Tout va bien: Interception, narratives, and digital deconstruction

The fear of interception during World War I forced narratives into controlled expressions. French soldiers, under the omnipresent dread of German eyes intercepting their correspondences, were restricted to the guarded phrases: "Tout va très bien" or "Tout va bien."—in translation, "Everything is very well" or "Everything is well". These statements, curtained in apparent simplicity, concealed the intricate depths of their wartime experience. This duality — of saying one thing while meaning another, or revealing only a fragment of a greater truth — echoes Wittgenstein’s philosophical inquiry into the limits of language: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Tout va bien takes this historical context and juxtaposes it with modern-day Finland, a nation lauded for its happiness but silently battling its internal socio-cultural challenges. In both contexts, there's an emphasis on constructing narratives, akin to Foucault's examinations of power and knowledge¹, where what is communicated (or not communicated) shapes our perceived realities.

The digital territory of the artwork forms a bridge between these narratives. Using Processing, the text Tout va bien is algorithmically deconstructed through Voronoi diagrams, Delaunay triangulation, and Mesh algorithms. In line with Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the "rhizome", this digital fragmentation serves as a non-hierarchical entry into understanding layered histories and experiences — Mille Plateaux, 1987. Every fragment, every digital node, beckons the viewer to explore a myriad of concealed emotions, stories, and reflections.

As viewers engage with Tout va bien, they embark on a philosophical journey, navigating Wittgenstein’s contemplations on language, Foucault's discourses on power structures, and Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic understanding of knowledge. It's a dialogue between the past and the present, the said and the unsaid, the overt and the hidden — a reminder of the nuanced interplay between truth, representation, and digital reconstruction.

— Moe Louanjli, Helsinki, August 12, 2023.

¹ Michel Foucault, L' Archéologie du savoir, 1969.