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Moira / Mɔjra / Mɔɪ.rə

Text by Marta Federici

Moira / Mɔjra / Mɔɪ.rə is the title of Caterina Silva's project, conceived to inhabit the virtual space of MACTE Digital and centred around the story of an enigmatic creature, who unexpectedly ends up inside the museum website coming from another dimension. The name chosen by the artist for this character contains a stratification of meanings and references to various cultural contexts: from the Moirai of Greek tradition, the three daughters of Night who weave the thread of fate for human beings; to the mouras encantadas of the Portuguese folklore, the ancient Dolmen builders who are said to have lived under a spell imposed on them by their fathers or brothers. In the Christian tradition, the name Moira is not amongst any of the saints mentioned in the liturgical calendar and is therefore identified as masterless. The artist has delicately remixed these distant undertones to compose a fertile terrain where to plant the seeds of a new narrative. The plot structured by Silva echoes a contemporary mythology, which germinates among 2.0 web and bears the nuances of videogames.

Expanding on the artist's research into the relationship between power and codified languages, Moira / Mɔjra / Mɔɪ.rə specifically proposes an investigation of verbal language, understood as a tool that shapes reality and as a universe in which we are immersed. The project’s lines of reasoning move on two parallel planes: in the background there is an allusion to the process of abstraction affecting language globally in the age of late capitalism - technological and financial capitalism, which produces and incessantly modifies reality through alphanumeric strings; in the foreground, there is more of a direct analysis of some of the mechanisms underlying the functioning of human beings’ language. Using Italian, her mothertongue, as a reference, Silva exposes the linguistic dimension as a non-neutral field, in which the speaking subjects’ domination over the named objects represents a pattern constantly reproduced and nurtured. The micro-dynamics of power pointed out by the artist are at once the consequence and the origin of broader processes of prevarication taking place in social reality.

Where does the boundary between subjects and objects lie beyond verbal language? When, how and why is a person referred to as an object? Neither completely "thing" nor clearly "person", Moira embodies the shifting relationship between these two poles and tries to unhinge it, shattering the device of linguistic signification with her gestures and words. Overall, the events involving this character can be read as a long exercise in deconstructing the subject (on both a linguistic and physical level), but also as an unusual transformative ritual, seeking to lead the spectators towards unknown territories, where it is still possible to try and restore to the word its capacity to describe and transform the world without subjugating it. As the artist states, "the space where this may happen is a limbo, an halfway crossing, where words that aren’t known can be used in order to generate a language that one isn’t meant to learn. These words can be used to utter mysterious and extremely dangerous things".

The project is structured in four consecutive stages aligned with the phases of the lunar calendar.
The first stage will open on Tuesday 11 May 2021, when the new moon enters the sign of Taurus; three days later, on Friday 14 May, the second stage will be unlocked; on Wednesday 19 May, Moira will enter MACTE website; then the journey will come to an end with the full moon on Wednesday 26 May, when a choral performance configured as a greeting, celebration and rite of reconnection to reality will be broadcast live on Twitch.
It will be possible to access each stage by navigating through the museum's website.
After the project, a glossary of Moira's words will be made available for download from the MACTE Digital portal.

Concept and making Caterina Silva
Curator
Marta Federici
3D animation and modeling
Ruben Piergiovanni
Soundscape
Andrea Koch
Moira’s voice
Ornella Paglialonga
Performers
Caterina Silva, Giuseppe Vincent Giampino, Marta Montevecchi, Matteo Locci, Natalia Agati
Language Consultant
Andrea Zaninello
Filming
Margherita Panizon
Produced by
MACTE Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Termoli
Design
Sezione Grafica
Code
Dude

wow!
Ehi
🧸
🤯 dov'è Moira?
Moira divoratrice
Quanto tempo ci si impiega a battere le palpebre per 126,000 volte?
Quanto tempo ci si impiega a sbattere le ciglia per 126000 volte?
secondo me tantissimo
Il tempo di cadere dal divano
Egu
🌋
con chi parlo?
1 2 6 0 0 1
D I R A M A R E
Viva Moira!
ACCERCHIARE
Amare
INNANZITUTTO
ciao
soffocare
ciao
Delirio
🌋
wow sì

Moira's
story

Moira
had
lived
126,000
blinks
in
a
limbo.
It
was
silent
and
white,
but
it
is
not
certain
whether
it
was
dry
or
wet,
nor
whether
the
action
she
repeated
was
swimming
or
galloping.
Someone
or
something
must
have
brought
her
to
that
place,
because–except
for
a
few
days
a
year–Moira
was
not
endowed
with
free
will.
Or
rather,
she
believed
she
was
not.

The
dimension
she
came
from,
which
she
had
crossed
and
by
then
abandoned,
was
not
her
native
land.
It
mainly
developed
on
a
vertical
axis
and
consisted
of
solid
shapes,
which
in
turn
were
made
up
of
letters
and
words.
There
was
no
trace
of
milk
or
flat
bread
on
the
horizon.
Since,
at
times,
it
was
the
horizon
itself
that
was
missing.

After
a
stay
of
a
few
thousand
blinks,
for
lack
of
anything
else,
Moira
had
started
to
tear
off
blocks
of
letters
protruding
from
the
large
solid
constructions
with
her
claws
and
eat
them.
Sometimes
she
could
eat
an
entire
word,
and
in
those
moments
she
felt
mysterious
forces
pushing
her
eastward.
To
figure
out
where
to
go,
Moira
would
trace
in
the
air
with
her
own
body
the
word
EAST
and
orient
herself
in
the
direction
indicated
by
the
limb
outlining
the
last
part
of
the
letter.
Sometimes
she
would
finish
the
sequence
by
drawing
the
vertical
bar
of
the
T
from
top
to
bottom,
so
then
she
would
go
down
Other
times
she
would
draw
the
top
horizontal
line
last,
from
right
to
left,
and
move
accordingly.
Or
she
would
start
from
the
centre.
The
directions
she
could
take
were
endless
and
were
all
correct,
she
was
sure
of
that.

The
effect
of
eating
the
individual
letters,
often
already
detached
from
the
solids
and
rotting,
was
different.
Having
more
of
a
liquid
nature,
the
individual
letters
would
clump
in
the
stomach
in
groups
of
two
or
three,
move
together
and
cause
previously
ingested
words
to
flow
back
to
the
gullet.
In
such
cases,
Moira
had
the
feeling
that
she
made
a
mistake,
as
if
the
combination
of
completed
words
and
loose
letters
created
a
nefarious
chemical
reaction
in
the
intestines.
Both
the
smell
produced
by
the
fermentation
of
the
words
and
the
buzzing
sound
generated
by
their
friction
carried
her
to
another
physical
and
psychic
dimension.
Each
time
the
digestive
process
was
completed,
Moira
knew
she
was
in
a
different
point
in
space,
even
though
the
surrounding
landscape
had
remained
almost
unchanged.

Somewhere
along
the
way
Moira
discovered
a
mechanism
that
allowed
her
to
shorten
her
walking
time:
all
she
had
to
do
was
replace
the
word-objects
she
saw
as
smaller
with
those
she
saw
as
larger.
The
process
was
troublesome
but
rather
advantageous,
as
it
allowed
her
to
cover
an
undefined
distance
in
a
shorter
time
and
Moira
was
used
to
moving
large
masses
effortlessly,
having
been
a
Dolmen
builder
in
a
previous
life.

At
the
base
of
one
of
the
large
solid
constructions,
after
about
2520
beats
reduced
by
this
process
to
300,
Moira
glimpsed
at
a
surface
of
a
different
kind,
embedded
between
the
words
our
,
click
on
,
remov
,
guaranteed
,
visit
,
basenumb14
,
dollar
,
price
,
will
,
the
most
,
pleas
.
It
was
a
flat
surface
1
bulb
thick,
divided
into
four
mutually
communicating
portions,
each
circumscribed
by
a
semi-movable
frame.
From
the
lower
left-hand
portion
came
a
warm
wind;
from
the
upper
right-hand
portion
a
sequence
of
regular,
low,
dry
and
powerful
sounds;
in
the
other
two
portions
one
could
see
stagnating
masses
of
water
and
vacuum.
Immediately
attracted
by
the
water
and
perhaps
even
thirsty,
Moira
had
slipped
into
the
upper
left
portion
without
questioning
the
space,
assuming
that
she
would
be
able
to
come
into
contact
with
a
matter
so
different
from
what
she
had
been
used
to
for
the
last
126,000
blinks.
Moira
ignored
the
word
passage
and
was
sure
she
didn’t
eat
it,
however
knowing
no
other
way
but
to
continue
and
having
encountered
no
obstacles,
she
didn’t
care
about
the
consequences.
Perhaps
she
took
a
decision
or
perhaps
the
decision
chose
her.