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IACOPO SERI My contribution to “Real Presence” 2008 was a situation specific piece called: “An open cluster is a group of stars that were formed from the same cloud and are still loosely gravitationally bound to each other. They become disrupted by tidal forces and close encounters with other clusters as they orbit the galactic centre.”
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The piece consisted of 81 drawings, each a pencil portrait of the moles on a different “Real Presence” participant’s back. The moles became silver stars on blue paper. I used carbon paper for the drawings, so there’s a double copy of each portrait of someone’s back. I gave one to each artist and kept the other, so today the work is scattered around the globe. The friendships we made in Belgrade were so powerful that they still shape our lives to some extent. I feel we’re like those stars, orbiting around similar dreams and ways of life. We touch each other briefly here and there, while still expanding our boundaries, despite all the borders and walls. Today, 10 years after I drew those moles, this open cluster is still dancing around the world. We’re still loosely playing together, sometimes colliding again, but whatever happens we know we belong to similar galaxies. This is the real presence, and it’s now more real than ever.
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