POLYPHONIC HOT AIR

With her work POLYPHONIC HOT AIR, artist Anahita Razmi intervenes in public billboards and advertising spaces across Stuttgart to explore the meaning – and the emptiness – of the expression “hot air.” The point of departure is the proverb itself, which takes on entirely different connotations depending on language, place, and cultural context. While in German, “heiße Luft” stands for empty promises or meaningless talk, other languages offer their own equivalents: puro humo (Spanish: only smoke), du vent (French: mere wind), or the Japanese expression kuchisaki dake – “only from the mouth.”  

The work asks: Who holds the authority to define meaning in public space? Who makes decisions? And how does that space, in turn, transform the meaning of what is said? Accompanied by performative elements, POLYPHONIC HOT AIR becomes a multilingual, semiotic exploration of these dynamics. It reveals how voices overlap, meanings shift, and new perspectives emerge – depending on who speaks, who listens, and where the encounter takes place. Amid the omnipresent flood of images, Anahita Razmi’s intervention sets a poetic counterpoint. It opens space for ambiguity, open dialogue, and a polyphony that discovers generative potential even in what might at first appear to be nothing but “hot air.”