RUINA MONTIUM

Las Medulas (E), 2018

The ponds and mountain peaks in Las Medulas in northern Spain are the bizarre remains of the largest ancient gold mine in the Roman Empire, created 2000 years ago. The Romans invented a mining technique called ruina montium, which worked similarly to modern fracking. For several centuries tens of thousands of miners dug a network of tunnels through the mountains, with water basins at the top. Enormous amounts of water were channeled into the canals until the water pressure fractured the rock and exposed sediments from which the gold was then washed.

Video Loop:

Las Medulas, 2018
7:20 min
(C) Robert Gschwantner

A work from this series is covered with a woven net of PVC tubes filled with water collected from Lake Carucedo (Las Medulas). Behind this net, a pane of glass is partly masked with geometric motifs and then a mirror is mounted at the back. When the viewer moves, the mirror can be seen to reflect an antique frame in which a shadowy image of an old master painting (about the Golden Fleece and King Midas) is framed. This effect is the result of mounting the antique frame with the mythological scene on the back surface of the abstract form affixed to the glass pane. Front and background surfaces, abstraction and mirrored, figurative subject, all merge into a complex, shifting image.