Video documentation of the piece Night, They Said, by Eva Lootz, at La Caixa's Sala Montcada, Barcelona

Documentación en vídeo de la obra Noche, decían de Eva Lootz en la Sala Montcada de La Caixa, Barcelona

Overview

"This piece –the number 8 inscribed within a chequerboard of marble and dry ice blocks– was inspired by the fact that, in all Indo-European languages (apart from the Slavic languages), the words for night and eight only differ in the negating n at the start: in Spanish, noche-ocho; in French, nuit-huit; in Italian, notte-otto; in German, Nacht-acht... I was fascinated by the way dry ice disappears without a trace, a flirtation with the remnants of a process which, in this case, can only be seen in language. Sometimes, language is the only place that retains the built-up layers of changes in consciousness, and this is one such example. The number eight –which comes up frequently in mythological thinking– thus becomes a figure that recalls a time of consciousness before the birth of opposites and dialectics." - Eva Lootz