Recent scientific investigations of the properties of water have demonstrated that water has capability of storing information. Although the mechanism of this process is not fully explained, poetic imagination is tempted to think of this omnipresent element of our world as of a repository of the memory reaching back all the way to primordial times.
Its ever-changing dynamics encompasses events from innumerable individuals, myths, cultures – stories of things that rose into reality and perished, returning to eternity of their incessant liquid motion. The axis of the installation is contained in the fictional Poseidon’s scroll 3:14, that reads:
The men of letters
had named me Poseidon,
and I am the God of Waters
Those from above
and those from below;
seas, rivers, lakes,
mists and rains.
I am three quarters of your body,
I am a cover for three quarters of your world.
I am older than life, and I remember it all.
I am the voice of history,
where things shortly last,
thus, don’t forget –
as much ashes returns to ashes,
and dust to dust,
three times more will return to water,
this never-ending past.
Everything else in the world
is only a passing guest in my fluid reign.
And I am a generous host if respected,
but a ferocious enemy if not.
The arched row of monitors shows a composite of 17 “story-telling” frames (film “Poseidon”), that come alive or fade-out in a seemingly random manner. Projection on each monitor is slightly delayed relative to the projection on the preceding one, creating a wave-like feeling in the viewer positioned in the semicircle of screens.
See the fragment of the film “Poseidon”, utilized in this installation.