Luoghi (2023~
Work in progress
The original idea came in 2017 from a phrase from the film Nostalghia by Andrei Tarkovski (1980):
"Where am I when I am not dwelling in reality or in my imagination?"
The line is pronounced at Piazza del Campidoglio square, in Roma, by a friend of Andrei –the protagonist, named Domenico, a psychiatric patient who ends up immolating himself publicly .
Although Tarkovski himself claimed that the film wanted to reflect "the union with national roots, past and native places, family and friends ... a union that will accompany you no matter where your destiny takes you" It draws our attention how in the character of Domenico – as well as throughout Tarkovski's oeuvre– Tarkovski resorts to that which is not expressible, that which could only be pointed out by means of alienation –or that which escapes explanation, using formal resources which disorganize the narrative to prevent any linking to a space or time , for it belongs to a non-real world. That non-real world Tarkovski points at is in the mind of every observer, but it is different in each one.
The real space to which Tarkovski, or any other relevant work of art will always refer to is the human mind, that belonging only to each person; The only realm we may really consider universal and particular at the same time.
It is right there where the true value of an artistic work may reside: although it arises from a person in an specific environment and even reflects it, it lives into the actual separation of the viewer's imagination from a concrete space-time position, that which conforms the true essence of human beings and also of a particular human being, both at the same time. That is the world one contemplates in any artistic work which points beyond the contingent and - as Tarkovski put it - "is free from vulgar symbolism" to aspire to that which is commonly called transcendent.
It is therefore paradoxical that the most effective and powerful way of projecting any concrete cultural value is realized precisely through elements which reside in spaces of the human mind, in those that are unique to each individual.
Hence this new piece of Locus LRM Performance aims at that intangible element, that which is personal to each observer but is rooted in our common history as a species.
David Aladro-Vico / Berta Delgado