Of Sunburns and Sunspots, is a collection of notebook entries that are rarely just scribbled writings. An intimate photographic reportage that samples in fragments, and thinks of captures as a form of inscribed light-sensitive memory.
(Notebook Entry.). I have sat in these benches time and again; the sole thought of them corrects my posture. I would always find a corner spot, –on the very last row, far in the back. An echo of my tamed insipid will to escape the inescapable. I am irrevocably pulled towards the light leaking in, I sit and soak in its blinding presence –yet, I cannot sit still. This bench is hurting my back. I seek the source of that light, the one projecting alabaster-tainted reflections on poignant surfaces. –Surfaces that, despite a few scattered spotlights, remain overcast by the structural monumentality of the space. A riveted, recursively constructive, –a positivist sun feels almost upon our reach; piercing through the shadows with a light that appears to be its own. A light I am only to project back, as an extension of the thorny spine that renders the aisle endless.
Their birth and death, that of stars, is the product of a gravitational collapse; a consequence of the interaction between gravity and matter. The density of a cloud of gas and dust triggers the formation of a protostar; and, as acute to a voracious thirst, it continues to accrete mass from the surrounding cloud, swallowing in a yawn all it is to find in its way. The core temperature and pressure are high enough to ignite nuclear fusion. A star is fully fledged. Yet, fuel runs low. Its core temperature and pressure fail to counteract the inward pull of gravity. The entirety of the force field is reconfigured, now directed towards its centre of mass. I immediately think of Feuerbach, and by extension of Hegel –given his writings prelude Feuerbach’s thinking. I think of a critique of religion, and Feuerbach’s understanding of Christianity; –a system of thought, and the highest form of alienation. Of alienation, which presupposes a unit in origin that is divided in two, separated from itself and divided between and against itself. Of a self-alienation, a principle of self-estrangement. Of a notion of divinity that is presented as inverted, in a simplistic and linear opposition to human weakness. I think of Debord, and of a situationist spectacle. I think of the imminent and exponential possibility that has self-annihilation –read as, an annihilation of the self– be a far more probable outcome than reconciliation could ever possibly be.
Of Sunburns and Sunspots / De Quemaduras de Sol y Manchas Solares / Di Scottature e Macchie Solari
‘(…)I have one more stupid question.’ and Gravitational Collapse, Diptych. From the series Of Sunburns and Sunspots.
144,35x112x5 cm.
2022.
Archival Pigment Prints, Framed.
(Notebook Entry.). And, we linger. For as long as we bask in bliss and contempt, for we are expected to drown our sorrows on the Lethe. Drenched in oblivion.
(Notebook Entry.). Even the brightest of stars bears dark spots –wears them as scars. All surfaces have an inscribed memory; and yet, we’re squinting. The ground, its sharpness, the burn. The kiss, your touch, the burn. The sun, the tan, the burn. The salt will help you heal, it’ll wash the sand off your skin.