Javier Viver proposes a narrative that oscillates between scientific documentation and fiction.

This work by Javier Viver focuses on the existence of a peculiar being: the aurelia aurita, a type of jellyfish that has the capacity to regenerate itself without limits. The author tries to document photographically the life cycle of this species, guided by a scientific and metaphysical interest in a phenomenon found in nature that leads to a reflection on the possibility of immortality.

The story of Aurelia Immortal is told from 2046, in a future in which advances in biotechnology will have made it possible to develop a transhuman species, whose life will be prolonged indefinitely. Javier Viver believes that science and art face death with different methods.

In Aurelia Immortal, some of the objectives pursued by transhumanism appear in synthesis, an ideology that considers it a moral obligation to improve the human condition through technology, working in areas such as the generation of a superior form of intelligence, the elimination of suffering or the prolongation of human life.

Viver takes a further step towards the biotechnological challenges he talks about in his new work, as they do not only affect science and art, but also other fundamental areas, such as religion. He asks whether the solution to human aspirations for immortality can be an indefinite extension of natural existence, or whether enduring life lies elsewhere, beyond the biological.

This photobook, designed by the author, consists of two volumes: the first in the form of a leporello, which contains photographs of the life cycle of the jellyfish; and the second as a notebook in which the texts, drawings and photographic documentation that tell the story are reproduced.

Using a pocket edition of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, published in 1930, Javier Viver has incorporated photographs of the Spanish Civil War and the profanation of religious images, in the form of an illustrated bible. Beyond the illustration of the text, however, Viver has composed a fascinating visual relation, through the reordering of archival images, as he had already done in his previous photobook entitled Révélations: Iconographie de la Salpêtrière, which was awarded the Premio Nacional for the best art book of 2013.

In this remarkable contribution to historical memory, Viver seeks to transcend the simplistic readings imposed by ideology on the two opposing sides, rediscovering the human gestures and postures of the Christs and Antichrists through the most beautiful images of the Civil War and of those who took part in it. It is a book that proposes a way of overcoming the conflict through the workings of memory and an understanding of the human dramas that underlay it.

Of special interest are the photographs of profaned images, with their documentary evidence of the passions provoked, which achieve an unmatched degree of realism. The volume is accompanied by a collection of prints with micro-perforated edges, similar to the stamps used in the ration cards of the Civil War years, which can be cut out and incorporated into different passages in the book. They are images of posters from the war years that seem to reproduce literally some of the photographs included. By this playful interaction, the author invites the reader to participate in completing the story, a story in which documentary evidence and fiction coexist, as the very limits of reality and representation are questioned.

DISCLAIMER: This book is only available in Spanish.

Dialogue between the Word of Santos's Own and photographs from the Photographic Archive of the Hôpital Salpêtrière (Paris 1875-1918), extracted from the photobook Révélations. Iconographie de la Salpêtrière by Javier Viver.
Restored and hand-bound book with custom-made slipcase, machine-embroidered title and hand-embroidered motif on white linen cloth.

Composed of 18 booklets of Santos's Own from the mid-20th century in which photographs by Javier Viver are interspersed, creating an exceptional dialogue between word and image.

El fotolibro Révelations, de Javier Viver está basado en la Iconographie de La Salpêtrière, uno de los primeros archivos fotográficos en el campo de la psiquiatría clínica.

Dirigido por Jean-Martin Charcot y patrocinado por el estado francés, supuso un esfuerzo de catalogación de lo inclasificable mediante las nuevas técnicas fotográfico-documentales. Lo marginal, aquello que no entraba en la lógica racional del proyecto moderno, se sometió a disección en La Salpêtrière. Se midió, se documentó y clasificó de forma sistemática.

Pero en esta operación, el uso de la fotografía propició la incorporación del espectáculo y con el toda una trama de complicidades entre los pacientes y sus fotógrafos. El espectáculo de La Salpêtrière se hizo teatro de variedades en las sesiones de los martes, ante una concurrida representación de las élites culturales y científicas, mediante la inducción por hipnosis de contorsiones, crisis epilépticas y ataques de histeria, el registro y exposición de gabinetes de curiosidades y rarezas biológicas, fenómenos y monstruos.

El resultado fue un archivo fotográfico sin precedentes, testigo de la época colonial, realizado con la intención “panóptica” del régimen disciplinario y documento sistematizado de los límites del alma humana. A partir de un trabajo de campo con más de 4.000 fotografías y 32 volúmenes publicados entre 1875 y 1918, Javier Viver realiza una nueva compilación y edición de la iconografía del famoso hospital parisino. Así, más allá de su original interpretación clínica, el archivo es mostrado en un contexto crítico contemporáneo, abierto a nuevas lecturas, asociaciones y planos de interpretación.

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The Iconographie de La Salpêtrière is one of the first photographic archives in the field of clinical psychiatry.

Under the direction of Jean-Martin Charcot, and financed by the French government, this archive constituted an effort to catalogue the unclassifiable through new photographic-documentary techniques. The realm of the marginal –whatever failed to fit into the rational logic of the modern project– was subject to dissection at La Salpêtrière. It was systematically measured, documented, and classified.

In this operation, however, the use of photography fostered the incorporation of spectacle and, with it, an entire network of complicities between patients and photographers. The spectacle of La Salpêtrière became a variety show at every Tuesday session, played out in front of a representative sampling of cultural and scientific elites, through the induction of contortions by hypnosis, epileptic seizures, and fits of hysteria, and the registry and exhibition of cabinets of curiosities, biological rarities, freaks, and other phenomena.

The result is an unprecedented photographic archive, a witness to the colonial era, assembled with the “panoptic” intent of a disciplinary regime, and a systematic documentation of the limits of the human soul.

Based on field work with more than 4,000 photographs and thirty-two volumes published between 1875 and 1918, Javier Viver has assembled a new compilation and edition of the iconography of the celebrated Parisian hospital. Beyond its very original clinical interpretation, the archive is presented in a contemporary critical context, open to new readings, associations, and levels of interpretation.