422 jawbreaker candies, styrofoam boards, site specific dimensions. Installation views at de Punt, Amsterdam : 800 cm x 100 cm x 95 cm
A sequence of a dissolving jawbreaker candy takes off from notions of the seen and unseen, and presence and absence as aspects of mystery in objects of time. What does a sensation or gesture over time look like that takes place inside the body where it is felt but not seen? What is a whole experience versus parts that it can be separated into? Sucking on a candy is a way to make it disappear over time. I took this act of sucking as a unit of measure to visualize what happens in the mouth during this ‘completed act’ from beginning to end.
Each candy was immersed and gently rubbed by hand in body-temperature water one second longer than the previous one as a way to mimic a candy dissolving in the mouth. I chose the jawbreaker for this installation for its different layers of colour that are revealed as the candy dissolves. It is a visualization, in fragments, of a process that is experienced as an unbroken sensation. One-second intervals were the shotest duration of time in which I could perform a repeatable measured gesture - a kind of minimal ‘exposure time’. The installation simultaneously presents this twofold movement: that of the sequence against the unbroken sensation it represents.
