The Rock of Women
In 2010, I presented a project for the Interpretation Center of the Rock Art Site of Roca dels Moros in El Cogul (Lleida, Spain). The building was already constructed, but my proposal transformed the visitor experience through an immersive dome that recreated the night sky. Inside, an enveloping projection invited visitors to embark on a journey through time, transporting them to the ritual moments surrounding the rock art.
The floor of the hall, designed as a map of the celestial vault, depicted all the constellations, while a perimeter exhibit element in the form of a large frieze narrated the history of the site, its rediscovery, and the archaeological studies conducted up to that point. Despite the ambition behind the project, it remained in a drawer and was never materialized.
Fourteen years later, by chance, I received a new commission from the company in charge of the Generalitat’s program Els ulls de la història (*The Eyes of History*), led by Abacus and Layers of Reality. This new project involved creating a space in the metaverse: a place where visitors, using augmented reality glasses, could experience an immersive journey into the past.
The large, empty concrete building, with its bunker-like appearance, offered me the opportunity to combine various exhibition languages. I conceived a scenographic installation that dialogued with the architecture of the space, integrating three main proposals: an immersive metaverse experience, a scenographic device to explain the narrative through images and text, and, most notably, a detailed and faithful reproduction of Roca dels Moros.
The design of the space deliberately followed a fugue-like composition, creating and accentuating an atmosphere that sacralized this environment and reinforced a sense of transcendence. This reproduction, which we named the neo-bauma, recreated the original rock with its prehistoric paintings and Iberian and Roman graffiti, but relocated to the building’s interior and made accessible to all audiences. The script, designed by Iago Blasi, connected these three proposals, offering a coherent and rigorous narrative thread.
The neo-bauma has become the centerpiece of this first space, functioning as a symbolic scenographic element. With its almost sacred appearance, it welcomes visitors and introduces them to a "contemporary temple" where history and technology converge.
On this new visit, before accessing the original bauma (a natural rock shelter), a second room introduces the public to the world of Levantine rock art. This room incorporates an interactive technological resource that allows participants to become authors of their own paintings. These creations are projected onto a large rock integrated into the building’s interior.
The aim of this project is to provide participants with all the necessary knowledge to understand, upon reaching the original Roca dels Moros, that they are standing before a place of ancestral significance with a symbolic weight of over 10,000 years of history.
© Photographs by Pepo Segura
© Two last photographs by Ignasi Cristià
