Various Clues for a Riddle | Miguel Ángel Cardenal

Parentheses are simple symbols that open and close a clarification, addition, or data that accompanies a main text and sometimes needs to be described more concisely. The project links this meaning and utility of the parenthesis with the global and individual conception of what surrounds us. We need clarifications to understand beyond what history tells us. Knowing a scenario or place based on the events that happened there describes the place as a concept necessarily linked to an action and a change, to a continuous becoming in which the being is present. Beyond the global history of a place, landscape, or space lies the intrahistory. This term, introduced by Miguel de Unamuno, refers to that minority, individual, or small collective history that has a daily character and yet belongs to global history. We can thus describe a place or landscape from multiple points of view and, at the same time, from a common perception that encompasses it. In this project, the body of the work begins from the everyday and individual, but at the same time, the representation of the different elements that make up the pieces alludes to realities easily recognizable by the viewer. This is how I present the dialogue with the viewer, between reality and fiction. A line on which to walk without completing the meaning of the work itself, because as the British Tim Ingold wrote in 1993, "the landscape is never complete: neither "built" nor "unbuilt", it is perpetually under construction." (Ingold, 1993: 12). Beyond seeking the representation of a space, I aim to offer the possibility of that space being recreated, without offering an individualized reading of my perception about its understanding, but rather to create a constructive method in the capacity to shape the spatial in the observer. This is why the language of my work tends to represent elements that currently condition our way of approaching objects, space, or the relationships between individuals themselves. Belonging to the Millennial generation, I feel connected with these aesthetics and objects linked to new media, new spaces of relationships, or the digitalization of space, as well as the methods that influence our behavior in relating to objects. Based on this, the work of the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han is noteworthy, especially a book in which he theorizes about new aesthetic currents and our connection with the current object. "The Salvation of the Beautiful" (Han, 2015) compares contemporary beauty from different points of view, highlighting that works by artists like Jeff Koons have the aesthetic guidelines to reach the public directly, as did, for example, the launch of the iPhone 4S. The same characteristics to present an object. A volume without corners, without cuts, bright and glass-like, pleasant to the touch and sight, which the philosopher describes as a pornographic object. These new aesthetic philosophies largely govern the aesthetics of the imaginary that appears in my work. The simple object, geometry, light, brightness, saturation, or contrast will form the body of the piece, which, along with the sensations of the real object and trompe-l'oeil, will seek a language close to the pornographic and capture the observer's direct attention. As I mentioned before, belonging to Generation Y (Millennial), a collective that makes up approximately one-third of the world's population and a group that has experienced technological development and the virtual revolution most closely. From the non-existence of mobile telephony to the development of parallel universes virtually, where the possibility of being an avatar and having a life totally alien and different from earthly life arises. Regarding this, visiting the exhibition at MEIAC "Cybergeographies" curated by Gustavo Romano, where he writes: "We are witnesses of how the digital - the code - flows incessantly, sweeping away several of the structures that, until yesterday, we considered "natural." It alters physics parameters - there is no north or south in the virtual universe, no up or down, nothing ages -. It erodes hierarchies - unidirectional media have given way to horizontal ones, the "spectator" becomes an actor in the network, questioning models of political representation -. It radically transforms our visual experience." According to his thinking, a break has occurred with the way of understanding space and relationships, thus originating a change in the paradigms of understanding, in which it is inevitable to find answers to decipher the direction towards which we are heading. The speed of change goes beyond our capacity to reason, as the virtual and fictitious has come to displace knowledge through the corporeal and haptic. Applying the above to my work, I develop a constructive method in the creation of the work, starting from real images and building and deconstructing the result. As the real image takes shape, I photograph it and add or remove elements using computer programs. These elements constitute the most representative part of my language, originating from the computer screen, an indispensable tool in my work. The result produces undecipherable, open images with multiple readings. I exclude the possibility of representing a habitable space where the physical has no place; rather, I try to show a space in which I invite the transit of the proper and sensations. Emulating the behavior of the social mass between technology and understanding, a journey towards the drift of social behavior.