Conservation of Memory

Alen Ožbolt: Conservation of Memory

Alen Ožbolt

Conservation of Memory

28. August 1998 – 29. September 1998

Equrna Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia

THE CONSERVATION OF MEMORY (MATERIALITY AND NONMATERIALITY; APPROACHING TO THE NONMATERIAL)

There is no fixed form of the world any more; the form of the world is continually in motion, modification, transformation, and man is no longer its “measure” (Homo mensura), for it seems that many cultural and civilisational forms do not exist merely for humans (those amusing, “strengthening”, and delighting them, for instance), but also against them (things bigger and stronger than humans, which can hurt or even kill them). And money is the “measuring system” that sets the measure, the value of all forms or things, and also of people: we know the value of bread, eggs, and milk; we know the value of a painting, or shoes, car, house, or quick sex; and we know most directly the value (“weight”) of a bank account. Numbers are what we have to believe in, for even “wider social reality” or “objective reality” is often measured and proportionally described (“in-scribed”) in questionnaires, graphs and tables, diagrams and scales. Things as quantities, the society and the world (captured) in numbers. Today, to be or not to be means to have or not to have. And this is despite the fact that we live in the 20th century, in which the discovery of the unconscious has attacked the very idea of cogito (cf. Mladen Dolar). Freud “killed” Descartes, so to speak.

According to fine art theory, a fine artist (which is not the same as an artist) is mainly a compositor, or editor, the one who arranges and composes lines, colours and forms into meaningful wholes, into compositions – composotio means putting together, arranging, sorting, but also conciliation, unification, and also a period, a construction. Contemplating means weighing different solutions. We heard of “the beauty of proportions” – a harmonious, harmonised, balanced composition, for instance – or a dynamic, cracked composition, collapsed into itself. They speak about “beautiful relations”, “harmonious rhythm and intervals”, even of “musical-numerical relationships”. “Fine art structures” in these relationships are “pleasant” to the eye; in the past “the section” expressed in gold was valued higher than a normal section.

To the essence. Measure and time, timeliness. Even a watch dictates to man and his world. Motion exists in time; there is no movement without time. Material is under the attack of (the factors of) time – in the meanings: time as constant duration, repetition, passing away, changing; and time as the actual moment, the here-and-now. The emplacement is a spatial in-scription; it is a transitory and fleeting attempt, since it is executed in sand, one of the most time-defined materials (if we see it from the standpoint of motion, or changing). Sand is almost immaterial. The necessity and presence of the natural law of gravitation, weight, deposition, passing away. It is a human wish to conquer space and override time. My central wish is to compress time/space into One, into timespace.

Here. The installation is emplaced in a gallery room. The language is soft, almost immaterial, but “firmly and precisely” arranged. An unfixed message in sand, away from a solid, sharp, or permanent form. Sand – this time without writing. Sand and the “weight”of its form, and not some other form borrowed from sand. What belongs to it, and what is foreign? What is the ground: is it a mere basis, and why do we need solid ground (under our feet) for a soft form? Ground: spatial forms, wide forms in the space, on the surface. Wall: the weight and the height of sand without a vertical. What is built into heights is made of horizontal elements (bricks, for example); horizontal spaces, arranged “drawers”.

Text fot the work Conservation of memory, 1995.

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Installation Views

Selection of Works from the Exhibition

Conservation of Memory

Conservation of Memory

Alen Ožbolt