Illusion, 2011
Book, 13 x 20 cm, 222 p, language: Spanish, publisher: CreateSpace, ISBN:13: 978-1456599225, 10: 1456599224.
©image: M HKA
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2024/862).
Literary synopsis
Tarot Arcane VI, The Lover, depicts a young man lost in indecision between two options. His eyes point to a woman, whilst his arms are directed towards another. Even his clothes, a multicolored doublet, reflect his state of internal division. The protagonist of Illusion is also immersed in a process of progressive fragmentation, leading to an unpredictable end. The narrator tells a story that happened to him time ago, when he was in his twenties, in which he goes through a series of experiences that he, at that moment, was not in conditions to understand. It is only in retrospective that he is able to give account of it. In Illusion, characters are not aware of their being constantly changing and redefining in relation to their environment and the others. This alienating nature goes to an extreme with the protagonist, who is always in the need of a model to imitate. The problem is that, the closer he is of that model, the more he enters in competition with it in order to attain the object of their desires.
Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice
To make Illusion, Maroto departed from preexisting narrative works of his own production, such as sound pieces, video animations, leporellos, installations... He then removed their sound and visual components, so that eventually it resulted in a collection of loose narrative texts, which he took as the basic materials to write Illusion. All these pieces were integrated wihtin the text of Illusion, which became in this way a sort of patchwork of different, unconnected art pieces whose seams might not be obvious at first sight. Conversely, as the writing of Illusion progressed, it gave way to new, autonomous projects. The reader of Illusion has two options. She can read it as a regular novel, with a storyline, characters, and so on. But there is also the option to get an expanded reading experience, by relating each passage to each particular work from where it comes. Those works are, in turn, also made of fragments of images and sounds, which refer to other pictures, texts and so on. Illusion thus functions as the axis of a constellation of narrative works that ultimately refer their meaning to it. The project does not end with the publication of the book. A new dimension begins with it, because the meaning of a novel is to be read. It only exists in the here and now when someone is reading it. This simple performative act, that of reading, is the basis of a number of art projects that develop around the book, such as the Illusion Reading Room (11th Havana Biennial, 2012) and the Illusion Buzzword Bingo (Artium Museum, Spain, 2012).
Authorship: Artist Author.
Creative Strategy: Artworks Cite Novel, Reading Performance.
Genre: Memoir, Plain Fiction.
Publishing: Print-On-Demand, Public Institution.
Theme: Subjective Experience.
Media
>Cover 'Illusion', 2011
>'Casa Diógenes', International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York City, 2011. Narrative installation: 36 loose photo prints on a table with accompanying sound track (6’ 20’’) in a small room for one or two spectators at the same time. Variable dimensions. llusion’s last chapter begins with the protagonist entering the apartment of his father, who had been found dead in it. He had not spoken to him for years, and he comes to his house only to discover that the old man suffered Diogenes syndrome (extreme hoarding). The apartment is a jumble of found objects, accumulated in an inextricable chaos that fills the rooms from floor to ceiling. While wandering around, he finds a number of objects, texts and images that trigger some stories within the story, such as Dürer’s Rhinoceros (about second-hand knowledge), Novgorod Codex (example of hyper-palimpsest) and Seven Masks (about a process of unveiling layers of a subject till reaching his empty core).
>International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York City, 2011. Narrative installation: 36 loose photo prints on a table with accompanying sound track (6’ 20’’) in a small room for one or two spectators at the same time. Variable dimensions. llusion’s last chapter begins with the protagonist entering the apartment of his father, who had been found dead in it. He had not spoken to him for years, and he comes to his house only to discover that the old man suffered Diogenes syndrome (extreme hoarding). The apartment is a jumble of found objects, accumulated in an inextricable chaos that fills the rooms from floor to ceiling. While wandering around, he finds a number of objects, texts and images that trigger some stories within the story, such as Dürer’s Rhinoceros (about second-hand knowledge), Novgorod Codex (example of hyper-palimpsest) and Seven Masks (about a process of unveiling layers of a subject till reaching his empty core).
>Project for 11th Havana Biennial, within the project Open Score, La Habana, Cuba. From May 11 to June 11, 2012, Centro Hispanoamericano de la Cultura. Malecón 17 e/ Prado y Cárcel. http://www.bienalhabana.cult.cu Illusion Reading Room is a participative installation: there is a pile of 500 copies of my novel Illusion and two armchairs. In one of them, a permanent reader is reading out loud from the novel. Public are welcome to take one copy of the novel with them for free. It is only asked to do one thing in exchange: to sit down in the vacant armchair and take it over from the reader, by reading out loud a few pages for the rest of the audience. In this way, public become part of the installation as temporary performers, and the novel is read continuously without interruption throughout the whole duration of the Biennial.
>Project for 11th Havana Biennial, within the project Open Score La Habana, Cuba From May 11 to June 11, 2012 Centro Hispanoamericano de la Cultura. Malecón 17 e/ Prado y Cárcel www.bienalhabana.cult.cu Illusion Reading Room is a participative installation: there is a pile of 500 copies of my novel Illusion and two armchairs. In one of them, a permanent reader is reading out loud from the novel. Public are welcome to take one copy of the novel with them for free. It is only asked to do one thing in exchange: to sit down in the vacant armchair and take it over from the reader, by reading out loud a few pages for the rest of the audience. In this way, public become part of the installation as temporary performers, and the novel is read continuously without interruption throughout the whole duration of the Biennial.
>Project for 11th Havana Biennial, within the project Open Score La Habana, Cuba From May 11 to June 11, 2012 Centro Hispanoamericano de la Cultura. Malecón 17 e/ Prado y Cárcel www.bienalhabana.cult.cu Illusion Reading Room is a participative installation: there is a pile of 500 copies of my novel Illusion and two armchairs. In one of them, a permanent reader is reading out loud from the novel. Public are welcome to take one copy of the novel with them for free. It is only asked to do one thing in exchange: to sit down in the vacant armchair and take it over from the reader, by reading out loud a few pages for the rest of the audience. In this way, public become part of the installation as temporary performers, and the novel is read continuously without interruption throughout the whole duration of the Biennial.
>Illusion Buzzword Bingo is the name of a collective game based on an art project in the form of a novel, called Illusion. Bingo cards are distributed amongst the audience, with the particularity that they do not contain the usual 1-to-90 numbers, but words (a different combination of words in each card). A reader reads a passage of the novel Illusion out loud. Participating public will cross out words in their cards as they appear in the text when uttered during the reading. Like in the original game, there is a prize for the player who calls out “bingo”; that is, for the one who crosses out all words in their card before anyone else does.Illusion Buzzword Bingo has been played in the following venues:Artium, Museum of Contemporary Art, Vitoria (Spain). 25 April 2012.INexactly THIS. Kunstvlaai: Festival of Independents, Amsterdam. 24 November 2012.The Diagrammatic Practice of the Micropolitical. International Public Symposium. ZHdK, Zurich. 15 November 2013.
Artist
> David Maroto.
Exhibitions & Ensembles
> Exhibition: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ARTWORK BECOMES A NOVEL?. M HKA, Antwerp, 07 December 2012 - 21 April 2013.
> Exhibition: THE BOOK LOVERS - A Project about Artist Novels. The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 25 January 2013 - 09 March 2013.
> Exhibition: Book Lovers 4.0 (Pop-up Bookstore). De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, 28 January 2014 - 02 February 2014.
> Exhibition: The Preparation of the Novel (Book Lovers 5.0). Fabra i Coats - Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, 18 July 2014 - 05 September 2014.
> Ensemble: The Artist's Novel.