Projections/Sculpture > Le dictionnaire des inquisiteurs, 1992
"Le dictionnaire des inquisiteurs", 1992. Twelve light tables, laser etched contact lenses, 111 x 34 x 34 cm.
An index of 308 words laser etched onto a series of coloured contact lenses is divided into pairs (right/left) and organized into 12 chess games that are displayed on light tables arranged in a circle. The words are taken from a dictionary published in Valencia during the Spanish inquisition. Mapped into a new historical relation by the operation of chance and prosthetic appearance the words are vividly modern and not easily dismissed as "of the past." The contact lens is like a skin-film on which trauma is condensed as both process and product - linking truth to the production of the visual. Paradoxically, the word is no longer readable if the lens is worn and, the inscribing laser is blinding if looked at. Like the prisoner in Kafka's "Penal Colony", the judgement is incised on the back of the victim and she/he can feel it but not read it. The work was produced in response to the rise of live televised trials ie. Rodney King and a sense that the artist/viewer is implicated in the process.
An index of 308 words laser etched onto a series of coloured contact lenses is divided into pairs (right/left) and organized into 12 chess games that are displayed on light tables arranged in a circle. The words are taken from a dictionary published in Valencia during the Spanish inquisition. Mapped into a new historical relation by the operation of chance and prosthetic appearance the words are vividly modern and not easily dismissed as "of the past." The contact lens is like a skin-film on which trauma is condensed as both process and product - linking truth to the production of the visual. Paradoxically, the word is no longer readable if the lens is worn and, the inscribing laser is blinding if looked at. Like the prisoner in Kafka's "Penal Colony", the judgement is incised on the back of the victim and she/he can feel it but not read it. The work was produced in response to the rise of live televised trials ie. Rodney King and a sense that the artist/viewer is implicated in the process.
