Inframince is a concept Marcel Duchamp created that describes perceived nuance in the world. The original notes on inframince, now kept in the Cabinet d’Art Graphique archive at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, were written by Duchamp, in French over time, between 1912 and his death in 1968, on 46 mainly undated scraps of paper.
Sometimes translated as 'infra-thin,' inframince connotes a barely perceptible thinness; in his introduction to the original publication, Paul Matisse called inframince the 'very last lastness of things… [the] frail and final minimum before reality disappears' (1980 xv). Duchamp implied that inframince cannot be defined — ‘one doesn’t dare but give examples,’ he said (Denis de Rougement diary)’ — and each note in his collection describes inframince phenomena: for instance, the warmth of a seat just left is inframince, as is the whistling sound made by walking in velvet trousers, two objects cast from the same mould, or reflection from mirror or glass (Matisse, 1980 notes 4, 9 verso, 35 recto, 9 recto respectively; all translations mine).
Inframince Notes Wall Map, Rebecca Loewen, 2016; Duchamp's original notes
Inframince Notes Translation, Rebecca Loewen, 2017; excerpt, transcription and translation of Marcel Duchamp's notes
Parallel Translations of Duchamp's Notes on Inframince, Rebecca Loewen, 2015; excerpt; translations by Janelle Tougas and Anne Kawala
Walk Around PM’s River House, Rebecca Loewen, 2017; photographs
Conversations About Inframince with Paul Matisse, Rebecca Loewen, 2020, Interview and Transcription; excerpts
3 Slide Shows, Rebecca Loewen, 2017, Video, Duration 4' - 22"
3 Slide Shows closely follows an architectural subject through documentary description. Text read aloud accompanies an analogue slideshow of various architectural subjects. In the performance of the show (projection and reading) spaces are explored between transparency and opacity, image and text, 2D and 3D. The impossibility of an impartial perspective generates a space between the subject and its description within which overlays, fictions or inhabitations may occur.
Cheek-Vase-Wall, Rebecca Loewen, 2013, Colour Super 8 Digitally Transferred, Duration 1' - 43"
A woman suddenly finds her cheek right up next to a vase right up next to a wall
Proprioception Tests, Koenigstrasse, Rebecca Loewen, 2013
Wall Map, Rebecca Loewen, 2013; text excerpts from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Elizabeth Grosz, Daniel Heller-Rozen, Michelangelo Antonioni, Michel Lieiris