« (…) There is always something else going on, and usually what appears to be a repetition is not just repetition.(…) let us consider a performance of Esther Ferrer’s En el marco del arte. She is extremely disciplined when she does this piece, and each action takes exactly one minute. (…) What kind of repetition do we find in Esther Ferrer’s Recorrer un quadrado de todas las formas posibles ? Let’s say that she begins in corner “a”, takes four steps forward, four to the left and four backwards, then moves to corner “b”, takes four steps forward, four to the left and four backwards, then moves to corner “c”, takes four steps forward, four to the left and four backwards, then moves to corner “d”, takes four steps forward, four to the left and four backwards. Now she must go back to corner “a” but this time she takes four steps backwards, four steps to the right, and four frontwards, then moves to corner “b”, then takes four steps backwards, four steps to the right, and four frontwards, then moves to corner “c”, then takes four steps backwards, four steps to the right and four frontwards, then moves to corner “d”, takes four steps backwards, four steps to the right and four frontwards. Now she must go back to corner “a”, and this time she begins a new sequence.
You were probably a little confused and impatient when you read that last paragraph, but you would probably have been a little lost if you were watching her in a live performance too. Sometimes Ferrer herself gets a little confused, as one can not always maintain the high level of concentration necessary for rigorous sequences of this sort, and there can be small errors. We all tend to be confused, to lose our way in this precise logic. And yet, we appreciate that there is a logic. There is something reassuring about a little machine like this that can go on and on and on. (…) For several months Esther Ferrer asked everyone she met if they would like to record something about what infinity means to them. If there is anything in the exhibit that does not repeat it is these recordings, because everyone has a different voice and a different way of thinking about infinity, and they speak in different languages with very different kinds of voices. Yet even here one has the feeling that they are all repeating, all saying basically the same things. They speak of infinity, but there are only a finite number of things they can say: One speaks of the infinitely great, the infinitely small, the infinity of time and space, and of course, images of infinity that came in dreams or in childhood experiences, but some repetition is inevitable, despite our observation that true repetition is impossible. »
Par le compositeur Tom Johnsons, extrait de l’article « Repetition, repetition and repetition, Reflections on the work of Esther Ferrer ».
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