Invisibles - 2019
Paper map and digital photography
You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger's passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.
Paper map and digital photography
You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger's passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Invisibles takes the form of 20 digital photographs and a paper map containing a series of detailed instructions to spot ephemeral light phenomena in a street of Montreal city in July between 1 and 2 pm.
The map shows the distances, the displacements and the view angles the spectator had to take in order to perceive a group of ephemeral light reflections appearing in the windows, the floors and other objects in a specific section of the Jean Talon neighbourhood in Montreal. In addition, the map contains a photo of each reflection, taken in a previous visit, to illustrate the phenomena that is about to happen. To spot the same reflection in the photo, the tour must be completed in an orderly manner between 1 and 2 pm in July, otherwise the light conditions will change and so will the reflections. But even if all the instructions are followed strictly during the stipulated time and date, external conditions, as weather, can change anytime, affecting our sighting or even the apparition of the light phenomena.
The idea of perceiving a spontaneous and uncertain light phenomenon with the help of a detailed list of instructions is a way to address the human necessity of understanding the world through logic and the impossibility to do so because some things in nature surpasses our human sensorial understanding and our control, as light sometimes does.
Concept and production: Laura Criollo-Carrillo
