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Invisible Cities (2013) - sketch for installation of specs lenses (200x40x180cm)

Italo Calvino in his novel 'The Invisible Cities' explores the imaginable through the medium of the city, as described for Kublai khan by Marco Polo in his journeys. The cities are texts read and reread by the traveller and the emperor; they live in language as possibilities for worlds. The cities described and lived by Marco are secrets unfolding in memory and dream, verbal acts performed by him. The stationary positioning of the emperor and his ambassadors as eyes and agents with the ability to move in the whole empire, they communicate with each other through letters that has to travel for months till they reach him; this works as a model for the book itself in the hands of the reader. In this installation I put two arrays of glass lenses in different sizes in the viewer's eye level. Lens is a reading device and can also be part of a projection or observational apparatus. The accumulation of lenses disturbs the black and white horizon painted in the room and generates an complex optical landscape.


© 2014 Sina Seifee