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The narigueras (nose ornaments of the pre-Columbian elites) had the function of dazzling the population, the gold and silver reflecting the Andean sun, but also of modifying the sound of the voice and hiding its origin, these lighting and acoustic effects playing a part in the deification of the elites.
The blades convey a double reference: to the tumi , a large sacrificial knife, an object of ritualized violence, the shape of which is sometimes found in the nasal ornaments of the Mochica elites who alone were allowed to consume the coca leaf to connect with the deities, and to the blades used today to form cocaine lines. The consumption of the coca leaf expanded in order to legitimize the Inca state through a transcendent, symbolic order – before being trivialized by the Spanish in order to make the colonization and the work in the mines bearable for the enslaved indigenous populations.
Illicit – thus invisibilized – but emblematic of a world in which time accelerates, of a society of generalized competition, cocaine and other psychostimulants allow individuals to cope with the frenzy of the system, a doping that contributes to the meritocratic mythology and the cult of performance.
Angle mort (French idiom meaning ‘blind spot’, but literally: ‘dead
angle’)
Blades form a moth, and draw in the mean time the structure of a
nose, a truncated, damaged, dead nose. The nose, symbol of pride,
of which ancient statues were amputated to kill the idols of an
overthrown power.
Noses with necrotic tissues, perforated nasal
cartilages - from cocaleros peasants infected with leishmaniasis in
the coca fields to the cocaine addicts.
The ocellae (eyespots) of some butterflies allow them to pose as a larger predator; the holes may also be read as the perforation of the septum (cartilage of the nose) made during the ceremony by which a Moche individual is introduced into the ruling class, allowing him to wear the narigueras