Alex Manea 

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     Language is one of the most fundamental yet least examined materials of everyday existence. Words are produced continuously, often unconsciously, forming an uninterrupted flow of communication that structures social interaction, identity, and thought. Despite their central role in shaping human experience, spoken words are ephemeral by nature, uttered, received, and immediately lost. This series emerges from an attempt to arrest that constant disappearance and to render visible the volume, structure, and fragility of daily verbal expression.

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     On June 1st, 2021, I initiated a precise conceptual experiment: the complete documentation of every word I spoke throughout the course of a single day. From the first utterance to the last, all spoken language was recorded, resulting in a total of 8,160 words. These words were subsequently transcribed verbatim and preserved in the exact chronological order in which they were spoken, without editing, selection, or reinterpretation. This strict adherence to sequence and completeness was essential to maintaining the integrity of the gesture.

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     The transcribed material was then divided and distributed across eleven individual works. The first ten pieces each contain exactly 800 words, while the final work includes the remaining 160 words, reflecting the natural imbalance of the original data rather than imposing a false symmetry. This division transforms a single day of speech into a fragmented yet continuous structure, allowing the viewer to encounter language not as meaning alone, but as quantity, rhythm, and accumulation.

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     While the conceptual framework of the series is rigid, the visual execution remains deliberately variable. Each work employs a different technique, surface, or compositional approach, maintaining a consistent personal visual language while resisting uniformity. This variation underscores the instability of spoken language itself: although words may follow one another in linear time, their emotional weight, communicative intent, and impact are constantly shifting.

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     Importantly, the series does not privilege semantic meaning over form. The content of the words, mundane, repetitive, emotional, or functional, is presented without hierarchy. By stripping language of its communicative urgency and relocating it within the space of visual art, the works invite viewers to confront language as raw material rather than message. In doing so, the series raises questions about authorship, presence, and self-representation: How much of the self is contained in what is spoken? How much is lost? And what remains when speech is removed from its context?

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     Ultimately, All the Words I Said Today operates as both documentation and abstraction. It transforms a single, ordinary day into an archive, emphasizing the paradox that what is most constant in daily life is also what is least remembered. By materializing speech, the series challenges the viewer to reconsider language not as a transparent tool of communication, but as a dense, persistent structure that quietly shapes the contours of contemporary existence.