struction of the myth occurs through the very acquisition of its physical form.

​

* Genesis 11:1-9