From November 30, 2023 to March 15, 2024
VOT DE TENEBRES is a cross-sectional and performance-based study on the voluntary confinement of women who lived between the 12th and 16th centuries within the framework of religious institutions, and the reproduction of this phenomenon in hyper-connected «virtual rooms» through new information and communication technologies.
The focus of the project is on urban hermitage and specifically on the hermitic life of women in medieval Christianity, namely on the most radical aspect thereof: confinement. In the Middle Ages, devout women chose to live in seclusion within four walls until their death in order to do penance. This custom, also known as «vow of darkness» (Vot de tenebres in Catalan, hence the name of the project), remained common until the 18th century in the Catalan Countries and other regions in Spain with the blessing of the most notable ecclesiastical authorities.
VOT DE TENEBRES works as an antagonistic dialogue between women of the past who, for one reason or another, locked themselves in annexes to convents, churches or religious sites in the Middle Ages, and women of the present who—driven by other motivations—interact with the world through smartphones, webcams and internet connection, namely confined in rooms or domestic spaces.
In VOT DE TENEBRES, the alterations in the architecture of enclosure are associated with the technological devices that act as a «window on the world» in today's globalised world, even affirming that the medieval walls of the cells occupied by walled-in women correspond to the tempered glass of the screens of our modern smartphones. In both form and content, this project by Joan Morey explores the relationship between body and architecture, reclusion and connectivity, spirituality and desire.
It also raises new questions about the particular pre-feminist foundations for the liberation of women linked to voluntary confinement or about the current sexual objectification that resides in the virtual overexposure of the body through present-day information and communication technologies.
The exhibition
VOT DE TENEBRES. Epilogue is the third part of the project of the same name that the artist has carried out in Palma throughout November. By way of a prologue, the first part took place in Can Balaguer with a performative talk followed by a singular tour through the streets of the old quarter of Palma, which ended with a perimeter reconnaissance of the walls of La Seu. The second part was held at the Capella de la Misericòrdia, offering an intimate performance behind closed doors, available online using a digital mobile application. The current exhibition takes the form of an epilogue and presents vestiges of the project as well as derivative works in which the artist reflects on the interlocution capacities of a «walled-in body» through word and voice, or (no) image and sound.
With this project, Joan Morey seeks to promote contemporary art as a humanistic discipline capable of driving change in the social paradigm or, at the very least, small personal revolutions. The group of works featured in this exhibition has been developed through the hybridisation of multiple language forms (writing, choreography and new technologies), arising from the shift between transversal preliminary research and the performative corporal experience in which the performer becomes a living subject of study, a device for the amplification of speech and a tool for real-time composition. In a parallel manner, the works address concepts as wide-ranging as power and control over the body, oppression and surveillance of people or the restriction of freedom.
The artist
Joan Morey (Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Mallorca, 1972) holds a University Degree and Diploma of Advanced Studies in Fine Arts from the Universitat de Barcelona, where he lives and works. As an artist, he has created an extensive body of performances, videos, installations, and sound and graphic works that have explored the intersection between theatre, cinema, philosophy, sexuality and subjectivity since the late 1990s. His practice brings together three key genres in contemporary art: performance (with scenarios that unfold over time, often with the participation of human bodies and the audience itself), appropriation (by taking and reformulating existing texts, forms and styles, whether from literary, classical or low-culture sources) and institutional critique (by examining and addressing the ideologies and power of social, cultural and political institutions).
Credits
VOT DE TENEBRES is a cross-sectional and performance-based study on the voluntary confinement behind walls and screens financed by the «Premis Barcelona 2020» from the Ajuntament de Barcelona and the VEGAP Welfare and Cultural Fund. With the support of the Departament de Turisme, Innovació, Cultura, Esport, Restauració i Turisme and Coordinació Municipal of the Ajuntament de Palma, as well as the collaboration of Consell de Mallorca and Galería Pelaires. Performing by: Ester Guntín. Script: based on the translation and free adaptation of texts by Samuel Beckett and Antonin Artaud. Soundtrack: combination of an extended performance of the piece Vexations by Erik Satie, melancholic sounds recorded with a mobile device and Carme Callol's voice. Movement: based on the score Trio B. Running by Yvonne Rainer. Movement direction: Candela Capitán, Ester Guntín. Prosthetic device: design and production by Joan Morey with the collaboration of Hangar, Barcelona Centre de Producció i Investigació Artística. Costume design: Època Barcelona, Josep Pagà Lleixà. Stylist: Alba Bilbao. Make-up and hairdressing: Rafit Noy, El Salón. Audience reception: Maeko Suarez. Sound recording and post-production: Ángel Sound Studio. Logistics: Lotema, Rafel Morey. Photographic documentation: Daniel Cao. Graphic design: Extra Estudio. All rights reserved: Joan Morey, 2020/2023.