Soft Logic is a collaborative two-person show developed from shared experience, conversation and reflection around notions of dementia, here approached as the materialisation of the loss of knowledge, as well as an agent for chaos and condition of thought.

Building upon ageing and forgetfulness, the show addresses the decaying brain as the dissipation of rational interpretations of the real and the subsequent dissolution of the sense of self, facilitating a feeling of distributed agency within space itself. Dementia becomes thus a methodology for superimposition and flexibility where order, architecture, efficiency, deterioration, ruin and wilderness meet, bridging complexity.

Above earth and dust, beyond the regular distributions of brick and mortar, a gentle breeze fills the old room, like a whisper - it’s the spirit of life, touching and penetrating generously with no discrimination. The mind is empty and open; free from its labour days, it can now understand time and renewal, growing old and returning young with the gift of wonder. Thought flourishes from fading memories of order, it’s the harmony of the wild! Despite appearance, it is not simple. New thought needs care, it is vulnerable and ephemeral, continuously escaping itself like the movement of a pinwheel. It’s here but is already lost. It’s an old pattern: you knew

Now listen. I enter a room with no corners, no up or down, and barely any noise. The sound of footsteps reverberates with the sound of my beating heart, and the hybrid fabrics of my white boiler suit parallel the palpitating veins near my ear, disemboguing into the racing brain. Deflated, I fall into a chimney, down into the hearth and its realm of ashes and by doing so, I am sketching in dust: my benumbed finger draws and ploughs and scratches the concealed internal walls. I carve signs in stone next to openings, portals redrawn in geometry, and lines in prison cells flourish in the dark, calling for the passage of days to speed up. Marks are for the mumbling of spells and chants, and remembering. Both storytelling and the apotropaic begin with the act of naming, in the christening of buoys that keep words afloat in the slippery net of facts. Events occur, most of them worthy of nothing more than minor anecdotes. But this hearth is the house’s stomach. It has an eye between two words: one thought of leaving a mark on this womb before departing. Since eventually you will forget this body, these lights, and sounds, and feelings. DD

Soft Logic was a duo show with works by Diego Delas & Rolf Nowotny, curated by Caterina Avataneo at HAUS Viena with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation.