Event 2: E. Joteva’s Graduate Solo Show

For my second event I attended Elí Joteva’s graduate solo show. This was an exhibition that featured three cryo sculptures and a dream wave portrait. To create the dream wave portrait, Elí explained that she had someone sleep next to a bowl of water, she froze that water, and she scanned the person’s brain waves as they recalled their dreams. She then she used color to represent those waves based on their frequencies and projected those on the frozen ice. This visual is meant to represent the connection between the memories that people have and the past, present, and future.

Elí's dream wave portrait.


The frozen sculptures that were on display were meant to represent the evolution from present to future through observing how the balls evolve and change as they melt. I attended the exhibition on the first day it opened and the balls were still really frozen at that point. A couple of them were still frosted over because of how frozen they were, so it was difficult to see what was inside and what they were made up of. Elí explained that one of the sculptures was made up of wildflowers and sand, the other was made up of mushrooms, and the third one was made up of red flowers because she wanted to make it seem like it was bleeding. I went back to her exhibit a couple days later and the sculptures looked completely different. The mushrooms and flowers were now completely exposed and there was barely any ice left on the balls. They were dripping at a much faster rate than before and were slowing losing a mushroom or a flower at a time. As Elí explained, it was as if they were releasing entropy, and this was perfectly illustrated with every flower or mushroom and drop they lost.

The sculpture of red flowers before and after.



The sculpture of wild flowers and sand before and after.



The sculpture of mushrooms before and after.



An overview of Elí Joteva's exhibit.



In another section of the exhibit, Elí had 360-degree projections of the frozen balls in their original forms. It was interesting to look at these and compare them to the sculptures on the third day and see how much they had changed. There was also a virtual reality headset that put you into one of the dripping sculptures, and your entire field of vision was disturbed with every drop. The entire exhibit echoed the sound of dripping water. After looking closer at the sculptures, I realized that this sound was actually in real-time and was coming from a microphone that was attached to one of the bowls that was under a sculpture. Elí explained that the drips could be viewed as a type of counting.


This exhibition really made me think about the interconnection of dreams and memories and how they play into shaping our future. I think it is a very interesting concept to think about, and it was beautifully portrayed though Elí’s frozen sculptures. I would highly recommend this exhibit if it is shown again in the future.

A picture of me with Elí and other people who attended her exhibit. (Elí is third from the right and I am on the far right)


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