INDEX

FAIVOVICH & GOLDBERG



DECOMISO



Photographs, metal storage shelves, dossiers,
digital video, analog sound
(unsynced loops)
SLYZMUD, BUENOS AIRES 2016-17
ASU ART MUSEUM, ARIZONA 2018-19
CCK, BUENOS AIRES 2020-21



The history of Campo del Cielo is usually narrated through a particular set of meteorites comprised by large individual specimens, with proper names such as El Taco, Otumpa, El Chaco or the mythical Mesón de Fierro, last seen in 1783. These rocks, in their uniqueness, assumed leading roles in the human theater of religion, science and politics, and were processed by various cultural systems throughout the ages. It is said, for example, that solar cults celebrated their rites around the Mesón, and to this day magnetic measurements are still taken in the islets and native forests of Southern Chaco in order to unveil the sidereal sigils preserved under the earth.

But in addition to the specimens with their own name, and those which are more legend than reality, thousands of other pieces of smaller weight and scale were extracted from Campo del Cielo: small meteorites, fragments, shards and chips of larger masses that, due to their easy transportability, usually become objects of smuggling. Thus, alongside religion, industry and science, there is yet another vector of material and symbolic organization that operates on asteroidal bodies: the law.

Decomiso directly addresses the legal aspects of Campo del Cielo and focuses on promoting the protection of astral rocks as a matter of historic national heritage. After a raid carried out by the State Prosecutor's Office of Santiago del Estero, in June 2014, 405 seized pieces were awaiting to be weighed, classified and labeled, as required by the provincial preservation law, sanctioned not long ago but never applied. Curiously, it was only the interference of artistic intent that made it possible to comply with these regulations for the first time in history.

Throughout three days of work, and together with a team of ten people assigned by the Prosecutor, Faivovich & Goldberg handled, cleaned, grinded and labeled the pieces, carrying out a process of weighing and recording in situ all of the seized extraterrestrial rocks and adopting a trivalent operational position that put them simultaneously in the place of artists, investigators and assistants of justice.
The work’s scope can then be measured in two distinct universes: as the first successful application of a law aimed at heritage protection, guaranteeing the optimal archival situation of Argentine meteorites, and as an artistic installation. In its original form, Decomiso is composed of 405 photographs -unique 1:1 scale copies- of each of the seized bodies, exhibited on metal shelves that evoke an endless scientific deposit, "a vault or a laboratory". The installation is also complemented by the presentation of Patio Santiagueño, a double audiovisual archive: on the one hand, a video recording of the indexing process of the meteorites in the prosecutor's office; on the other hand, an open tape recorder that reproduces the audio recording of an intimate gathering where regional folk music classics were played, held by the authorities and their friends after an asado to which the artists were invited.

Meteorites have a particular relationship with the world of the visible: as asteroids, floating between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, they are virtually invisible; when they pass through the atmosphere as meteors, they become ephemeral flashes that illuminate the skies for just an instant; after impacting the Earth's surface, their fate is to be buried in secret, intraterrestrial mausoleums; archived in state agencies, museums and universities, they cannot be seen without a specific access code.

The 405 bodies registered in this work were anonymous pieces of Campo del Cielo that, through indexing, manage to stand for thousands of other space rocks that have disappeared by human act or omission: batches and specimens absorbed by the international black market and that may never be seen again.

Through the epic of the concept turned into law, Decomiso locks meteorites into the exact moment when they get governed by the total stability of what can be discerned










BIBLIOGRAPHIA