A Letter to Ludwig Wittgenstein

Abstract

Lynda Gaudreau’s current artistic research on asynchrony emerged from her choreographic practice. Asynchrony is the modification or disturbance of perception caused by a slight change in space and/or time within a work, and which, like a pebble, slips inside a machinery. This tiny friction between space and time heightens the audience’s attention. During her doctoral research (2018), she elaborated her conception of asynchrony through specific parameters, such as the hole/ gap, short circuit and fake space. These were organized into three dynamic axes: desynchronization, destruction, and editing. Her project eventually took the form of twenty-five fictional letters to various individuals - artists, thinkers and characters. They include letters to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cedric Price, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and a Sainte. The letter to Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the unpublished letters of this project. Begun during the live screening of the American presidential election in 2016, the letter integrates various recollections and texts about space, movement and time. It carries the reader into a choreographic and asynchronic experience, from one place to another, and into different times (live stream, recorded…). The letter to Ludwig Wittgenstein is a reflective enquiry into the relation between space and language, and the mobile nature of both.