Temple & After

ARRECIFE, LANZAROTE 1999

The impetus to move on came, as it is customary, unexpectedly both in time and place. It happened in a dentist’s waiting room while I was looking at an architectural magazine’s front page. I was immediately struck by a photograph  [images-9]  of a building site which easily transcended the context where it appeared. Time showed, however, that even I underestimated how far-reaching importance this image would have for me. At the time I only felt it was an exquisite guiding light and that I should perhaps try to recreate the atmosphere or whatever it was it contained. Not the easiest act to follow and it took me some time before I understood the image and was ready to make an attempt of my own. Although, to make a digression, one might also wonder if I could not advance claims to authorship of this image simply on the grounds of having created a new and distant context that has nothing in common with the original purpose of this photograph. So, after some basic research, (having been forced to delay my journey to Egypt, where as it happens two of my projects crossed each other’s path) I left for Lanzarote in the Canary Islands where plenty of commercial buildings were under construction and access was much easier than in Britain. The first few days however did not seem to vindicate my choice of destination. The feeling was sinking in rapidly that my expedition was a rather comprehensive miscalculation, and just another proof that certain things in life simply cannot be planned. Then, just as I was doing my utmost to find an early way out of the island, while walking back to my hotel from a bus stop, in exasperation at my situation I stopped and leaned against a wall, with my hands and head resting on top of it as if to see what is on the other side. I say ‘as if’ because I did not really want to know what was on the other side, as my mind was not on the island anymore. I must have passed this wall at least ten times in the previous few days. As the wall was the height of my shoulders, the only way I could see what was on the other side was if I leaned closely against it, which accounted for my oversight of the little miracle confronting me now. On the other side of the wall, completely below street level was the most exquisite site I could have ever dreamt  [images-10]  about. And I use the word ‘dream’ because I could never have imagined a place like that in my wakeful state. But the moment I saw it, I recognized it without fail. After a long, long time, things were once again falling into place and it was happening on a number of levels. 

Having made contact sheets I sat on them for a few months, to let my head cool off, as I was concerned that the feeling and vision I had while on the site could influence my perception of pictures, making me believe they looked better than they really did. The ‘discovery’ of the ‘canal-lock brochure’ took place a couple of months prior to this journey to Lanzarote, and the two events combined to make my brain buzz with insights. The fermentation was now well past the initial stages. That was the moment, presumably, when I started seeing all these connections that eventually allowed me to become aware of the whole scheme being detailed here. After ten months and many hours of contact sheet assessment I made the first prints. Then followed the evaluation of prints and of different combinations of them. Two months on, and I had the first selection of the ‘Arrecife’ project. As I planned to produce a book and not an exhibition, I was satisfied to let matters rest for some more time. In particular because having one’s mind change constantly about how one’s work will end up looking, can be rather discomforting, as there is no reason then not to expect that the whole way of seeing or representing something could change again at any given time, thus effectively making the work terminally incomplete and the author incompetent.

It was during that hibernation period that I made the visit to Egypt. To the effects that journey had on me mentioned earlier in the text, I can add the change of visual awareness. Upon my return from Luxor when I looked again at the selection of photographs for the ‘Temple’ project, I was surprised how different they looked to me. As a consequence, out of sixteen images only six, at the very best, could pass the new criteria. Soon I felt the only way out was to apply this new criteria to everything I had done up to then and see where I stood. One of the positive outcomes of this upheaval was that it enabled me to ascertain new relations between my various existing works and to see even deeper into the primary goal of my search. But it was done at the cost of a growing vulnerability and a certain loss of confidence, as I was under the impression that only my critical faculties had improved. I had a tool to dissect and clean my work to a purer state than before, but after mopping things up there was hardly anything left over and, above all, there was the apprehension that it would be very difficult if not impossible to add on any new work. Enthusiasm soon turned into dejection and anxiety, and the hardest blow was still to come. 

VERSAILLES 1993, BRIGHTON 1995

Establishing the existence of a scheme born beyond my intentions and control was certainly encouraging but the final conclusions (insights), however, indicated there was another, superior scheme but that was largely beyond my reach. I only had a hint, in the form of two  [images-11]  images, of that obscure reality. Two photographs taken in different locations, different countries, different contexts - with only one noticeable similarity: they were both distractions from the projects at hand. I was not looking for them when I chanced upon them. It took me a long time to realize, gradually as it happened, the depth they possessed. This finally became obvious only after the post-Egypt review, when they outlasted all other images. My fascination with them was however easily overshadowed by their minuscule quantity and by my apparently total dependence on fortune or providence in producing them. Presumably, the only way of possibly increasing their number was to turn my mind towards a different project, which should be of secondary or no importance but still related to a relevant subject, and then hope that I would just run into the right stuff by chance sooner rather than later. A photographic lottery. I found myself condemned to having just a glimpse of what I cannot reach, understand, know. Suddenly, I felt as if all these serendipities and insights came to nothing as the opus hit its limits, and the essence was not on this but on the other side of the divide. Instead of finding the answers, I unearthed even more questions... Among others, would not these two images be a reflection of an even earlier influence in my life? And how much earlier could it be? How close to the moment of birth, or why not even before birth? The questions themselves are already vertiginous, let alone the possible answers. The situation is not so dissimilar to being trapped in a quicksand, or caught in a vortex, you do get deeper but you lose hold of the surface. 

The immediate effect of such a discovery is the feeling of numbness. The ground beneath my feet has been removed and I am in free fall. It is a tantalising experience as I feel I am so close to that superior level, yet doomed to stay forever at arm’s length. There is, naturally, still hope that a new fortuitous occurrence will take place and allow me to get there. But, the chances are slim because the awareness that brought all these works together and crowned the whole scheme, now shows its drawbacks as it has partially set my vision in concrete. Finally, the incredible feeling and sense of achievement that accompanied the realisation of this work makes it somewhat unrealistic to expect another breakthrough that will surpass even that gift.

	home