Roberto Cabot

The reflexion device 2004

Dimensions: aprox. 3 x 3 x 3 m
Material: wood, mirrors

This ongoing project is about the relation between what we see and the space that this view defines. To see is to capture light, to draw light lines with the look. Mirrors transport light, images, places. There is a certain point at the Apparatus where one can see the garden, which is actually out of sight. At another position, one sees a mirror where one expects to see oneself, but actually, the person at the other side of the thing is on vew. Besides this mirror there is another one, aparently the same configuration, but it reflexes though oneself this time. These are sort of incidents of the seeing which desorder our usual habits of perception, of how we visualize space. It is related to ilusionism. Basically the machine does the same as the paintings do: it decieves the eye. It should decieve the tired eye of every morning with its bad habits and blindness. To the optic effects of the painting correspond the "features" of the machine. The periscopic feature diverts the normal line of vision, the defragmenting front breaks the usual continuity of space and vision.

"Para uno de esos gnósticos, el visible universo era una ilusión o (más precisamente) un sofisma. Los espejos y el coito son abominables (mirrors and coitus are hateful) porque lo multiplican y lo divulgan" J. L. Borges, in TLÖN, UQBAR, ORBIS TERTIUS