Vista de sala de la exposición. Elena Asins. Fragmentos de la memoria, 2011

Elena Asins

Fragments of Memory

viernes 08 julio 2011
9:07
Sculpture
Music
Modernity
Painting
Sound

In this conversation, Manuel Borja-Villel and Elena Asins analyse some of the lines running through the retrospective exhibition, Fragments of Memory, held from 15 June to 31 October 2011. The conversation focuses on several aspects of the work of this artist, who studied at the Computing Centre in Madrid, most notably the almost therapeutic capacity of these computer-composed pieces to generate feelings. Both the artist and the curator agree that the key lies in searching beyond pure visibility, interpreting the work as a sequence, a reading, or – apropos of this podcast – a musical score.

To this end, some sound works have been included, courtesy of Gorka Alda, who collaborated with Elena Asins on the exhibition videos. Gorka Alda’s pieces interpret, in a manner of speaking, Asins’ geometries as a music score that serves as a base for the electroacoustic pieces that accompany this interview and play as key a role as a voice. While Elena Asins’ work can be interpreted verbally, be read and traversed, it can clearly also be put to sound or music. Like a recital, or like music, as Manuel Borja-Villel himself notes in the conversation, Elena Asins’ work only functions when it is interacting with its reader-viewer, in this case the musician and the podcast listener. Along with the artist’s voice, which transmits the same intimacy and calm as her artwork, the music conveys the spiritually of the lines and points and the interior of the geometric surfaces as never before.

Production

José Luis Espejo

Locution

Norah Delgado O'Neill, Luis Mata

Acknowledgements

Gorka Alda

License
Creative Commons by-nc-sa 4.0

Elena Asins

Fragments of Memory

Elena Asins. Fragments of Memory.  From June 15 to October 31, 2011

Manuel Borja-Villel, Director of the Museo Reina Sofía: After The Pamplona Encounters it made sense to focus on Elena Asins, one of the most unique and consistent names in contemporary Spanish art. Her work has something that’s difficult to grasp at first glance. Some of her pieces require time and need to be traversed because of their size. Her works, the pages of the books and the paintings are like a music score.

Elena Asins, artist: I think that all art is a reading; you never see a work in just one go. You see it fragment by fragment, even though it’s instantaneous. But in my work it’s much more obvious, because it’s serial. It’s a process that develops in space, some changes that obey a law with its own algorithm. Then they decompose or deconstruct until you get to the line again.

Manuel Borja-Villel: so her work is performative and evolving. It’s never closed, but it develops over time and must always be re-enacted by the viewer.

Elena Asins: we’re not only talking about something visual, but also something extremely deep. A machine is a machine, but it’s a magnificent machine. I’ve written several things about the relationship between the brain and the computer. A computer works like our brain, but our brain is infinitely superior.

Manuel Borja-Villel: synthesis in this case is not synonymous with an eclecticism of forms, but quite the opposite. Synthesis in this case means the dissolution of limits.

Elena Asins: when I make a video about a letter from Wittgenstein to Engelmann, I try to make the video have some relationship with that, just like when I work with the I-Ching, which is something that is almost sacred. I deal with it differently, too.

Manuel Borja-Villel: it’s her own contribution, completely separate from the art of gesture, from showy art, from brushstrokes.

Elena Asins: careful! Back then we did the programming, not like now. You didn’t just click the mouse. Now everything is programmed for you.

Manuel Borja-Villel: with Elena, the geometry is never mechanistic; it never fell into the positivism of some kinetic or optical practices. Instead it always sought out personal experience.

Elena Asins: we’re talking about a different time and space. Not a physical, tactile space. It’s another kind of time and another kind of space.

Manuel Borja-Villel: you don’t just see a music score with your eyes; perceiving it is not merely optical. The perception has to be interior, spiritual and physical at the same time, like when music or poetry is recited out loud.

Elena Asins: I’m going to quote a text that I always have at home. I move a lot and I always take it with me. It’s a text by Ludwig Wittgenstein that says: “My ideal is a certain coolness. A temple providing a setting for the passions without meddling with them.”