Entrar Adentro Salir Afuera Salir Adentro, CIRMA Archive
2012- on going. A Research Based Artistic Intervention On “The Mejía ID Photo Collection” Archive From The “Centro De Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica” In Guatemala.
Although it is true that it hasn't been until the last decades that more time and effort has been given in a conscious manner to the production of socio-anthropological studies of our Latin-American reality in a micro-macro and present-past level, it is also true that there hasn't been enough time to assimilate the variety of the concepts that have emerged so suddenly from those sources. The possibility to reopen concepts to make them more liquid and manageable, could generate new visions and discussions to the constantly debated questions that refer to the collective identity, the contemporary cultural fluxus, the Latin-American status, and maybe to that condition of being Guatemalan. This project is not a research into social sciences or a critique to the tendencies on the policies of the archive, but an "artistic intervention" of those practices. This project actually attempts to make a transdisciplinary approach and keep itself in an ambiguous position, across rigid binary oppositions and the different contemporary cultural debates. By applying a fragmentation technic, going from the universal (an authors grand narrative) to the particular (the fragment). Certain texts, names, words, paragraphs and images will be extracted from the archives and specific scientific studies, that later will be distributed through a systematic chaos or better said a rizomatic display that eventually will bring the particular back to the universal through the display format.
*Note 1: All content and artistic texts in the book are in Spanish / El contenido total de textos en este libro están trabajados en idioma Español, o bien en Castellano.
**Note 2: This research project is part of a total constellation of works which can be presented in a array of possibilities, while supports, sizes and media can vary (projections, prints, wall mounts, indoors/outdoors, xerox’s, etc). It includes an artist book, book presentations with discussions on the topics and multiform exhibition displays.
† This work has been included in several publications and exhibitions, including:
Guatemala from 33,000 km: Contemporary Art, 1960–Present (2017). Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, California, USA.
Solemne Edición No. 03 (2016). Guatemala.
Rudin Prize (2014). Norton Museum, Florida, USA
Tétano #00 (2014). Guatemala.
Artefactos 5º Edición (2013). Guatemala.
Entrar Afuera Salir Adentro Salir Afuera (2012). Palacio Nacional de la Cultura, Guatemala City.
Medical Experimental, The EYE “Dutch Film Institute’s” Archive
2013, The “Medical Experimental” project unlatched a small drawer of The EYE “Dutch Film Institute’s” archive in order to research and survey on “Films once produced to discipline human bodies within the institutional framework of Western medicine, to educate and transmit medical knowledge now emerge within a larger framework of storytelling, art, truth and falsification.” For this project, a re-reading on Aby Warburg’s “A Lecture On The Serpent Ritual”, and Philippe-Alain Michaud reading on the afore mentioned, in his book: “Aby Warburg And The Image In Motion”, opened-up new venues to rethink the possibilities of how narratives contained in archives could be revisited and intervened today. Narratives are constructions, a piecing together of frames, therefore, they can also be de-constructed and reconstructed, contextualized and re-contextualized in a new construction, as a possibility to expose aspects of their originally intended meanings. These conditions imply an altering in the relationships and the processes between the images, bringing an emphasis towards the importance on the use of imagery as language. Warburg’s lecture deals with the symbolic signification on the relation image-language, and consequently brings attention to the abstract operation of symbols in specific cultural contexts. Inexhaustible, throughout Michaud’s text we are presented with the notion of movement, composition or re-composition-ing and the juxtaposing of elements in order to construct and produce new meanings. In order to articulate these concepts in one coherent narrative, we propose utilizing the idea of the ‘moving picture’ as a metaphorical space where matters and thoughts could be joint and composed in one single place, in this case, the frame as a conceptual space of constant movement.
The Pharmacological Practice of Dr. Vanapuneberg ~ 5:00mins. In collaboration with Yvette Granata. The filmmakers gathering early Dutch ethnographic films of "the Cannibal Isles" and other locations in the South Pacific and re-cut, re-focus, zoom, and re-construct a new narrative. By employing historical montage and narrative techniques used by the the original filmmakers, the film constructs a narrative while seeking to find hidden folds within historical narratives.
*Work presented at: The EYE “Dutch Film Institute’s” archive; “Medical Experimentation” Presented by the Rietveld Academie and the Universiteit van Amsterdam’s Media Studies department.
Las Brisas, Edificio Las Brisas Archive
2015, Commissioned Project for the “Edificio Las Brisas” private collection.
Host to a complex of medical clinics, Edificio Las Brisas is a modern architectural landmark in Guatemala City. But besides this, it also hosts Guatemala's largest modern and contemporary private sculpture collection. The owner of Las Brisas commissioned three different artist working with photography, to survey and produce visual work taking the location as inspiration source and work venue. The final output of the project was to be concluded in a book publication.
For this project I focused first on experiencing the everyday of the common spaces; meaning transit of visitors, present objects (including benches, plants, chairs and sculpture), outlined trajectories, and the qualities of natural and available light. At some point while traversing in and through the location, it became almost inevitable to notice the implicit architectural politics of the space. During this surveying processes I made quick videos, wrote field notes, highlighted key words, made short poems; this process led me to produce a small theory on how I understood timely and spatiotemporal relations at the site.
Researching inside theoretical conceptions and creative process becomes fundamental in order to conceive employable strategies that enable me to produce artifacts or analogies that enter the realm of artistic representation. Before, and at the time of the shooting I was researching on Poesía Concreta and Dadaist collages, I am almost certain that that, had a direct effect on how I approached the image taking and making. Doing collages and text compositions became a consequence and an attempt to embody those concepts that I tried to grasp from my experience while surveying Las Brisas.
A Song for Empathy, at Breda Photo Festival
From the series: “Staging Observations”, “A Song for Empathy”
Video Installation. Breda-photo in 2012, Exhibition Topic: "Empathy".
The image used in the video has been extracted and appropriated from the archives of mainstream internet by making a screen-shot. The music track, a composition by Amit Chatterjee titled “empathy” has been selected and remixed to fit the intend of the video. Coming across Amit Chatterjee's musical composition “Empathy” was a crucial influence for inspiration.
*Video loop, Sound, Sizes and display formats variable, duration 4.10 min. Originally, this video projection is designed to be shown as an immersive installation in a complete dark room. The piece (8:00 min. edited as double loop) runs in a constant loop. The video is not necessarily intended to be viewed as a linear story, from a to b, but it is rather suggested to the viewer to enter and leave the room as it is satisfactory while it’s playing.
† This work has been included in the following exhibitions:
Specific installation for Breda-photo 2012. Museum of the Image, Breda, Netherlands.