A monument to fear
A MONUMENT TO FEAR works like a big camera obscura. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved.
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After the destruction of Tenochtitlan, Hernan Cortés had the city redesigned for symbolic purposes: to build a square of power, a symbol of fear above the ancient pre-hispanic city. He kept the four major neighborhoods, but he had a church, now the Cathedral of Mexico City built at the place the four adjoined. He had the Templo Mayor razed to the ground, using the stones from it and other buildings of the teocalli to pave the new plaza.
During early colonial times, the Plaza was bordered to the north by the new church, and to the east by Cortés new palace, built over and with the ruins of Moctezuma's palace.
The plaza is almost always called the Zocalo (Spanish pronunciation: [sokalo], plinth) because in late XIX century plans were made to erect a column as a monument to Independence of Mexico, but only the base, or zocalo, was ever built. The plinth was destroyed long ago but the name has lived on.
Today the Zocalo is bordered by the Cathedral to the north, the National Palace to the east, the Federal District buildings to the south and the Old Portal de Mercaderes to the west. Is the center of government of both the nation and of the capital, where the powers-that-be are. This makes it a popular place for protests, and it is often dotted with protesters. Since 1982, due to efforts to revitalize the city center, the Zocalo has become the scene of a number of artistic and cultural events.
A MONUMENT TO FEAR works like a big camera obscura. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved. This not only demonstrates how our eyes work, but that the world we live (the place of all or fears) actually is an illusion.
Inside the monument you feel total EMPTINESS (your mind), be conscious you’re there... Alive!
Soon your fears, the mirrors of your death, emerge.
Nobody knows you... Scream, cry, laugh... whatever you feel.
Forget yourself for a moment... Disappearing you, the illusion of fear vanishes...
The fear of the end and its existence is in other words the fear of death.
The fear of death ritualized the lives of our ancestors. These rituals were designed to reduce that fear; they helped collect the cultural ideas that we now have in the present. These rituals also helped preserve the cultural ideas.
One can say that the formation of communities happened because people lived in fear. The result of this fear forced people to unite to fight dangers together rather than fight alone.
