nonainescu

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Lodger (Hypothetical Ancestral Mollusc)

2018

galvanized steel, latex, aluminum, silicone

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Untitled (A hermit crab outgrew his shell)

2018

painted steel, polyester, key, chain, 250 x 210 x 2 cm

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Litho/gym

2017

Installation with three Litho/swings and one ring concretion.

Stainless steel structure, leather, chains, stones and one photograph

- Concretions (Geophilia VI) archival inkjet print on Hahnemuhle paper, 40 x 60 cm (framed), dimensions variable

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Lithosomes

“[a] vital materiality that runs through all bodies, both human and non-human.”*

The current prehistory demands to test the limits of critical thinking. To assemble conceptual and affective tools for navigation between old and new natures. There is a joyful exuberance and a melancholic resignation in not knowing again.

Neo-naiveté becomes more politically efficient than deconstruction.

In “pre” times we can work on ambiances, accommodate the non-organic, the non-human. We can aimlessly drift across infantile digital territories, multi-natures and pseudo-metaphysics.

Not a full regression, but rather an ontological flatness. Un-adjustable regimes of existence artificially intersecting for a moment. What moment? In the case of concretions that particular moment doesn’t even qualify as time.

A concretion (“trovant” in Romanian) is a compact mass of matter formed by the precipitation of mineral cement within the spaces between particles. Concretions are often ovoid or spherical in shape, although irregular shapes also occur.

The concretions are hyper-jumping from one “pre” to another, bypassing the homo-sapiens age in a blink of a stone pore.

The stone exists in another order of magnitude, a gigantic arch over humanity and life itself.

Lingering at the periphery of discourse. Works triggered not by questions but by an alienating disposition. Non-becoming rapports, non-hierarchical ways of interaction.

Nothing to interrogate. Who cares what it is peculiar to the human? Not even what is peculiar to the concretion.

A prolonged proximity. Trying to resonate with matter coming from an irrecoverable distance. An impossible intimacy.

Text by Ion Dumitrescu

* Bennett, Jane: Vibrant Matter. Duke University Press , 2010

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Litho/swings I, II, III 2017 concretion, leather, chains dimensions variable

Ring concretion 2017 faux leather, metal ring, small concretion dimensions variable

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Introvert II 2017 concretion, chrome-plated steel cage, leash dimensions variable

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Hybrid 2017 faux leather, foam 6 x 160 x 90 cm

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Introvert 2017 concretion, chrome-plated steel cage, leash 32 x 26 cm, 100 cm

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Concretions (Geophilia) 2017 series of BW photographs

40 x 60 cm / 70 x 100 cm

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Untitled (Formation) As part of the exhibition "Lithosomes", the video work "Untitled (Formation") is an attempt in visualizing the process of formation in concretion stones, the transition from the molecular state to the mineral. 2017 2'30" Text: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen from "Stone: an Ecology of the Inhuman", 2015, University Of Minnesota Press 3D Modeling and Animation: Tessellat Voice: Maria Tanjala https://vimeo.com/240194268

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Morpheus 2017 Welded iron structure, coated leather, 82 x 86 x 80 cm

Installation view at Suprainfinit Gallery, Bucharest

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Defense 2017 Archival print on Hahnemuhle paper, 40 x 60 cm

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Echo 2017 In collaboration with Vlad Nanca and Chlorys installation with 40 albino snail shells, 20 earpods, ipod, sound (3 min. 20 sec.)

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“Mixture for mixture, chaos for chaos, the skin’s image is the curtain, its reflection a canvas and its phantom a sheet. But the canvas as a whole (...) could serve as a screen, poster, leaf or veil: a patterned curtain, a tattoo, like the skin. The woman with the lavishly decorated body, facing the richly decorated reflection of the curtain, is holding in her hand a shawl: is it a piece of curtain, a fragment of canvas, a bit of her skin? It is a rag seamlessly joined to the scrap of material stuck to her.” (Michel Serres, The five senses)

Our flesh surrounds us with its own decisions 2017 latex, surgical steel piercings, chrome-plated steel, 155 x 75 x 55 cm

Installation view at EXILE, Berlin

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Skin becomes stone 2016-2017 water-washed stone, leather variable sizes

Installation view at SpazioA, Pistoia

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Conversation with a stone 2016 Framed archival print on Hahnemuhle paper, Passepartout,  20 x 30 cm, 60 x 80 cm

Untitled (Mano fica) 2016 Framed Archival Hahnemuhle paper, digital print 20 x 30 cm, 60 x 80 cm

Installation view at SpazioA, Pistoia

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Conversation with a stone

Touch defines the border between our self and the world. Being in “con-tact” means “with touch”. Next to being in touch with objects, we are able to extend our bodies through objects, to make them become part of us. Think of your smartphone. We feel, experience the world through these objects and they become tactually transparent. When interacting with us, objects exert a “body language”, they become animated with skin, bones and muscles. And in touch, we do not really make a difference whether the object we are in touch with is actually alive or not: it is touching us and thereby has affective meaning. The hand is often the icon for touch, although touch is a full-body experience. The hands represent the active touch, while the rest of our body is more passively touched. In every physical interaction, both phenomena occur simultaneously: we touch and by that, we are being touched. Touch makes real. It is often depicted as the sense that cannot be deceived or fooled. Tactile sensations are the very first to develop. Conversation with a stone is a poem written by Wisława Szymborska in 1962, where the author plays with the idea of the self-confronting with the external world, through an imaginary dialogue between the speaker of the poem and a stone. The speaker knocks on the stone’s door, asks the stone to step inside of it and the stone refuses. Essentially, the speaker represents the human desire to know each detail of the world around us, and the stone the impossibility of knowing. For the stone, we find, has no door. Through her works, Nona Inescu tries to continue the conversation with the stone by opening new possibilities of interaction through the tactile sense. Using photographs, objects, videos and installations Nona Inescu directs her attention to the cultural phenomena surrounding the sense of touch. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, Nona Inescu tries to approach a wide range of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and challenges the idea of “form following function” in a work.