Apparent Position. Polo's project is presented in 3 formats: a 16-mm film, photographs on glass, and a printed book. The three formats are traditionally associated with the documentary impulse, and the rush to chronicle potentially historic events. At first glance, her work addresses issues related to the connection between scientific knowledge and the imperialist projects of the European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries, but also gives rise to less immediate reflections on the relations between events that seem to intersect at a given time and place, as in the manner of an eclipse.
Paloma Polo’s project for the “Fisuras” (Fissures) program at the Museo Reina Sofía
emerged from research into expeditions, undertaken in various parts of the world
during the colonial era, that sought to observe and document astronomical
phenomena. At first glance, her work addresses issues related to the connection
between scientific knowledge and the imperialist projects of the European powers in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but Apparent Position also gives rise to less
immediate reflections on the relations between events that seem to intersect at a given
time and place, as in the manner of an eclipse.
The starting point is a historically and geographically verifiable event: Sir Arthur
Eddington’s 1919 expedition to the island of Príncipe, a Portuguese colony in the Gulf
of Guinea, to observe the effects of a total solar eclipse. This voyage is not, however,
engraved in history with the epic dimensions of other expeditions of the colonial era.
Although there are precise reports on the calculations and conclusions of the
expedition, there are no photographic records of the experience. Only a stone stele,
which is mounted upon a white -washed plinth at the approximate spot where the
eclipse was observed, reminds us that Eddington’s achievement signified the
verification of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
It is here that the “apparent” referred to in the title of this project makes its entrance.
The purpose of Eddington’s expedition was to confirm that light altered its linear course
when in contact with a powerful gravitational field (like the sun), an aspect of the
general theory of relativity demonstrable only during a solar eclipse. The position of the
light of the stars is presumed to be “apparent,” and only a parenthesis in the
astronomical process—a black eclipsed sun—would allow that deceptive position to be
photographed and the degree of deviation of the light to be calculated. This was an
event of extraordinary scientific importance. And yet, in spite of the claims of the
commemorative stele, Eddington’s expedition does not appear to have been the
touchstone in the verification of Einstein’s theory. Later research indicates that its
scientific results were rather poor. That is, although Eddington’s expedition “officially”
legitimized the validity of the general theory of relativity, such confirmation actually
came only two years later.
Paloma Polo’s project is presented in three formats: a 16-mm film transferred to digital
video; photographs on glass; and a printed book. The three formats are traditionally
associated with the documentary impulse, and the rush to chronicle potentially historic
events. Yet Apparent Position makes no attempt to document or inform. It starts
instead from a threefold position: the acknowledgement of a known fact; the awareness
of the absence of precise historical documentation; and an intervention on site, which
reveals not an alteration of reality but a way of framing new relationships with the
surroundings and with history itself. The first images depict a silent scene that might
well have taken place at the time of the expedition—photographs on glass illustrating
the appearance of the expedition’s surroundings during the eclipse. Numerous
variables enter into play: the peculiar light of an eclipse; the procedure for making a
printed record of it with a photographic camera; and the constructed nature of such
images. The images in question are virtual reconstructions of a space from the
standpoint of the present. They seek to recreate as exactly as possible the look of the
instruments, the furnishings, the decoration, and the architectural features of the epoch
under the momentary penumbra of the eclipse, with the greatest possible precision and
on the basis of research and consultation with various experts. The scenes
represented in Polo’s photographs are not documentation: if it ever existed, no record
remains. Nothing is left today but the architectural memorial. With their apparent
veracity, these images do not attempt to replace what may never have existed but to
become substitutes. Unlike other artists who work with fake “found” documents, Polo
does not attempt a sleight of hand, nor does she reveal a process of manipulation.
Rather, her photographs are the depiction of a possible history frozen in time.
We can imagine the tremendous mobilization of resources in any scientific undertaking
rooted in imperialism. Its present-day parallel represented in her film is both evocative
and eloquent. The projection shows the moment in the summer of 2011 when the stele
commemorating Eddington’s achievement was moved at the artist’s suggestion, and
with the support of the regional government of Príncipe, to the exact spot where,
according to new research, the astronomical observation “apparently” took place. This
was but a few yards away from the original position on the same farm. If Polo’s
intention is to draw a historical parallel, it is a deliberately sterile one that is set up as a
testimony to a loss. The film does not restrict itself to merely documenting the
relocation of the stele and fixing it in time. Above all, it concerns itself with the status of
the audience and its position with regard to the experience it is witnessing. Viewers
never get a clear sense of the space (the camera seems to situate the viewpoint in a
position that the next shot reveals to have been merely apparent, while tracking shots
tend to distance viewers from the object or to dwell on details). In addition, the
introduction of sounds foreign to the scene distances viewers from the events depicted;
and jump-cuts prevent them from quantifying the passage of time. It is not clear where
the stele has gone, how much time it took, or whether it was moved a few meters or
several kilometers away. Time and space are alternatively suggested and disappear.
Since viewers must re-construct them from their own vantage points, these points of
view necessarily become relativized.
“Position” emerges as the basis of this project: the position of the objects involved; that
of the sun and the moon; that of the viewer; and, ultimately, and of more complex
articulation, that of the ideological “positioning” that might emerge from the whole.
Position can thus relativize all the information obtained. Polo’s relocation of the
commemorative stele proves futile—just as the 1919 expedition proved controversial
from a scientific point of view. Eddington did not manage to convince the scientific
establishment that he had confirmed the general theory of relativity, but he did
contribute to colonialism’s final years. Polo’s project does not try to restore a memorial
or resignify a site. The results of her act of relocation will be judged by what the island’s
inhabitants wish to do with it from now on, as an ongoing issue or as a
commemoration.
This project bears witness to an absence: that of the colonial powers who supported
expeditions like Eddington’s. Although their presence was rarely made visible, they
established a dominant world-view. Never completely transparent, their power was
rigorously exercised. Used to relocate the monument, the chains seen in the film not
only may evoke the dark memory of slavery, they suggest new modes of appropriating
space and history. Those participants in the film who manipulate the chains are the
generation born after their country became independent in 1975: by contrast, their
grandparents’ center of political gravity was thousands of kilometers away in Portugal.
Polo’s photographs restore what did not exist, and her film relocates something
improperly located. Reality has not been altered by either of these interventions: their
futility is telling. Príncipe remains a remote corner of the globe commemorated largely
on account of an astronomical occurrence and so continues to “not exist.”
In the logic of imperialism, Edward Said declared, knowledge is power, and the
accumulation of knowledge automatically signifies an accumulation of power. The
world maps drawn by colonial empires are associated with a control that is both
symbolic (the act of representation) and real (determining the movement of populations
and the heavens). Apparent Position images the principal ideal which underpinned
colonial fever: an empire on which “the sun never set.”
“Fisuras” is a program that reveals interstitial spaces in the Museum (landings,
stairwells, underground passages, connections between buildings), and allows visitors
to discover the narrative possibilities of those intermediate zones. In Apparent Position,
this “fissure” touches on levels of discourse beyond the spatial: by addressing such
issues as the general theory of relativity and an undocumented historical event, it
reveals the caesura between reality and our perception of it, and so offers new ways of
“positioning ourselves.”
Co-ordination Patricia Molins
Image: Acción a distancia, 2012. Película de 16 mm transferida a vídeo digital HD. © Paloma Polo
This exhibition is part of the Festival Miradas de Mujeres (MAV)
Gabinete de Prensa tel 91 7741005 / 1006 Milena Ruiz Magaldi prensa1@museoreinasofia.es - prensa2@museoreinasofia.es
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Hours: Mon-sat 10-21, sun 10.14.30
Admission: 6 euro, 3 concessions