Elisa Desortes – Middle Earth

Technical sheet: n. 9 drawings with rapidograph 0.1 postcard size, installation: white table, white chair, interior plan, notebook, pencil.

In the short-exibition Middle Earth, Elisa Desortes takes us to a no-man’s-land where stereotypical structures and places, destined for the use of a mass audience, have become the new cathedrals of the 21st century.

Renamed by Marc Augè “non-places”, every day, consciously or not despite the uninviting definition, we voluntarily look for them and attend them, dedicating to them part of our time.

We look at them, seeking the forced light of every hour of the day, the food and the manufactured goods to meet the taste of everyone, the right ambiance to celebrate personal recurrences, the occasional meetings to socialize and the company to travel.

And if the recognizability of the structures promises the certainty of the content, the secret desire is to remain a unique individual well distinguishable within them, not confused with the millions of faces that meet intent in the same research with similar motivations.

Thus, the education to the use of these massively frequented places pushes the community in the opposite direction of empathy, towards an exacerbated individualism.

Still, we are far from requesting affection through these channels but – who knows – with the progress of online sales on Amazon, the new virtual frontier of “non-places”, perhaps soon enough we will be able to order a surrogate mother, a brother, a faithful pet, and a Prince Charming.