Overview of in-site installation.

Detail of Found and Typographic Slides

Inspired by the novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco (and translated to English by Geoffrey Brock), I created an installation of a room that functions like a novel. I established rules for the navigation and the curation of objects and representations in this space, yet it remains unclear to the visitor which objects are fictive and which are biographical. The viewer must rely on his or her own sense of logic and visual logic to navigate the room, and to create meaningful associations. Similar to reading novels, what the reader takes away reflects a kind of self-portraiture. The logic of this room is self-referential, and the objects are presentations and representations of only a few objects or images. At a deeper read the viewer realizes that these images reference symbols and imagery important to the development of the plot of the novel. At a yet deeper or more informed read, the viewer begins to recognize visual choices made according to details from the storyline.

One quotation functions as a clue to my intentions as curator. Set in Baskerville, the reader who visually pieces this sentence together understands that, “Even if it is all false, we must believe that memories are real, to go on living,” (or in this case to go on navigating).

Several visual symbols and images repeated througout the novel and repeated throughout this room are lights, light play, shadows, mirrors, and views of the self.

[developed in the class, Interactive Text with Rafael Attias]