Monopole Memory takes its name from a hypothetical elementary particle that has only one magnetic pole. Magnetic monopoles, which do not exist in nature, have recently become part of a discovery in which scientists connected two regions of space so that a magnetic field can travel invisibly between them (link). It also takes its name from an experience had during a recent trip to New York by the artists Cécile B. Evans and Yuri Pattison.

As they walked along the south end of Union Square, Evans recalled the first time she had seen the Twin Towers. She was 18 and a plane was hitting one of the towers. They were framed perfectly by an avenue leading from Union Square, over which the plane had flown. This perfect framing is something that both Pattison and Evans had frequently discussed, especially the new power media had at the time to manipulate and distribute memories. Evans had long doubted the possibility of the symmetry in her experience, attributing this part of her memory to its representation. Pattison, having only experienced the event through the very same representations, could only agree. They discussed how several television shows taking place in New York did not know how to deal with the trauma these image objects suddenly contained. From one episode to the next producers replaced transition cards featuring the towers with a neatly redesigned city skyline. The shows never acknowledged the action that had taken place between the two spaces.

Evans and Pattison realised that they had drifted and decided to reconcile any discrepancy in their memory. They looked down the same avenue: in its absolute center was a monopole.

-As recalled by Cécile B. Evans and Yuri Pattison

Monopole Memory, 2015
SONTE digital film, 3D puzzle, poster print, carbon powder
80 x 80 x 80cm

 

 

Cécile B. Evans, 1983 – lives in London. Solo exhibitions and commissions include; AGNES – Serpentine Galleries, London; Hyperlinks – Seventeen Gallery, London [both 2014] and The Brightness – Palais de Tokyo, Paris [2013]. Group exhibitions include; CO-WORKERS – Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Projections – 53rd New York Film Festival; Äppärät – Marfa Ballroom, Texas; Inhuman – Fridericianum, Kassel [all 2015]; La Voix Humaine – Kunstverein Munich; and TTTT – Jerwood Visual Arts Foundation, London [both 2014]. She has received awards including; Andaz Award [2015]; Push Your Art Prize – Orange/Palais de Toyko[2013]; and Emdash Award [2012] (now Frieze Award).

Yuri Pattison, Dublin, 1986 – lives in London. Projects include a commission from Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London responding to their seminal 1968 exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity. Solo exhibitions include; Chisenhale Gallery, London [upcoming  2016]; Architectures of Credibility – Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition, Berlin [2015]; Free Traveller – Cell Projects, London; Colocation, Time Displacement – Minibar, Stockholm, Sweden [both 2014]; and e ink pearl memory – Arcadia_Missa, London [2012]. Group exhibitions include The Weight of Data – Tate Britain, London; The Future of Memory – Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; Morphing Overnight – Seventeen, London [all 2015]; Private Settings – Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw [2014]; and Objectness – Outpost, Norwich [2013].