A Dubious Prototype
A clicking sound echoes from an apparatus. A magazine holds vertical transparent plexiglass sheets that sandwich blue translucent documents. At set time intervals, the magazine glides nimbly and randomly stops right before a light bulb to its left, to drop one of the slides from a vertical to a horizontal orientation, thus revealing the content of the blue document now legible against the light. Floor plans and maps feature houses, quarters, and rooms signed off with initials, followed by the name of the town: Reef Halab, Khanasir, Deir el Zour, Tal Abyad, Al Qusayr, Raqqa… Like an index of indexes, blueprints drawn by hand here, a refugee camp in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, imagine homes there, Syria. Like a carousel projector, the apparatus keeps slides, but it confiscates the projection, defers the slideshow.
Sculpture; carbon paper, acrylic, light bulb, stepper motor-driven 3 axis linear actuators, biodegradable 3D printed plastic, metal stand.
2019—2020
Technical realization: Sevag Babikian
Design implementation: Vrouyr Joubanian
Metal work: Vacé Melkisetian/v__deco
Photo documentation: Tony Elieh
