revolving time keys

14. - 16.07.11
20:00h
galerie mülhaupt

Revolving time keys is divided in two distinct pieces. The first one involves three works whilst the other only one. This intended distinction aims to stress on the individual position towards one’s own past and the individual relation to time next to the convention of time counting. Revolving around major past events and former experiences that formed one, any person is determined by the past. In the effort of
moving forward one is often challenged by its significance and has to undergo a memory work, that is to confront this past to the present needs and to manage to put it behind once and for all. This repeated effort reveals many aspects of one’s relation to it. The possibility to have access to the past from different perspectives and understand its impact on the present from different viewpoints demonstrates its intimacy and involvement in the everyday life.
The first part, named Alphabetario - Archeology of a quotidien combines embosses of objects on paper and definitions of the objects displayed in a showcases. As witnesses of the everyday life of a woman, these objects store much more information about her and in a way know her better than any person ever had. Photographed and then drawn, the emboss discreetly follows the contours of the objects, which no longer exist, allowing them to be seen only in a very specific light condition, just as memory needs a very specific and subtile mental condition in order to awake.
The second part, named Scraps and bits of a lifetime shows the portrait of that woman taken at a specific moment of her own life that she loved to recall and recount. With the purpose to underline the fact that the unique identity of each one of us is ascribed to the mere addition of the smallest and bigger moments of our life, I cut the portrait in small parts. Each of them is put in a frame, allowing a focused examination. It is an attempt to gain a deep understanding of this person by following the steps she took to build her personality. However, as Boltanski noticed, it is impossible to recollect everything and remap a lifetime in a precise way because an immense amount of data disappears. In this almost surgical dissection of the portrait I made, I left the between spaces out.
The third part presents a foldable book - a leporello - , that is presented opened in the room and participates this way in the installation. Going back along the map illustrates an attempt to grasp and record once and for all the events of the last 15 years in a no logical approach, levelling distinct information into one single memory appearance. The linearity of time is broken into specific moments and found again in the following of the path on the fragmented map. The function of a book is to be opened and to reveal its contents to one person each time. This book is vulnerable, unfolded and constantly exposing its inside. However, it functions like a riddling tale and challenges the viewer to decipher its system and understand the correlations between the presented public and personal events.
Finally, in a separated room, a video-installation presents an objective reflection upon memory as private manifestation and public space as neutral and impersonal space. A la gare is a contemplation of the phenomenon of time in such a neutral place as a train station: there, time is the conductor of the huge and endlessness choreography of body displacement and the measurement of time is the heart beat of individuals and objects. When this measurement is irregular or dysfunctional, the whole equilibrium between carefully protected self and generalized system is interrupted.
As an indirect reference to Proust’s major work, “In search of lost time”, À la gare presents a reflexion upon the possibility of conscious time experience. Remaining wide open to other interpretations, it offers through the repetitive voice following the clock-hand a dream-space where time could be contained. However, as at the end of each minute the rhythm breaks, time enters an unknown space and forces both the clock and the voice to wait for its comeback. This very moment creates a fold in time, a secret space where anything could happen, where the past could awake in this present moment and control let go of its power.

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