EVENT BLOG 2: MNEMOAWARI

Selfie with the artist, Elí Joteva. 
For my second event, I attended Elí Joteva's art exhibit entitled, "Mnemoawari". I was initially intrigued as I had never heard of such a word, and upon looking up the meaning, I could not find anything. I later learned that the title came from the Greek goddess Mnemosyne, and the Japanese saying "Mono no aware", which translates to "the pathos of things" (Lomas). This idea of memory and time was reflected throughout the exhibit.
Map of the Exhibit
Upon entering the event, I first saw  "Dream Augur", which projected the brain waves of someone as they recalled a dream. My initial impression was a sense of tranquility and focus through the blue waves and as I continued to peer at the image. Ironically enough, I later learned that the intense blue waves reflected long waves in the brain, which occurred under great focus. This tied into the concepts of the fourth week's unit of medicine in technology, particularly the idea of medical scans as a means of portraiture. In this case, the blue waves portray how the brain looks in deep thought.
"Dream Augur" 
After going further, I was surrounded by three melting sculptures made of ice and organic material. Each had its unique size and organic material. The coldness from the ice and the booming noises stirred an eerie feeling as the material and melting ice dropped from the spheres. There was also a virtual reality headset for me to experience what one of the sculptures looked like in its core. This experience juxtaposed with viewing the actual pieces as little change appeared on the inside compared to the very physical rapid changes. From the hanging VR headset, I saw large three-dimensional projections of the spheres. I feel that these demonstrated how much time can appear to be speeding up and make us aware of how things can change. In addition, it reminded me of Walter Benjamin's notion of art and how the mechanization of it, such as the VR headset and projection, could lose the aura that is given by the physical artpiece.

One of the cryo sculptures in "Not All Cycles Can be Contained"

One of the cryo sculptures in "Not All Cycles Can be Contained"


"Mnemonic Place Feilds" included virtual images of the cryo sculptures.
I enjoyed how symbolic each piece tied to the idea of memory time. I had never thought of the melting sculptures representing time and the idea of entropy through time as a point of chaos, but also a source of life. It would have been interesting to have gone all three days to compare each experience and see if my perception of the exhibit would change based on each memory.




Works Cited


Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Marxists. N.p.. Web. 12 May 2017. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>.

Joteva, Eli. 2017. Sculpture. Mnemoawari, Broad Art Center.

Lomas, Tim. "Untranslatable Words: Mono No Aware, and the Aesthetics of Impermanence." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Feb. 2016. Web. 12 May 2017. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-lomas/untranslatable-words-mono_b_9292490.html>.

"What are Brainwaves?" What are Brainwaves ? Types of Brain waves | EEG sensor and brain wave – UK. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2017. <http://www.brainworksneurotherapy.com/what-are-brainwaves>.

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