Paper Monuments
OK Pedersen

When we return to certain memories, whether they be stored for us as images in the mind, or as binary data, we imagine these figments to be essentially siteless, floating. We think of the Cloud as existing immanently, all around us, hanging in the air between screens. And it is. But it is also anchored to real, monumental amounts of physical space. It is not just everywhere, it is somewhere on Earth, sitting on millions of square feet of land, ready to be called up in front of any eye with the right keywords. ‘Paper Monuments’ is an exhibition exploring the substance of memory and our relationship to the unseen. The project consists of Cloud Gate 2, a 40 min. film, Sixteen Million Square Feet, an overhead projection depicting three of largest data center sites as seen from Google Maps, and Paper Monuments, a series of 7 photographic images depicting architectural renderings of memory hyperspace. These renderings are based on real places that are now only accessible in the artist’s mind––either because they are actually gone or simply out of reach. The architectural forms are drawn by hand on the same 40 x 50 in. sheet of mylar, photographed, and then erased. Each new structure is drawn over the ghostly erasure of the last. Thus, as the series progresses, faint traces of previous renderings are still visible within each new image. By dramatizing the transformation of a single surface, the series emphasizes the muddied, ongoing oscillation between psychic forms and their physical realities, and the way memories turn over as they play back in the mind’s eye.

Cloud Gate 2, a film essay, is a meditation on the architecture and technology of memory. The film is made from a mercurial collage of found media, desktop screen capture, and footage captured by the artist on her pilgrimage to the Cloud Gate (aka “The Bean”, Chicago’s only must-see monument) one year after her grandmother’s passing. The film unpacks and deconstructs the ways we try to store and optimize memory, through monuments, photographs, high security data centers, and the notion of heaven itself, making for a critical reflection of the Cloud in all its forms. Addressed as a letter to a long-lost friend, Cloud Gate 2 reverse-engineers the physical and spiritual structures of memory––the unending loop between seeing, remembering, and knowing––and the function of images within this cycle.

Screening Schedule: 11:15h, 12:00h, 12:45h, 13:30h, 14:15h, 15:00h, 15:45h, 16:30h, 17:15h
Vernissage Screenings: 18h, 18:45h, 19:30h, 20:15h
May 3-8 2022
Tuesday-Saturday 11h-18h
*Wednesday By Appointment Only
Vernissage Friday 6 May 18h-21h

@kristinapicture
okpedersen.com