Double Take

Ora pro nobis… yet not all prayers are oral. States of Matter. Double take. After entering the chapel, on the opposite walls we see two ghostly, white projections. The exhibition space remains in semi-darkness, so the viewer is not entirely submerged in the typical for the projections, cinematic void, which usually denies the presence of the viewer as well as the architecture. The first projection represents strange, amorphous form of octopus, still, but moving, seemingly animated by the water flow rather than its own dynamics. Animation, movement, is mostly what makes humans recognize the living from the dead in nature on its most superficial level. The other reference would be the anthropomorphic, with its symmetrical quality, which also does not apply to the form we see, resembling the folds of white fabric, moved by the wind. On the second wall we see the projection of the “weightless”, hovering body, within limits of ‘ascension’’ and ‘descention’ to the ceiling and to the floor of the chapel. The body is fully covered with white cloth, moving vigorously from the blows of the wind, which may somehow remind the flames of fire. Here too, as on the image of the octopus, the body remains still, hence animated by the external force of the wind, makes the illusion of the endless fall or levitation, in fact the spectacle created by the performer filmed in the air tunnel. The matter of perception in art breaks and renders our memory as long as it becomes sensational rather than remains merely illustrative. This specifically applies to all forms of art which require the physical presence of the viewer in time and space where the work is presented. The perception of the passing time from the two perspectives, the one of the amorphous animal, and the second as the weightless, hovering body, is equally hermetic for the viewer, staging in between his/her own experience of the passing time. Submerged in silence, witnessing simultaneously the two projections confronting each other, may just as well provide the extraordinary reference to the sensation of the passing of our NOW. Dominik Lejman 2017