CLAVIS TABULA 2023
"Clavis Tabula" is a project developed in the framework of an artist residency at Basis (Frankfurt Am Main) with Ceaac (Strasbourg).
My residency project began with research into the history of printed books in Yiddish and Hebrew, which were sold at the Frankfurt Book Fair (1). While consulting the archives of the fair‘s catalogs (2), I focused my research on one book in particular: the „Sefer Evronot“. This book was popularised in the 17th and 18th centuries with the first printed versions, including Offenbach‘s edition which caught my attention (3).
I was attracted by a schematic drawing of an annotated hand with letters and words, which served as a memory aid for the calculation of the months, seasons, and associated religious rituals.
This use of hands as a memorizing device echoes the epitaph dedicated to Pastor Johannes Lupi (x-1468) that I observed in the Frankfurt Historical Museum (4). On this bas-relief representing the 10 commandments, hands occupy 1/3 of the foreground to enumerate each figurative vignette.The description of this work relates to using the fingers as a memory aid to help practitioners memorize the commandments. This method is based on a quotation from King Solomon‘s proverbs: „Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.“(5).
Being familiar with mnemonic methods, it seemed relevant to me to use an organ of the body as a „memory palace“(6). I imagined the hands as an architectural ensemble whose junctions of each knuckle produce a subdivision of space. Each finger represents a building numbered from 1 to 10 and each phalanx represents a floor annotated with a letter. From this diagram, I began to develop a parallel between the computer keyboard and the anatomy of the hands.
While reflecting on the etymology of the terms „digital“ and „tactile“ specific to the computer keyboard, I imagined a reappropriation of this tool by the body, which would materialize in the form of gloves. Although limited, they are initially envisaged as functional objects by experimenting with several variations and by imitating ergonomic studies to bring them comfort of use.
The rest of this work consisted in finding various application paths. These include the performative act, which tends to elaborate a discourse through body language, the staging of a verbal exchange between two individuals, or a playful use.
Going back to the sources of this research, it is interesting to mention how important the alphabetic language is in Jewish mysticism and its cosmogonic narrative. In the famous „Sepher Yetzirah“ (Book of Creation), God creates the world from the 22 Hebrew letters and thus through language (7). At the same time, the hand is also linked to the notion of creation as the vehicle through which humanity shapes the world on its scale. From this conceptual point of view, the linking of the two in the same object echoes this mythologic creative process.
(1) Jean Baumgarten, „The Printing of Yiddish Books in Frankfurt-on-the-Main (17th and 18th Centuries)“, Newsletter of the French Research Centre in Jerusalem, 2009.
(2) Meßkatalog, allg. Verzeichn. Hildesheim [u.a.]: Olms Microform, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main.
(3) „Sefer Evronot“, Eliezer ben Ya‘akov Beilin, Printing House Bonaventura de Launoy, Offenbach, 1722 - Gross Family Collection (GFC), B.285, Israel, Tel Aviv.
(4) „Johannes Lupi“, Skulptur Relief, 114,5 x 240 x 19 cm, nach 1468 - Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Inv. X17129b.
(5) Hebrew Bible, Ketuvim, proverb 7:3
(6) The method of loci ( also known as the memory palace) is a strategy for memory enhancement, which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of information. This method is a mnemonic device adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises. - The Art of Memory, Frances Yates, 1966.
(7) „He hath formed, weighed, transmuted, composed, and created with these twenty-two letters every living being, and every soul yet uncreated.“, Sepher Yetzirah - 2:2.