Through
this project, I'm interested among other things, in examining the
cultural impact and possibilities created by computers as machines
that can generate books and libraries.
The
Library of Marvels is a collection of "artist's e.books"
on the web. These books are electronic narratives that use several
kinds of media and processes: image, sound, words, texts, movement,
games, simulation, programming, and interactivity or the simulation
thereof. In addition toexamining the cultural impact and possibilities
created by computers as machines that can produce books and libraries,
the Library of Marvels, in a way, also is part
of the positive quality of globalization because it seeks to disseminate
the writings of important authors from all continents.
The
library got started in 1999, and already contains six volumes: "White
and Black, Reflections on Fog" (1999) - , the "Book of Sand"
(2001), "The Psychiatrist, Net.art / Web.art and other stories"
(2002), "The Newest Song of Exile: Sabiá Virtuality"
(2003), "Viewing Axolotls"(2004) and Tales from my balcony
/ Alice in the" wonderbalcony". The starting point of my
research is always SEEING. Whether we are looking at fog (1999), looking
on in horror (2001), looking at madness (2002), looking at culture
(2003) or viewing axolotls, which once again involves looking at fog,
or the impossibility of seeing clearly, but with a different focus
(2004). Alice in the "Wonderbalcony", the last one looks
at childhood, Lewis Carrol, meaning of words and nonsense.
Some
words on "Viewing Axolotls":
Philosophically
speaking, according to Merleau-Ponty, the world is what we see, but
we must learn to see it. In this sense, my main every-day occupation
is learning to see. And yet...
Everyone
sees the world in his or her own likeness and therefore the dialogue
between "Me and the World" is different from person to person.
We can illustrate this best with the metaphor of colors: Who is right?
Color-blind people who see red as green and vice versa, or so-called
normal people who see red as red and green as green? Do we side with
the latter because they are the majority? It's said that some animals
see the world in black and white. What colors would an extraterrestrial
see in our world? In fact, what color is our world, if colors themselves
are just classifications?
It
seems we have established an impasse: Is reality possible? Can it
be possible, as phenomenology has suggested, for art to make the invisible
visible? Could Reality be a Fantastic Fantasy?
What
about the new media? And the new narratives?
The
pixels light up and a caption appears: "Viewing Axolotls
"
or ,,,
The magic of a narrative is recreated in this world, and immediately
everyone takes on the appropriate stance to follow it: the "view"
of the spectator-subject (with all his/her blindness) and the gaze
emitted from the electronic book-object (with all its slyness) clash
in a duel of interpretation, simulation and interactivity. A woman
who, because she loved so much or looked so much, turns into an axolotl.
"Dreams are a point of view. They are a place from where one
sees. Nightmares are a way of looking at the world in the eyes of
the dreamer." In other words, dreams let us see otherness, while
in our nightmares we find the fear the "other" can inspire.
In the fictional world, the narrator can direct our gaze to the viewpoint
of dreams, while simultaneously turning that gaze to the nightmare
of entering an aquarium, an unknown watery world. This move could
bring an end to the blindness inherent to all views, enabling them
to distance themselves reflexively and see themselves while looking
(or not)