Missing for Ten Years revolves around concepts such as disappearance, fluctuation and the absence of references. The Portuguese civil code grants a Presumed Death to adults who have been absent for more than 10 years. Interestingly, this time frame varies from country to country, giving existence a circumstantial bias. This consideration overlaps with the last known work of the artist Bas Jan Ader (In Search of The Miraculous, 1975) who, setting out alone to cross the Atlantic Ocean aboard a sailboat, is reported missing after three weeks of loss. of its radio broadcast. Taking Ader's journey as an allegory, Missing For Ten Years enunciates a state of anxiety, resulting from the loss of connection or natural habitat.
This piece, of a performative but also sound and object nature, consists of the artist's action, which induces electricity at various points on a platform formed by sea salt. The electrical variations resulting from greater or lesser salt densities are emitted via radio to a computer, processing the sound composition. The gesture is guided by a single task: to etiolate the salt as a solid, yet invisible, matter present in ocean water. The force exerted by the moving body causes the pressed salt to fracture at a given point. This moment is marked by six men who lift the platform, revealing a sheet of survival punctuated by 10 portions of salt.