Anyone can confirm

“Anyone can confirm” takes its basis from the widespread virtual interface element called a drop menu, which can be viewed as a container or a category that is usually presented with a title or a symbol describing its contents. The user is presented with a list of options to choose from, which in turn can propagate further down into their own lists and so on. Through these avenues of choices, it is possible to navigate in and interact with digital space.

The drop menu construct, with its confined and defined form, starts to generate its own values, borders and meanings. The inside describes and influences the outside and vice versa. How do we as users influence and be influenced by these properties when we navigate our digital space? Will their characteristics be somehow placed upon ourselves as well?

The artist's works have been thrust into this world.

Laura De Jaeger

Mari Männa

Johannes Luik

A pocket, a wedge, a container and an ornamental trimming along the space.

My head feels heavy. The mass of my body is slightly shifting from one leg to another. I'm wandering around a room - walking.

I've been here many times. I look in one corner and then another. The room has a good volume. I don't feel it's too oppressive but not uncomfortably large either. Its walls have been plastered smooth. This kind of a gesture is an act of aggression towards the materiality and size of the space. The act functions as an attempt to erase the knowledge and the crippling fear of the fact that around you is a container which accommodates you. Just like a piece of a carrot in a tupperware rolling around the space when the plastic box is moved. I move on.

I AM DOING ANOTHER ROUND IN THE ROOM. The room is framed by strips that mark where the ceiling meets the wall. I move along the edge of the wall, the heavy mass of my head makes it scrape against the wall now and then. I stop about a third of the way up the room. In front of me is the doorway that separates this room from the next. I look at the open door and the emptiness behind it, put my hand in my pocket and feel the emptiness. There is an absence of a thing in my pocket. There was a thing. But now there is no thing - nothing.

I keep walking around the space. Beyond the door is not where I am at the moment. It is still there for me, but as information stored somewhere else.¹

¹ In Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time, one can find a scene in which the memory of a moment in time is not only remembered visually, but also emotionally, taking over the whole body and all the senses. This happens non-verbally through a physical dialogue with the material. In such a case, then, in my case, the movement in a space I have been in countless times is the present moment.

I forget who I am. I am reminded of an image. A negative of an image of someone who could or could not be me. It is contained and framed by the celluloid itself on which it exists. Similar to this room and me. I exist in the fact that I inhabit.

On my next wandering shuffle into the existence of the room, I stop again in front of the doorway, put my hand in my pocket and feel the emptiness there. This time my wandering gaze is caught by the wedge slid between the door and the floor. It reminds me of the moment when I had the wedge in my pocket. The hand that is in the pocket once again feels the sensations of the surface of the sanded dark dense oak running along the fingertips in the pocket.²

² I did put the wedge between the door and the floor on one of the rotations around the room. Was it the previous one or the one before that? How long have I been walking in this room? Or these rooms?

I sauntered down the room. Thinking about how to fill the space. Is there any need? After all, the space itself is relatively pleasant - at least when walking around. The wedge under the door still holds the door and the hands in the pockets still feel empty. The footnotes will allow the reader to understand the details of my inner world and hopefully put together a kind of whole.³

³ But how do you create a whole? Is it even necessary? If two objects need to be brought together, maybe a wedge will help.

   I do another round of the space.
   My head swaying slowly from one side to the other.
   As I take a step and then another.
   I observe the skirting boards along the space. They define the space. They run along the connection of the floor and the wall and then the wall and the ceiling. To remind me and anyone else who would inhabit this space, that it is in fact a space. That the wall does not run endlessly on its axis and the same with the floors and the ceiling. The doorway is the only negative space. The only corner. I only turn back into the space. I never turn around the space.

I would love to turn around into the space.

   The space I am in has four walls
                                     a floor
                                                 and a ceiling.

                 You could say it looks like an inside of a box.

I sway from side to side, hands in pockets and walk along the outer perimeter of the container around me.

The hands leave the pockets and the pockets fold back into flatness. Space has disappeared - so the pockets were not empty, they became space through the presence of the hand. Also the space I am floating in exists only for me for the moment, because I am here. And for you. To read of me being here. I look again at the doorway, feel the steps already leading me towards it. In front of the door, I crouch once more towards the ground.⁴

⁴ Being in a cube reminds me of the profile that adorns a mural. I am not slouching or standing up. A body that is neither horizontal nor vertical. Neither parallel to the wall nor the floor. A body that exists in space without being in sync with it. Have I conquered the rigidness of the space? And I stand up.

A triangular shaped wooden object is placed in my pocket and the door starts to slowly close. I step through the doorway into the void and the space behind me folds in on itself and ceases to exist.⁵

⁵ I entered another room.

Camille Laurelli

Thump! Purr! Moo! Cluck! Zoom! Quack! Hiss! Sniff! Chirp! Rattle! Gargle! Crunch! Roar! Mumble! Scratch! Ribbet! Zing! Squeak! Thud! Squawk! Flutter! Whistle! Slurp! Clonk! Pop! Quack! Clang! Screech! Twang! Jingle! Neigh! Squish! Plop! Clatter! Bang! Brring! Snap! Swish! Clap! Ding! Zip! Swoosh! Blop! Thwack! Giggle! Snore! Whine! Crash! Creak! Drip! Splash! Whirr! Snarl! Crinkle! Toot! Chirp! Gulp! Yip! Plop! Woof! Beep! Hoot! Sizzle! Yawn! Squawk! Hiss! Hoot! Rattle! Thwack! Squeal! Ding! Meow! Zzz! Baa! Pop! Boom! Ribbet! Roar! Bang! Maa! Bzz! Slap! Cluck! Peep! Blop! Scratch! Squeak! Grunt! Click! Whoosh! Purr! Honk! Twang! Snap! Clatter! Quack! Swoosh! Flutter! Crash! Thump! Rattle! Creak! Moo! Swish! Whistle! Squish! Thud! Zap! Gargle! Pop! Squawk! Hoot! Chirp! Clap! Beep! Zing! Thwack! Snore! Sniff! Creak! Giggle! Crunch! Ribbet! Hiss! Squeal! Jingle! Snarl! Yawn! Roar! Drip! Zoom! Sizzle! Meow! Ding! Clonk! Bang! Brring! Slurp! Whine! Quack! Whistle! Squawk! Snap! Roar! Thud! Chirp! Scratch! Squeak! Crunch! Gulp! Creak! Hiss! Beep! Squish! Clap! Pop! Hoot! Twang! Moo!

Bang! Meow! Crunch! Thud! Roar! Cluck! Quack! Squeak! Pop! Hiss! Ding! Squawk! Flutter! Thwack! Scrabble! Ribbet! Gargle! Jingle! Whistle! Crinkle! Squish! Sniff! Swoosh! Zap! Clap! Pop! Whine! Honk! Clatter! Whistle! Snore! Roar! Thump! Slurp! Bzz! Sizzle! Gulp! Snap! Twang! Cluck! Crunch!

Thud! Sizzle! Creak! Whirr! Splash! Hiss! Squawk! Ding! Flutter! Chirp! Roar! Ribbet! Thump! Cluck! Meow! Crunch! Squish! Beep! Clap! Gargle! Swish! Scrabble! Pop! Thwack! Bang! Honk! Squeak! Crinkle! Woof! Drip! Snap! Zap! Sniff! Snarl! Swoosh! Whistle! Zzz! Hoot! Whine! Moo! Squawk! Purr! Chirp! Clatter! Hiss! Squish! Zip! Thud! Squawk! Crunch! Beep! Twang! Clap! Gulp! Creak! Splash! Honk! Swoosh! Scrabble! Ding! Ribbet! Whistle! Pop! Roar! Flutter! Thump! Swish! Snore! Snap! Zing! Whirr! Thwack! Chirp! Sizzle! Squawk! Quack! Woof! Gargle! Bang! Hoot! Crinkle! Scrabble! Meow! Snarl! Drip! Sniff! Pop! Snore! Squish! Whine! Swoosh! Zip! Thud! Hiss! Purr! Squawk! Swish! Ribbet! Flutter!

Kaisa Maasik