La Memoria de Tiresias

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tree and video installation

2014

 

 

“La memoria de tiresias” or “Thiresia´s memory” was specially designed  for the exhibition ABLI 2014 (Artists Bienial Lima) The space I was assigned to was a beautiful old but well kept and reacently renovated house with traditional Lima arquitecture and a small patio with trees and several plants. The area for the exhibition was located on the first floor and had large windows which looked to the patio and allowed a reagular amount of light in during the day. However during nighttime the space could be almost completely black. It’s quite important to note that many of the arquitectural landmarks in Lima such as this have been torned down (because of bad maintenance of their original precarious materials) and modern constructions with imported aesthetics have been built over the land.

For this project a tree that had been torn down due to its rotten roots was hollowed out and guilded with bronce leaf inside. Several videos where made of the trees and leaves of the area that surrounded the tree while it was still alive and projected on the tree inside the house during the exhibition. During  the day, light came in through the window and the projection was slightly visible while the gilded area reflected the light, but it was during nighttime that the darkness of the room became an ideal space for the projection; the colors where saturated and the shapes well contrasted. Visibility increased with darkness. Like the mytholoical greek prophet Tiresias who was blind but could see the past and the future, this installation requires certain blindness to be properly appreciated. In order to see beyond what is evident and comprehend certain things, an amount of  darkness is necesary.

The projected memory of the tree resembles Tiresia’s clairvoyance, and like Tiresias, stil remembers even in death and is somewhat still alive beause of it. The shell of the tree, the object itself has memory, in the same way the shell of the house contains memories of life from many years past. History remains in the objects it touches. The golden bronce that reflects light serves as a reminder of the gold in ancient Peruvian design and arquitecture. The tree just like the city of Lima has been  excised of it’s interior but while some landmarks emain there is still some constant remembrance of it’s identity that contrasts with the futurist urbanism without memory. A dying city that does not value its history. To see without remembering is not knowing, sight without memory is blind.