”Cave of Forgotten Dreams” puts into discussion perspective mechanisms, both narrative and mnemonic constructions that characterize contemporary visual consumption. Manipulated and superimposed within the space, thousands of images downloaded from the Internet form the immersive and fractal site-specific installation. One where each viewer’s individual movement of the body and gaze corresponds to an infinite amount of unique sequence of meanings.
The installation deals with new formalities of production, interaction, and dissemination of images in the Digital Age. Most digital content produced is immediately shared on the Internet: the very act of taking a photo is increasingly addressed to the dissemination and manipulation of the image rather than its post-production in print and conservation. Progressively, the Internet tends to take on the form of an immense archive. One in which a series of fragmented information travel and accumulate. Interacting amongst themselves—a mix of texts, videos, and other—continuously form temporary assemblages through the action of: scrolling a Facebook wall, viewing Instagram ‘stories', and/or using Google Search. Actions which, projected back into the world through digital screens, form a sort of a recursive but changing movie stream.
Given the increasing speed of user interaction and visual consumption, most image based elements are combined almost mechanically. Causing a constant loss of the viewer's intentionality, their ability to concentrate on a single element, and their mnemonic retention. My artistic research exploits photography’s ability to slow down and crystallize the natural flow of images by contrasting its characteristics in its reading through digital screens. Within the production process, selected images pass through steps of deconstruction: first a systematic removal of the frames which delimit them, either conceptually and physically, then finally de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing the various fragment results. The outcomes are multi-layered maps of ordinary digital driftings to which we consciously submit ourselves every day. Replicating / simulating perceptual readings and mnemonic devices, the fractal structure and staggered arrangement of images on different transparent planes promotes a chaotic gaze. Resulting in each observer tending to a movement and construction of a narrative uniquely their own.