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Not a mirror
GRADUATION PROJECT [Master in Scenography HKU]
VIDEO INSTALLATION
June 2017
This video installation was shown as the final representative part of the Master Research Project ‘Multilayered Atmospheres’ developed during the course of two years within the frame of the Master in Scenography. It explores the study of the different consciousness layers and its spatial perception. The visual and conceptual material was collected through two main stages: one related to the study of my own unconscious side through my dreams and the other one connected to an exploration of the city as the stage of the waking hours (the ‘conscious’ side). This experimentation with my dream´s material and the imagery taken from the city, led to a space where the dreaming and the waking hours encounter each other as an attempt to merge the different layers composing ‘reality’
'The City' Room [Video Projection]
'The Dreams' Room [Ceiling Video Projection]
The Archetype Experiment
VIDEO INSTALLATION
January 2017
Fort Blauwkapel, Utrecht NL
“The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one´s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well
”
This installation was developed as part of an spatial and aesthetic exploration related to the concept of the ´Shadow´archetype proposed by Carl Jung. After some visual experimentation with the collected material from my personal dream´s diary and the imagery collected from the city, I selected one of the dreams that reflects my perception of the ‘Shadow’ archetype concept and the visual material connected to it. This material was used in different try outs to generate a spatial experience. Different objects and compositions were explored to create a specific atmosphere that could show the merge of the image from the dream and the material collected from the city.
THE DREAM
THE CITY
Images taken from different try outs with testing spectators at Fort Blauwkapel, Utrecht (January 2017)
The City + The Dreams
About the study of the conscious and the unconscious in space...
The next experiment consisted on analizing how the different layers of consciousness can get connected with space. For this I divided the work in two parts: one connected to my dreams in which I kept a diary with sketches of the emotional and spatial sensations in them and the other part was connected to my conscious side in which I explored the city connecting with the space through my camera.
THE CITY
THE DREAMS
About a possible merge between the conscious and the unconscious in space...
After collecting the material from the city and my dreams,a process of visual experimentation began.
-Collage Technique-
The Doors Experiment
VIDEO INSTALLATION
May 2016
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Abut a peek into my introspective world (...)
[Printed Collage from a collection of doors images + Video showing extracts from images and videos collected in Utrecht, The Netherlands and Quito, Ecuador]
COLLAGE OF DOORS AND MEMORIES
The research about ‘Multilayered Atmospheres’ began with a question regarding the relationship between the introspective world of a human being and how it gets reflected in space. As a way to explore this connection I decided to make videos of my current environment (Utrecht, The Netherlands) as well as videos from my native city (Quito, Ecuador) and connect both of them in a filmic collage. This collage was presented in an installation together with another collage made of pictures of doors. The collage of doors was the symbolic idea of an entrance to my mind and was also related to the previous study on architectural skins, and the video represented my inner world connected to both my current environment and my thoughts about my country.
THE DOORS
THE MEMORIES
DOORS + MOMENTS
'To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. But what if these others belong to a different species and inhabit a radically alien Universe? For example, how can the sane get to know what it actually feels like to be mad?
From 'The Doors of Perception' by Aldous Huxley
Ambiguity + Architectural Skins
'In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death , of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of my insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men. (...) Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.'
From 'The Ethics of Ambiguity' by Simone de Beauvoir
Architectural Skins
While thinking about the ambiguous relationship between the introspective world of a human being and the reflection and materialization of it in the exterior world, also that made me think about the transitional elements in-between those two worlds. If we talk literally about which element separate us, but at the same time connect us to the physical world, that would be our bodies.
That body that both divides and connects our interior world to the exterior that surround us, acts as a filter of thousands of emotions,ideas, thoughts, feelings, fears, etc, but also it remains as a trace of the passage of all this sensations going through us. In the same way, the space acts as an archival of our personal stories. This what can be called 'the architectural skin' is a material reflection of the passage of time and can act as a physical representation of our individual and collective memories.
Expressing Ambiguity through Space
The relationship between the interior world of a human being and how it is reflected on his or her exterior environment is quite complex. It could represent a direct translation, but also it could reflect an opposite perspective, or it could work in both ways. Therefore, being this relationship open to infinite interpreting possibilities, all together in the same expression, I find this relationship intrinsically ambiguous. Considering 'Ambiguity' as a quality of multiperspective and multi-dimensional. For that reason, I considered pertinent to add this quality to the on going research and explore the possibilities of this concept into space.
In order to explore -Ambiguity- I decided to choose some specific expressions related to the human condition and the environment in which we all function. These expressions were: 'Death', 'Nature', 'The human condition itself', and 'Love'.
As an experimental project and with the basis of the concept of ambiguity, four scale models were developed.
Transforming a Narrative (from a Theater Text) into an Abstract Space
Based on the questions of how the introspective world works regarding the external environment of an individual, and how a narrative can be created through the usage of space and objects, the process of exploring this matter took me from diverse environments to a personal image, and from there to some other personal stories, everything coming from reality.
Therefore, I considered that the next step or experiment could work within the frame of fiction. Then, I took four theater plays, with quite different characteristics, and by analyzing them, translate their core reflection into an abstract space represented through an scale model.
Other´s Objects Experiment
This process of analyzing how human beings attach emotional characteristics to objects took me to another experiment in which I asked some people to share with me the story behind one personal object that they would consider important for them. Each story related to each object showed a great emotional atachment and an extremely close relationship with the awakening of the memories behind them.
The Monkey Experiment
The process to analize and discover the elements hidden in the feedback relationship between the introspective world of an individual and his or her environment began with the question of HOW DOES THE PROCESS OF ATTACHING EMOTIONAL FEATURES TO A PHYSICAL OBJECT WORK?
In order to get some insights on this matter, the first approach started with a very personal image. Basically, the experiment consisted on taking a personal object of an important emotional background with me everywhere during a week, and create a series of pictures through it.
THE STORY...
The personal object I chose is a stuffed animal in the shape of a little monkey, and it has a great sentimental value to me. It belonged to my sister that passed away years ago. From the moment that she left on, I took many of her belongings and I realized I found some sort of comfort on them. For that reason, when I moved out to study abroad,one of the main objects I took with me, was the little stuffed monkey. Somehow the presence of it with me while traveling around gives me the feeling of being closer to the presence of my sister.
Different Environments
Before beginning the artistic research 'Multilayered Atmospheres', there was a previous approach on the question of how the interior world of an individual is reflected on their immediate environment?
This previous approach explored different escenarios that show how people create their own micro-atmospheres.
This is a series of five pictures taken in Ecuador, that reflect the different kinds of relationships that a person can create with their own external atmospheres.