Felippe Moraes
O Peso do Verbo (The Weight of the Word), 2010 – 2014
Glass, glass shelving, precision scale, salt, brass weights, 72 electricity-conducting reagents and laser engraving on acrylic.
600 × 200 × 150 cm
O Peso do Verbo (2010–2014), by Felippe Moraes, is an installation that investigates the materiality of the word, the relationship between language and spirituality, and the limits of human systems of measurement.
The work is composed of 72 glass containers, each holding 15 grams of electricity-conducting materials. This value corresponds exactly to the weight of the 5,101 occurrences of the word “God” cut from a Bible in the artist’s earlier work, Verbo (2009–2010).
Starting from this physical fact — the weight of the word — the work proposes a symbolic transmutation. Religious language turns into matter, suggesting an equivalence between word, energy and creation.
Facing the 72 glass containers stands an analog precision scale that functions as a point of conceptual synthesis for the work. On one pan rest the scale’s own counterweights, of 5 g and 10 g, totaling 15 grams. On the opposite pan, in strict balance, sit 15 grams of salt.
Facing the 72 glass containers stands an analog precision scale that functions as a point of conceptual synthesis for the work. On one pan rest the scale’s own counterweights, of 5 g and 10 g, totaling 15 grams. On the opposite pan, in strict balance, sit 15 grams of salt.
The device establishes a silent scene of equivalence between technical measurement and symbolic matter. The exact weight that structures the installation reappears there as direct visual experience, turning calculation into image.
By choosing salt — a substance historically associated with preservation, economic value and various spiritual traditions — the work broadens its reflection on matter, language and transcendence.
The scale makes visible the human attempt to quantify that which, in the realm of the sacred and of the word, always seems to escape both ruler and weight.
Word, Alchemy and Creation
The work departs from the idea that the word holds creative power, a notion present in various religious and mystical traditions.
The title of the work refers to the prologue of the Gospel of John. In that passage, it is stated that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In this context, the word is not merely an instrument of communication, but a creative principle.
This conception also appears in mystical traditions that associate letters and words with spiritual forces. In Jewish mysticism, for example, God has 72 names, each representing an aspect or manifestation of the divine.
The installation makes direct reference to this tradition by presenting 72 containers, each holding materials weighed to the same value obtained in the earlier work. The number thus becomes a symbolic element connecting language, theology and material experimentation.
Electricity and the Manifestation of the Divine
The materials chosen to compose the installation share one characteristic. All of them conduct electricity.
The choice is not arbitrary. In many mythologies and religious texts, divine manifestations appear associated with electrical or luminous phenomena, such as lightning, discharges or celestial lights.
These images appear in narratives associated with deities such as Xangô, Iansã, Zeus or Tupã, as well as biblical episodes related to divine presence.
By bringing together materials capable of conducting electricity, O Peso do Verbo suggests an analogy between invisible energy and spirituality. Just as electricity travels through matter without being seen, the divine is often described as an invisible force that runs through the material world.
The Failure of Measurement
Although the work employs rigorous procedures of weighing and organization, it also reveals the limits of these systems.
The attempt to materialize the divine through weights and measures inevitably exposes a methodological failure. Any human system of measurement remains insufficient before concepts such as infinity, transcendence or divinity.
This failure, however, is not an error in the work. It is an essential part of its structure. By attempting to measure that which exceeds all measure, the work exposes the limits of scientific and rational languages.
Thus, O Peso do Verbo situates itself between science, spirituality and aesthetic experience, proposing a reflection on the human attempt to understand the invisible.
Selected Exhibitions
- 2018 – Imensurável – CAIXA Cultural Fortaleza (Ceará, Brazil)
- 2014 – FRESTAS Triennial – SESC Sorocaba (São Paulo, Brazil)