A phantom heart

A cor fantasma (A phantom heart) refers to a state of openness in relation to cement, a material that is usually presented to us as opaque and closed in on itself. A phantom is that which makes itself apparent, what becomes visible, it is an event that materialises, like these pieces of cement mortar that emerge from the friction of the body with the environment. If in construction mortar is used to join constructive elements together, like bricks in a wall, in this case it continues to fulfil this function: the pieces of mortar are the union between a past action and a concrete medium that is no longer there. In this way, they make visible the friction between the movement of the body and the material, like a scab on the skin after a fall. ( )( ( ) ⎨ / A cor fantasma is a sculptural ensemble that emanates from the same original place, a mountain of sand that we can only glimpse through the constituent remains of the pieces. Every mountain is foundational: beginning and end, closed circle, latency and possibility. In this first formation, the whole body collapses, creating a cavity that welcomes contact with the surface and absorbs it into its interior. Mould and moulded, copy and copied, sculpture and sculptress; limits are lost and only the gesture remains the only link. The act of introducing movement and vitality to the material work has immediate consequences: one enters into a relationship with the environment through a process capable of generating potentiality and presence. Even that which is no longer there. We start from something that has been hidden, that no longer belongs to the realm of visibility; but it is necessary for the concealment to be seen, for the gesture to manifest itself, but not necessarily its shape. Interstitial movement. Circular process. This is the paradox that initiated the working process: how to fix the corporeal movement, the gesture and the mental process in the concrete material that is cement. This material is known for its opacity, for its treatment in a single gesture, dry and structural. It can adopt any shape, any aspect and can be adapted to the needs that are asked of it. In this sculptural research, the cement enters into a process of opening, of spilling, as if some waters were adopting the same shape of the force that compresses them. The humidity keeps the pieces open and porous. In this opening they are unfolded and can only point towards the outside that shapes them and returns them to themselves. I am referring to the friction that originates them and the surface that remains, a crust that results from the contact between the exterior and the interior, between the formation of sand and Mònica's body. The process thus becomes an act of imitation: material and sculptress interpret each other's characteristics in the friction of contact. One in the skin of the other. In this way, this sculptural ensemble is conceived as a conglomerate of relationships, a concatenation of phantom movements, even of sensations, which should not be understood as an accumulation of masses or mechanical connections. We are left off-centre. The contact is distance. To wound: to generate an opening of non-belonging, a cushioned opening, caressed, rubbed by the same power that has produced the friction and made it a scab. The displacement of the whole body rubs against and melts into the mortar that holds it. The pieces thus do not retain an image and the titles project the movements, avoiding language; they drag with them everything they have gone through. They are a ghost that enters into another ghost and they dissolve interlaced. As a knot and a kiss: closed circle. This project is the result of the collaboration between Margot E. Cuevas and Mònica Planes at the espai2 of àngels barcelona between January and May 2021.