The Mnemosyne: inside Beatrice Mika Sakaki's curated moodboard
In this chapter, we present Beatrice Mika Sakaki (b. 1999, Florence), a visual artist working with video game engines and digital archives: the CGI characters she stages, “wait for commands, repeat minimal gestures and reactivate voices found online” – with her own words. Here, she walks us through her references, obsessions and online habits, ranging from videogames landscapes and mechanics to elements which inspire her character-making.
IMAGE 1 (below):
I spend a lot of time watching live CCTV feeds purely for fun. Most of the time, nothing happens. The images remain almost motionless until something suddenly makes that wait exciting, like a gesture, a passerby, or an interruption. I save screenshots and recordings because many of those feeds disappear after a while. I particularly like the ones that move with great precision for no apparent reason. They start, stop, and repeat the same path.
IMAGE 2 (below):
I often dream that I'm falling, but I always wake up just before I hit the ground. I found out that this is a very common dream. Something similar happens in video games when collision fails; the avatar passes through a surface, falls through the map and then reappears. In the dream, waking up works like a respawn.
IMAGE 3 (below):
Since returning to my hometown, I have revisited La Specola, a natural history museum that I hadn’t been to for several years. It feels as though time has stood still there. This reclining figure resembles a sleeping person. These anatomical wax models were created at life size to simulate human bodies for educational purposes. Its posture and facial expression make its stillness seem temporary. These figures embody the potential of the human body, yet they are unable to act independently; this restrained potential fascinates me and often features in my work.
IMAGE 4 (below):
One of the most recent books I’ve read is Deleuze’s The Exhausted. Deleuze describes lying down as a penultimate position because the body can still crawl, turn over or get up. The exhausted figure, on the other hand, remains seated with their head resting on their hands; they still retain the form of activity, but without pursuing any purpose.
I often work lying down, with my laptop on my knees. I move from one activity to another without a precise plan or a fixed structure. My process is very slow and made up of micro-events that distract me from what I’m doing. When I’m about to finish editing a video, I change position and sit at my desk with the laptop in front of me.
IMAGE 5 (below):
In February, I was in Paris for an artist residency. While waiting in a queue outside a restaurant, I looked up and saw the commemorative plaque dedicated to the poet César Vallejo right above me. I first discovered Vallejo at secondary school through Roy Andersson’s film Songs from the Second Floor (2000). The film opens with the line ‘Beloved be the ones who sit down’, which is taken from his poem Traspié entre dos estrellas.
de up of micro-events that distract me from what I’m doing. When I’m about to finish editing a video, I change position and sit at my desk with the laptop in front of me.
IMAGE 6 (below):
I also collect images of empty, desolate places from live CCTV feeds. Traces of human presence remain visible even after people have left. Many of these scenes seem to come from apocalyptic films, but they already belong to the present. I often refer to these frozen places in my artworks.
Beatrice Mika Sakaki's work:
