videos

_memories_

Memories is a series of videos presented for the first time in 2004, on the occasion of the exhibition of the winners of the 87th collective show, held at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation (Venice) Operating in the manner of a diary, each video is an emotional condensation of one month of the artist’s life. Private experiences were distilled by memory and reduced to simple yet pregnant images. The sequence retraces the events which most significantly marked the artist’s existence over a set period of time, in order to sublimate the irrationality of pain and give it a form, a consistency, giving way, if not to an understanding, at least to a possibility to face ourselves.
The videos of the series often avail themselves of influences from stereotyped media forms, such as the drama of Mexican soap operas, the music video structure or some mechanisms of television commercials. Nonetheless, the effects achieved are always the result of manual techniques rather than digital sophistication.

september

The first video of the Memories series, produced in September 2003, treats the pain of the end of a love affair. Without the aid of a script, the artist lets himself go to a stream of consciousness, baring his own feelings, emotions and guilt, receiving slaps across the face in response. The recorded performance presents an actuated experience. The inflicted blows provoke spontaneous emotional reactions which interweave with lived memories. As if the conditions to allow for an internal process to unfold were created, during the course of the action, the psychological situation changes, as love gradually gives way to hate.

october

This video, the second of the series, presents an inner dialogue positioned in front of a mirror, taking the form of a television commercial with running subtitles. However, in this case, the text is a manifestation of emotional states and psychological conditions. In contrast to the preceding work, the emotional reaction here is a gesture of anger which, nonetheless, offers access to a dimension of momentary peace - the serenity of a landscape. Of interest is how the final effect of shattering glass was not produced using digital technology, but through a skilful perspective illusion using the video camera and the window where the mirror was placed.

november

december

December marks the holiday season. It is an occasion for the artist to return home to Mexico and once again embrace his loved ones. The video plays with mixing images and audio of two different places. The first, a scene shot in Venice, shows a small Christmas tree detached from the warm greetings we hear coming from some other place. This scene is followed by one of a family gathering taking place in faraway Guadalajara, accompanied by the shrill notes of the tinny music coming from the tree. The video expresses the nostalgia which follows whoever has chosen to live away from home, not only when they leave, but also when they return.

january

There are moments of deep inner reflection which swamp us to the point of altering our perception of time. The video is based on this personal time in contrast to the speed with which the rest of the world moves. The people in the background either walk slowly or accelerate their pace, but in relation to the rhythm of the song, lip-synched by Gaston, the movement of the rest of the people appears speeded up or slowed down. Produced in the vein of music videos, yet using effects obtained without the aid of digital technology, this work bares an accentuated drama traceable to Mexican melodrama.

february

Grandmother had a rear projection television set and the transmissions were frequently interrupted. This childhood image becomes the means to speak of death as an interruption of the flow of life. The final images meld together with a Mexican song recounting a love which has died, until the scrambled signal finally disappears completely. As if the artist chose one memory to preserve with more care than the others, the video closes with a poem that the grandmother loved to recite - a message to cherish. It is almost an attempt to entrust the custody of the other memories to this last one.

march

There are choices which implicate a total assumption of personal responsibility, missions for which we can only count on our own strengths. Frodo understands this when he decides to leave his friends in order to go and face his own destiny. This is what an artist must understand in order to continue his or her personal research. Yet, the moment in which we realize that our path is ours alone and that we cannot expect others to follow us, leads to a difficult sense of solitude. The loop underlines the moment of separation and the protagonists seem caught between the urgency to leave and the desire to remain.