In tenebris modo

On the reproducibility of works of art How much of a work can you see? Is it important or necessary for the work to be reproducible?

A work of art is a whole, even if it is fragmented. However, our perception, added to the way the work is constructed, often fails to fully capture it. Its reproduction is a fragment, although it includes the whole. It is a fragment because it is not the work, although we can accept it as such… How much is known about the work? How much does she reveal about herself? How much does the viewer see? What do we see when we see a reproduction, a work stripped of its aura, as Benjamin says, or is it as Groys proposes, that every copy is a new original in a new context? The problem of the aura of works of art has changed because new technologies have modified reality and thinking about art.

This sketch in particular shows the work in a way, the camera does not reveal everything, there are many possible looks/tours and we are offered one. The camera takes the role of the viewer, moving through the work, taking it from one point to another, and the viewer follows this imposed route, prevented from stopping, forced to observe. What do the other possibilities constitute? Are they variations, versions of the same one, or are they another work? Should what we see be considered as a complete work, or as a fragment?

The work is set in the darkness before creation and shows the generation of the first words that little by little generated the world we inhabit, as narrated in Genesis and the Popol Vuh.

Referenced bibliography

• AIRA, César. ([2013], 2016). “Sobre el arte contemporáneo” en Sobre el arte contemporáneo. Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House, pp. 11-56. (DAA: 1:02m)

• ARNS, Inke. (2005). “El código como acto de habla performativo”. En Revista Artnodes, Julio de 2005, ISSN 1695-5951.

-GROYS, Boris. (2010). Política de la instalación.

-Génesis 1,1.

-Popol Vuh, capítulo 1.