Summer projects

I spend the last 20 days in two summer projects, two video art works: (1) the edition of new video recordings I made in the beginning of this year; and (2) the recovery of video projects I made in the 90’s (mainly VHS, VHS compact and 8mm transfers). Since early stages of my artwork I’ve been worried about different dimensions of documentation: What is a document? How something recorded, becomes a document? or  How documents, because of the media that supports it, has different levels of truthfulness? I’m not looking to answer this questions with my artwork but they guide some of my decision in the art processes I follow in each art piece.

From my first project I want to recall Ojo por Ojo, a single channel video which is taking the direction of a distiller¹. A wide conception of the media concept give it the attribute of kind of distilling reality, and this video is a sort of distillation process which vaporizes, volatilizes, extracts, abstracts and condenses an event. Today is so easy to accept a mediated²  perception, it’s almost natural, but what I reflect on this video work is the scenario of a continuous re-mediation, the one who see the other who also see another, in an endless loop.

From my second summer art project I have to mention that it has been a rediscovery. From a significant amount of VHS and VHS compact I recover video material that I recorded back then, with not a clear purpose but now is a treasure that I will use in new videos; in the other hand I found video projects that never saw the light of an exhibition but were showed in private screenings. So I’m remastering them and I’ll choose a date for new screenings in August. The one I’m working now was called ReWarning, a single channel video too, but this one was conceptualized, as I remember it (please don’t judge, it’s almost 20 years ago), like an ironic response to copyrights. The video is a loop of two moments, the first one is the warning screen against piracy but with a clear distortion made by the action of copying the material from DVD to VHS³. And the second moment is the screen with the R from the motion picture rating system, as the only content of my experimental version of a movie.

Please feel free to leave any question about the technical or conceptual experience of my summer projects, or If you have your own let me know about them, it’s always great to know other media projects. I’ll decide later what about new dates for screenings of this and other projects.

1. I used this word because even I don’t drink alcohol, this video reminds me the process of making tequila in México.
2. There is a long history of the mediation concept, but here I wanna point to mobile devices as the way we see the world
3. I know today sounds ridiculous but, come on! in that moment was the way for me