Memory

Space and light, or the absence of the latter, in the visual arts, is as much as silence and notes in music. The possibilities to combine and explore are almost infinite.

Lately, immersive art, along with AI, has become the pampered boy. But I must insist on the fact that any technique used creates an intimate space, where the viewer interacts with the artwork, and every experience is different; it doesn’t matter if it’s a painting or a sculpture behind a line, you don’t need to be surrounded by the piece or to be allowed to touch.

I’ll try to explain myself. Both expressions, the newest and the oldest, create an atmospheric space where light, shade, and texture work in the eye. Through the gaze and the very moment you are living when you’re in front of the piece, there is a neuronal impact that can be very well translated in the rest of the senses.

Skyspace: Espíritu de Luz, James Turrell / photo: TEC de Monterrey

James Turrell had the vision of the non-object, and the light as the art itself. When you are inside or in front of one of his pieces, your senses and perception, associated to whatever is happening in your life before and after, construct a memory in your neuronal net, not so different that the one you experience when you see a classical artwork, or even better, when you’ve visited a cathedral or a church. At least for me, that is an immersive experience, where light and shade inhabit you. Both experiences vanish from our living moment, but remain in the memory and recreation through it.

If what I sustain here seems nonsense, let me close this ojolo note with a question: last time you traveled or moved in your own country or city, to see a specific artwork, how do you remember the experience of that precise moment you were in the presence of that piece? And more importantly, can you still feel something?

Keep the answer for yourself.

Memory