Animitas by Christian Boltanski

 Imagine the wind chimes ringing in the desert. The sound of chimes resounds forever in the desert. Naturally, the sound would be absorbed in the sand without reaching to anyone. But what happens if it was recorded to reach out to us? “Us” as an anonymous audience?

 French artist Christian Boltanski installed the wind chimes at Atacama Desert in Chile which is 2,000 meters high above sea level. He named it Animitas. Animata in Spanish means little soul. Boltanski links suspending chimes to little soul. It may sound like murmurs of dead. Or would it be “us” who try to find voices of dead in the tone of chime?

 Most of works by Boltanski are consisted of a lot of names, clothes, photos of someone’s face and etc. They always represent innumerable anonymous people and are dedicated to them. The individual name or face ceases to belong to the individual and become anonymous when it is juxtaposed between countless names or faces. It is transformed to the state of anonymous which means “whosever”. A trace of anonymity is presented to our eyes, “whoever” we are. 

 The representation of anonymity always requires “medium”. The media could be photos, clothes, wind chimes or recorded images. It is delivered to us by some medium. And what  is delivered to us is a trace of someone’s presence. That is someone’s absence. Only a trace remains and it evokes that someone was there. Boltanski’s works are in between presence and absence bridged by the medium. 

 Such absence must have been waiting to be acknowledged by someone. That is “us”.