Engraving on mirror
2019
155x30x1.5 cm

According to the philosopher Henri Bergson, time is duration ( Matière et mémoire, 1896).  Duration intended as a continuous flow of the present.  Even though this present often escapes our attention, because we are too busy with everyday life, sometimes for a moment we can grasp it and perceive it in its entirety.
The present is projected into the future through the action and held back in the past because of the memory. 
When the action of memory dominates over perception, a false recognition is created, “a memory of the present”, a “deja vu”. Memory is therefore built simultaneously with perception but in a transcendent way: when we observe the present, with disillusionment, perception and memory overlap with the future. Past and future correspond in the present. 

On the occasion of one of his first “mirrored self-portraits” Michelangelo Pistoletto writes: “The figure of a man seemed to come forward, as if alive in the space of the gallery; but the true protagonist was the relationship of instantaneousness that was created between the spectator, his own reflection, and the painted figure, in an ever-present movement that concentrated the past and the figure in itself to such an extent as to cause one to call their very existence into doubt: it was the dimension of time itself.” 

Inspired by Pistoletto, in particular by the concept of inclusion of the viewer and the surrounding environment in the work, which makes “the self-portrait of the world”, I decided to engrave an anthropomorphic figure on the back of a mirror. I started engraving several figures on reflecting surfaces but on small formats. Finally I engraved this figure on a bigger format.
In this way, those who mirror themselves, will see their own reflection and simultaneously see (or almost see) the image engraved on the reflecting surface. Therefore, the observer will instinctively try to make his own image coincide with the engraved one, but this will not be possible to be experienced, because it is impossible to perceive two distinct images or layers such as the background and the figure simultaneously (principle of “Figure and Ground” from the Gestalt psychology). Moreover, the proportions of the reflected image will never match with the engraved ones; this is obviously caused by the disproportion of the figure but it is also due to an optical effect (of which Gombrich already speaks in “Art and Illusion”): “The mirror doubles the depth and therefore reduces the real dimension of the reflected object”.   The work aims to invite the viewer to be in relation with himself, but at the same time to make him reflect on the flow of time.

As the time passed and as I observed how other people reacted to the work (taking selfies, trying to match their reflection with the engraved figure) , I became aware of something else: the engraved mirror is also a representation of the inconsistency that there is between how we would like to perceive ourselves and how others perceive us.

In the age of selfies, where we tend to worry mainly about how other people see us, how we would like to appear (for example using the “filters” of social networks that change the somatic characters of the face) rather than how we really are, the idea of the “self” is distorted. It is largely based on the judgment of others (very much recalling  Pirandello‘s novel “One, No one and a hundred thousand”). 

 The present is the temporal correspondent of our own awareness: A stream of consciousness lead by memory and inner thoughts which corresponds to the current perception of our identity. ‎ ‎However years later I have realized that the chemicals I have used for engraving the mirror have kept on etching, corroding and changing that figure which I had believed to be atemporal and immutable. This happening can be interpreted as a demonstration that even our Identity ( which comes from the latin “Idem” which means “the same”) doesn’t necessarily remains the same but can also change. We should rather call it “Ipseity” ( in latin Ipse means different) also known as, “narrative Identity”, which is in constant transformation… depending on the decisions we make, the experiences that shapes us or just how we present ourselves to others and how others differently perceive us. “Sguardo Sulla memoria del Presente” which in would rather translate it as “Looking at the memory of the Present” because the engraved figure carries not only the memory of itself in relationship to our present reflection but also visually represent the memory of itself and at the same time chemically becomes part of the becoming…

“Sguardo Sulla memoria del Presente no.6″(Sold)

Engraving on mirror
2022
155x60x1.5 cm

All rights reserved to Araiké Severino Da Silva