Ga’s three-channel video Four Thousand Blocks is built from a number of interwoven narratives and metaphors, focusing on the role of images and written texts in the creation of living memory. On the center screen, Ga manipulates transparent images on a lightbox, narrating her dives and her meeting with archaeologists, weaving links between Pharos Island, the divine figure of the Egyptian god Thoth and early attempts to translate The Torah. As the narrative unfolds, the viewer watches the development of a photograph in a darkroom on the left hand screen, while the artist’s hands on the right hand screen painstakingly composes a text with lead letters.
The viewer sees the results of these two processes at the entrance to the video. The letterpress print, Pharmakon, tells the story of Thoth presenting his diverse inventions for humankind to the King of Egypt such as written language, the calendar, dice. Dice are also the subject of the photograph, Projection Harbor, that Ga develops in the darkroom, which hangs adjacent to the letterpress print.
