BENJAMIN TIVEN


PROJECTS
The Small Infinity
Behind the Mirror
The Implication Arrow
The Delight of the Yearner
Untitled (Black Gravity Field)
Gravity Studies

CONTACT/CV

 

The Implication Arrow: A Cenotaph for Simone and André Weil (2007-2008)
Single channel HD video, 8:16"
Plexiglas projection screen, 24 x 36"
C-Prints, 20 x 20"

Installation / Video Stills / Photographs / Statement

  Through a video installation and a suite of photographs, this project enacts an oblique meditation on the lives of two mid-century French intellectuals: the mathematician André Weil and his sister Simone, a religious philosopher. Through images of the spaces they once inhabited and conversations with their old friends, a loose narrative emerges around the periphery of their biographies. Each sibling’s intense mental labors explored the abstract and the divine, while their lives were mitigated by war and exile.

The installation itself reconfigures the landmark architectural proposal The Cenotaph for Isaac Newton by Etienne-Louis Boullée. The video projects onto a large translucent panel backed by a sheet of black plexiglas, on which has been cut the constellation Gemini, whose stars are illuminated by the light of the video projector.