Precious damage

If only I could see what you see (HORIZON)

View of the installation in direction towards Syria

Public Commission, Aqaba (Lagoons-district -Ayla), Jordan, 2016.

View of Installation, direction towards Egypt.

Towards Israel

Detail.

Direction South Arabia.

 If only I could see what you (HORIZON) see has been conceived for a site-specific intervention at the Lagoons-district -Ayla.

From a historically point of view, the distance to the visible horizon has been extremely important as it represented the maximum range of communication and vision and therefore it seams to suit our purpose to address the subject both conceptually and literally.

Literally we have focused on the term horizon in its sense of skyline or apparent line that separates earth from sky, the line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth's surface, and those that do not.

On the other hand, the project assumes the philosophical concept of Fusion of horizons as an in relation to the artists’ situations of finding themselves working in a specific, but often unknown situation that may assumingly demand for processes of negotiation and understanding.

The Fusion of Horizon is a dialectical concept which results from the rejection of two alternatives: objectivism, whereby the objectification of the other is premised on the forgetting of oneself; and absolute knowledge, according to which universal history can be articulated within a single horizon. Therefore, it argues that we exist neither in closed horizons, nor within a horizon that is unique.

According to Hans Georg Gadamer, in Truth and Method, “every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of “situation” by saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential part of the concept of situation is the concept of “horizon”. The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point. A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence overvalues what is nearest to him. On the other hand, "to have a horizon" means not being limited to what is nearby, but to be able to see beyond it...working out of the hermeneutical situation means the achievement of the right horizon of inquiry for the questions evoked by the encounter with tradition.

In accordance with the above assumptions, on a practical level we have produce a three- dimensional intervention that resembles the idea of the achievement of the right horizon, as expressed through the notion of “denying” a closed horizon as well as a horizon that is unique.

In this sense we have build several separated structures that in their “right” composition make the word HORIZON visible to the viewer. The letters are fragmented in a way that you can perceive the written word from a certain distance and a given viewpoint, whilst from close distance you will be given the idea of abstract sculptures.

The spectator, in a playful way and by moving around will find the “right” view point and/or distance that allows for an either a complete perception of the written word HORIZON or a more detailed, but abstract vison of the elements.

Each letter is divided into two sections, mounted on a simple structure of iron rods, where numerous shorter metal bars (small horizontal lines) are assembled parallel at right angle in order to represent the plurality of all possible horizons.

The parallel horizontal lines are installed in a way that from a distance they evoke a solid volume, even though they allow for a see-through perspective merging with the landscape, underlined by the chosen colour range that tends to warm colours near the ground and cold colours near the sky, while the “real horizon” of the landscape coincides with the series of horizontal bars that are painted in a darker colour than the rest.