EVENT 2: MNEMOWARI BY ELÍ JOTEVA


Last week I had the opportunity to attend an exhibition by Elí Joteva titled “Mnemowari”. This is the first art display I have seen and I am quite fascinated by the experience. This exhibition was an interesting play on time, as the displays portrayed the future, present and the past.

"Dream-wave" portrait
Mnemowari - brief overview
The exhibition was divided into four compartments, with the first compartment being a projection of a “dream-wave portrait” on the wall, and represented future. At first, I was quite confused by this. It was very beautiful but I had no context for this display. After seeing the other compartments, I felt that this display was in a way standalone and a bit disjointed. It could be because we know the past and present, but the future is abstract and has infinite possibilities.

The second compartment represented the present, and consisted of cryo scultures, which were three balls of ice hanging from the ceiling using rope. Each sculpture had a different theme. One was covered predominantly with flowers and plant life, and exuded bright lively colors, which I took to represent the life on land. Another ball was covered with sand, twigs, seeds and plants, which to me represented aquatic life. The final ball was covered with shells, exotic flowers and mushrooms, which I took to represent every other type of life on Earth. These balls of ice were melting, and the beautiful part was that you could see it melt drop by drop, into a container. This room to me represented all life on earth, and the dripping water represented the passage of time. As the ice melted, some of the things covering the ice were falling onto the sand pit below, which I take to be a symbol for death.

Cryo Sculpture
Theme: Acquatic life
Theme: Other life 
Symbolism of death






































The third compartment was incredibly cool. It was a VR headset, which showed us the inside of the cryo sculpture, and also represented the present. The VR image is constantly rotating and gets a disturbance every time a drop falls into the pot. The disturbance was probably my favorite part, as it really showed that we are seeing the inside of the sculpture live.

The final compartment were three large projections of the cryo sculptures, before they started melting. This was a 3D display, and was constantly rotating, so that we can compare its original look to its current form. This part of the display was representing the past, and to me this was really used to emphasize the present.
3D projection of cryo sculpture
Overall, I found this exhibition to be very intriguing. It was an incredible example of use of technology, such as cryogenics and virtual reality in art. The way the concept of time was explored in this exhibition was very interesting, especially the fact that the observer goes from the future to the past. I would highly recommend that my classmates visit this event, as it is both aesthetically pleasing and thought provoking.















Comments

  1. katelyn noelleMay 15, 2017 at 7:38 PM

    After simply reading your detailed blog, I am already intrigued by this exhibit. It seems as though this event, using cryogenics and virtual reality, truly encapsulates the theme of this class. I am particularly interested in experiencing the "time play" aspect. The melting ice balls and their representation of the passage of time is ingenious.

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