Remembran(c)es — Poessays
into reality and memory
The first word that comes to
mind when viewing Þóra Sigurðardóttir´s
work Physical recollections, is “membrane”:
that which divides and protects but also that
which touches and connects. The membrane on
the floor with innards and “out(w)ards”;
the skin on the walls (and mappings of surfaces),
the membrane of fat and hairs in the bathwater
— our interface with “hard”
reality. And further, in the membrane (the skin,
the surface) memory resides: “touch”
whether direct, olifactory or audio-visual is
the media that saves experience into memory.
The house (the habitat) —
the house of memories— with all its tactile
surfaces and facets hails memories, remembrances;
of texture, density, hue, covers, smell, and
undertones that the skin, and membranes in ear
and eye sifts into memory. Virtual remembran(c)es.
The projected “housetexts”
draw attention, not only to the perceived world,
but also to drives, desires and needs. Most
of the human needs are represented in respective
texts: for food, sleep and shelter but also,
and not to a lesser extent, aesthetical, intellectual
and ethical needs.
The works on the walls, on the
floor and in the air (the sound) recall the
eternal tug of nature and culture, body and
mind. The “low” innards, either
covered by membrane or not, remindful either
of organs or food, form the foundation and draw
out, in themselves and in the other works, opposites,
that may prove to be congruent as well.
It is not just that texture of
surfaces are mediated to memory by skin and
membrane; the membrane and skin leaves residues
on (real) surfaces, inscribing the memory of
us on it or in it — the residue in the
bathwater does not simply consist of undefined
fat and hairs but contains data about who we
are, were and could become. In this way we are,
in a profound sense, one with the surface, with
hard reality, the world, nature. The ever-unchanging
sound of water (and time) is the undertone of
eternity (and physics?), not necessarily with
religious overtones.
The scales in Thora’s work
emphasize the surfaces that we find and sense
constantly, without giving them much conscious
thought. The “sleek” floor proves
to be endlessly varied, almost fractal, and
not unlike a chart of the stars in the sky.
The universe is (also) in the interface, the
membrane, the skin.
Memory and remembrance in Thora’s
work somehow makes our experience of reality
ethical and in it, just like in membrane, hair
and hide, there resides data, and perhaps interpellation
for responsibility, for unborn generations ... |