Isabel Merchante, All light is from the past at Future Archaeologies, Camden Art Centre, London (2024)
All light is from the past
Site-specific sculpture installed in Camden Art Centre's garden
Light signal, fibre optics, modular metal structure
Variable dimensions (Maximum length 1000 cm | Maximum height 230 cm)
2024
All light is from the past is a site-specific light sculpture made of fibre optics suspended on modular metal structures that adapts to the topography of Camden Art Centre's garden. The work reveals itself at dawn when it appears as a light stream that connects the ground to a secret knowledge of the virtual.
Fibre optics are a transmission line medium used to carry light signals. Since 1989, they have been distributed across oceans, colonising the world to support the paradigm of global interconnectedness we live by today. By de-contextualizing this material and placing it in a natural environment, it inherits alternative connotations, appealing more to magic, transcendence and sublimity rather than to wifi and telecommunications. While in Greek mythology, waterfalls were considered a gateway between the Earth and the heavens, this installation is presented as our contemporary vessel to enlightenment.
The title All light is from the past, replicates Oracle's statement sentences and is a ground truth often forgotten -although light travels at the fastest speed, it still takes time; for example, sunlight reaches Earth eight minutes late.- When activated, the riverbed seems to communicate directly with the observer, transmitting impulses that suggest it holds information and sparking speculative thoughts in the viewer's mind. It may be the stream where discarded information goes; or where undersea cables across the oceans are extinguished; it may contain a secret code; or nourish a cyborg garden with data. As future inhabitants encounter miles of defunct cables like these, they may ponder similar possibilities and imagine the messages that once flowed through them.
Global map of submarine optic fiber cables installed from 1989 to 2020
Daniel Colladon’s Light fountain or Lightpipe in La Nature (science magazine), 1884
Previous maquette for All light is from the past (2024)
