Keywords

• The paper focuses on Bruce Nauman's linguistic exploitations by means of a systematic analysis of his audio-installation Raw Materials: a site-specific work presented at the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in 2004. Nauman's work is mainly devoted to the understanding of the 'functional limits of language' and therefore to the deepening of all possible linguistic meanings of speech. This particular interest pervades Nauman's corpus especially through the recurrence of dichotomous themes and conceptual pairs like public/ private
• interior/exterior
• meaningful/ meaningless
• developing a constitutive tension that is the focal point of his work. The analysis of Raw Materials and all previous works flowing in it allows the individuation of a specific synchronic path that represents a distinctive feature of Nauman's work: the recurring unbalance between language use and its meaning. In this contribution I will propose a new reading of the audio-installation by focusing on the recurrence of operational and expressive forms: the value of the context of use that recalls Wittgenstein's theories
• the perceptual ambiguity and the retroactive functionality of language
• the sound materialization and manipulation as connotative functions of language
• the author's control over the viewer's experience. Ultimately I will consider the role of language in Nauman's work as a cohesive and privileged force within his corpus: a dialogic exchange between language and the totality of its possible visual exploitations