A Journey That Wasn't, 2005

Super-16mm film and high-definition video transfered to hight-definition video, color, sound ; 21:41

© Marian goodman Gallery Paris/New York

This is the path toward representation; obviously it is a tragic odyssey.

El Diario del Fin del Mundo, 2005, expedition.

The reduction of the Antarctic ice shelf revealed several uncharted islands, accompanied by a rumour describing a singular white animal said to live on one of them. Operating on the postulate that such a place could geographically exist, a group of people embarked on a voyage in search of this hypothetical island, navigating southwards on the world-renowned polar research vessel, the Tara. Their provisions included a radio transmitter to broadcast their movements from extraterritorial water to the continents and experimental equipment meant to facilitate contact with the creature. The machine was designed to translate the island's shape into a complex sequence of sound and light, not unlike a luminous, musical variation of Morse code. Through a pulsating radiance analogous to the surrounding topography, the unknown place became a language unfolding temporally.

Double Negative, Wollman Ice Rink, Central Park, Public Art Fund, New York, 2005, event.

The Wollman ice rink in Central Park was transformed into a stage for a musical show, through which the public begins to discover an experience that occurred elsewhere, without having access to its representation. It is, then, an equivalence, an encounter with another form.

A symphonic orchestra plays an original score based on the data extracted from the island's topography. The duration of the show is equal to the time needed to « listen » to the island.

Text from the catalog Celebration Park, Tate Modern, London, 2006