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| Custom Note | No Zone is a sign for an imagined place, an open-air asylum where there is total freedom to do and say anything, unencumbered by any legal, social, or moral restrictions: A No zone where no expression or behavior is disallowed or forbidden, a place of absolute anarchy. In this unlikely dystopian realm even revealing any expression or activity that might raise the suspicion that one is not completely free is subject to banishment. There is a distinctly Orwellian feel to this zone of perpetually implicit affirmation, or to paraphrase that inveterate avant-gardist, Gertrude Stein: “There is no no there.” In spite of the anarchic (and totalitarian) overtones of this sign work, perhaps emphasized by the black and red colors of revolution, No Zone seems paradoxical: A reflexive sign where “no” negates itself (the angled strike-through line both bisects and completes the “N” on the red “O” background). And it might be the paradoxical aspect of the configuration that compels the viewer/reader to try and make sense of this sign on its own terms; as something with potential meaning or purpose. Given the sign’s status as an imaginary object, in the sense that it signifies an implausible state, it obviously does not serve a functional or utilitarian purpose. And yet, the essential meaning or use of this sign might very well lie in its basic purpose as a cognitive/aesthetic object: To engage the senses, imagination, and intellect of the viewer/reader in ways that fully integrate word and image, or the visual and verbal. But to what end? One viewing/reading of No Zone is that the notion of “total freedom” is ultimately a negation of freedom. Socially sanctioned constraints on freedom are often necessary to ensure the coherence of the social order. For example: No one, other than first responders, are free to run red lights. Unrestricted freedom is tantamount to chaos and no freedom at all. It seems that democratic regimes sometimes err on the side of unrestricted individual freedoms, whereas totalitarian regimes err on the side of the repression of collective freedoms. |
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