TREMULOUS
To watch the phantasmagoria we had conjured, the audio text invited the audience to sit on a stand that we had built with remains from former exhibitions, which we had found in a store-room. The audience were also invited to watch charcoal-composted Paulownias growing in the now empty storeroom, thanks to water dripping from a malfunctioning tap. They were also asked to look at drawings of Martí Beltrán on a wall. He had orally transmitted his craft to us, as ancient tradesmen would do, according to Walter Benjamin- oral transmission of experience; teaching, by means of words, how to do things. Those drawings took two months to finally materialize on September 5th. That day we landed at Valls early in the morning. The Town Council had granted us parking space and a few tons of dirt for the slack. We began by arranging wood into a pile, a simple structure one can replicate by placing the index and middle fingers of one hand against the same fingers on the other hand. A central shaft open at the top serves as a flue conveying smoke into the air. The shape of these charcoal piles resembles an ancient pyramid. The origins of the word pyramid are unclear, although some people believe there is a connection with πῦρ, the Ancient Greek word for ‘fire’28. Funeral pyres would share the same origin: an accumulation of bodies delivered to pyrolysis29 until all their water is eliminated, and they are carbonized, i.e. only carbon remains at the end of the chemical process. The pyramids want to resemble mountains and are connected with death; they are architectures that house bodies like charcoal piles house wood. Some pyramids, just like the mountains, were used as observatories.
28 The Ancient Egyptian word for pyramid transliterates as MR, probably pronounced /mer/, meaning ‘place of Ascension’. As for the Ancient Greek word, although its origin is not completely clear, the most likely etymology according to most experts does not derive from πῦρ (‘fire’), but from πῡρός (‘wheat’). In Ancient Greek, was a type of wheat cake and the word was probably applied to the colossal Egyptian monuments owing to their resemblance in shape (cf. H.G. Liddell & R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940) (Translator’s Note). 29 Pyrolysis is the process of chemically decomposing organic materials at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen and therefore is not tantamount to combustion in an open-air funeral pyre, which obviously involves a reaction with oxygen (oxidation). (Cf. https://www. azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=336, accessed Dec. 16th 2020) (Translator’s Note). 324