. . : . : . : . : . .

2012-01-16T17:09:00.005+01:00

Fishing protocols

2011-10-19T12:59:00.003+02:00

Fishing protocol is a solo-performance presented in the context of FIAA Cabezabajo in Granada. Twelve woodcraft sailfishes where the target of a humanized fishing mass. A strong jumping band makes a challenge the task.

Pictures by Maria AA and Francisco José Montalban.

PLEAS(E)NTER

2011-07-20T01:00:00.007+02:00

20 CHAIRS | 20 INDIVIDUALS | 20 BELIEF SYSTEMS

They say we live in difficult times. And that important choices are to be made right now. So, who is going to make them? You? Or Somebody else?

Pleas[e]nter is a multimedia experience for 20 persons at a time. [E]nter the world of formats and binary choices and find out for yourself.

Short Conceptual Description:

The project explores the paradox of choice and the anatomy of decision as the means by which culture is created. We are, each and every one of us, embedded in multiple recursive systems – work systems, family systems, economic systems, political systems, belief systems, social systems, biological systems, ideology, etc. and each of these exert some torque on our thinking and actions. If we were to try and interpret the clash of ideas in individual terms – your idea versus my idea – we cannot but rely upon and reinforce the Utilitarian ethic of Universal Egoism (Mills). The road to “liberation“ which is founded on you versus me, is the fundamental and dominant approach of our present political and economic platform. The displacement of this ethic to that of, for example, collectivism – our idea versus your idea – hardly cures the problem. It goes perhaps, halfway back to structuralism that is all: The politics of identity.  By focusing on the most basic function of making choices, we start researching dynamics of decision-making, the difference of approaching the world based on cultural values and belief systems.

The project is based on a model experimental device, which serves as a vehicle that brings to the fore the logic of choice and our ideas about current and future worlds based on that. It is a custom made performative format for a small group of audience members from the widest possible gamma. A series of questions and tasks, both verbal and visual, are posed to this contained group of participants, while an automated and specially designed system rates answers and make a visual map of decision-making. Concentrating on a microcosmic approach, we propose a “social experiment” – an interactive open-game. The multimedia experience of the game is a hybrid of formats everybody is very familiar with -television debate, talk show, speed dating, council meeting, group therapy or entertainment shows of the Big Brother type. It resembles social networking media, such as Facebook

Which are the goals of this experiment? An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. The methodical procedure is quarantined by the use of a specific script and setting that allows for a sociological and demographic analysis of the results. However it is an artistic project that serves as a vehicle, a device that enhances dialogue and transcends stereotypes, ideologies and beliefs.

Credits:

Concept, Creation and Design:
Tzeni Argyriou (www.amorphy.org)
Ash Bulayev ( www.ashbulayev.com)
Miguel Angel Melgares (www.mamelgares.net)
Nancy Stamatopoulou (www.athanasia-sigma.com)

Advisor: Dirk Verstockt
Curation and Publicity: Jos Tendijck
Interactive Programming: Arjen Keesmaat
Sound Design: Rein Hartog
Website Design: Esther Verhamme/project 28
Website Programming: Abu Saebu
3D Chair Design: Christopher Brellis/antidot design studio
Special Constructions: Rein Hartog

Presented at KUNSTKAPEL MUSEUM in Amsterdam in July 2011. Pleas[e]nter would not be possible without the Cultural Grant from Stadsdeel Zuid.

Portrait of a wet country (Work in proccess)

2010-12-13T23:00:00.010+01:00

Some general notes

To any vice of nature

To start, I will explain something about the title. Before coming to Amsterdam, I was working at the University of Granada on a research project titled ‘The contemporary portrait as a trans-border space’, where I was looking for new ways of understanding and developing portraits. I find the idea of a portrait so attractive because it is probably the most profound, artistic way of looking at and representing realities. The second part of the title: ‘of a wet country’ stems from my personal fascination for the country where I’ve been living for almost three years, The Netherlands. On my arrival, I was walking through a neighbourhood and came across a birthday celebration at someone's home that was visible from the street. When I saw another and another I began to notice and consciously register a familiar pattern of colours, shapes and impressions. This acted as a psychological key enabling me to recognize and form a sense of another culture as an outsider. I am interested in the personal experience of culture, how we recognize and establish a relationship to our social environment. On a universal level I also want to explore how broader, external factors such as geographical, social, political give a specific culture its form and how that is reflected in the identity of the people who live there. While I was preparing the research for this project, I realized that it was no longer possible to try to put everything together as a single idea or approach on how a ‘portrait of The Netherlands’ should be. The solution therefore was to shape the projects in a compilation of works that I’ve tried to define here:

‘Portrait of a wet country’ is an interdisciplinary project. Its main goal is a personal artistic analysis of the multiple realities of the Dutch culture that seem remarkable to me.

‘Portrait of a wet country’ is a series of performative installations. By keeping a changing structure, the installations and performances can connect different subjects. In this way, the constellation of all works creates a portrait in a broader sense and over a longer period of time.

‘Portrait of a wet country’ is a poetic and political art work, taking as a starting point, my fascination for windows and curtains when they are opening and closing, water reflections that show reality in an abstract or inverse way, the sound of birds when they are silenced by planes passing by, etc. This country is in a fragile balance between its nature and the needs of the human hand: bringing this equilibrium into disorder could make the country collapse.

When I first opened the Spinoza’s book ‘Ethics’, looking for something that could maybe help me to discover what makes this country unique, my random reading drove me here: ‘The following is my reason for so doing. Nothing happens in nature which can be attributed to any vice of nature, for she is always the same and everywhere one. Her virtue is always the same, and her power of acting; that is to say, her laws and rules, according to which all things are and are changed from to from, are everywhere and always the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, that is say, by the universal laws and rules of nature.’

PORTRAIT OF A WET COUNTRY. Chapter 1.

PORTRAIT OF A WET COUNTRY II. The Birthday Party.

PORTRAIT OF A WET COUNTRY III. Eerste maandag van de maand.

PORTRAIT OF A WET COUNTRY IV. The Island.

· : · : · : · : · : · : ·

FLUID MIND MAP

is a conceptual map of Portrait of a wet country

Gevoelige Oppervlakte

2010-12-12T22:05:00.009+01:00

Photographers in a theatrical setting are showing pictures and telling about pictures they have taken. About motives they had for taking a picture and about what they felt when they were taking them. What is the attitude towards the picture now?

'However sometimes you take a photo and simply you don’t know the true reasons why you chose to take a photo of broken glass, for example. I would like to understand what makes us to deci ...de to photograph empty streets. What is behind that?' (Elīna Cērpa)

The photographs together with the stories that are woven around them will form a rich tapestry of life.
That moment when you push the button and the shutter says, “click”, something freezes inside you, just as the moment, which you are picturing, is being frozen. Only a story can set it free.

regie: Elīna Cērpa
vormgeving: Miguel Angel Melgares
dramaturgie: Gerard Kooistra
productie: Marri ten Harkel

Instructions for a domestic supernova fusion

2010-11-02T23:07:00.006+01:00

November 5 – 29, 2010 | Opening Nov. 5, 6:00pm until late
In collaboration with Parallax Space

Drift Station Gallery and Parallax Space are pleased to announce the opening of their exhibition “Instructions for Initial Conditions” to be held on Friday, November 5th, 2010. Located in downtown Lincoln in a renovated former auto-body shop, this opening will be the second for both galleries.

The “initial condition” is a term used in Chaos Theory referring to a simple starting point that, when the system is set into motion, is radically transformed into an unpredictable result. The works in this exhibition describe an initial condition by which an artwork can be made or enacted, taking on the form of instructions that are exhibited as artworks in and of themselves. They run across traditions and disciplines: some act as a catalyst for acts meant to be carried out immediately, while others are purely poetic calling for no action, or are conceptual or impossible to be realized and can only be completed mentally. Viewers are invited to engage the works as they see fit, either here in the gallery or later at a location of their choice.

The works in this exhibition are the result of an international open call, using the internet as a medium to both solicit and “ship” works. Over 120 artists from six continents sent works, which were limited to an emailed file that could be printed in black and white on an 8.5 x 11” sheet of paper. These limitations served to show that art fundamentally is not about materials, media, or financial resources but about ideas. We were surprised and delighted by the diversity of the art works received and proudly present them to you.

The opening reception will also feature a performance created by Parallax Space’s Bill Graham in collaboration with members of the Mighty Vitamins that invites members of the audience to help create constantly-changing sonic loops.

The Aesthetics of Disappearance II. Invisibility

2010-02-06T14:05:00.019+01:00

"Goodbye, Miss Ackerman." I got dressed, left the room and walked down the hall. There was a mirror on a cigarette machine in the lobby. I looked into the mirror. It was great. My whole head was bandaged. I was all white. Nothing could be seen but my eyes, my mouth and my ears, and some tufts of hair sticking up at the top of my head. I was hidden. It was wonderful. I stood and lit a cigarette and glanced about the lobby. Some in-patients were sitting about reading magazines and newspapers. I felt very exceptional and a bit evil, Nobody had any idea of what had happened tome. Car crash. A fight to the death. A murder. Fire. Nobody knew.

Aesthetics of disappearance 2 from Miguel Angel Melgares on Vimeo.

Pictures by Hans Diemel©
Text by Charles Bukowski "Ham on rye"
Song by Culture Club 'Karma Chameleon'
With the collaboration of Maika Knoblich
Produced by DasArts
Amsterdam 2010

The Aesthetics of Disappearance I. John 10:9

2010-02-06T13:06:00.018+01:00

Jesus said, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10:9). This statement is a part of Jesus' teaching after He had healed the man born blind. It had been at Jerusalem that Jesus had miraculously healed the man. Evidently the man had been a familiar sight in Jerusalem, perhaps because he begged for his sustenance at some busy intersection. It was a powerful miracle that no one could deny.

‘Aesthetics of disappearance 1. John 10:9’ is a space-based performance, which tries to bring the audience a little miracle, the crossing of a wall. An invisible installation was pre-set on the wall, made to merge a drawing of the interior or a room, with the door that was traced on the wall. The biblical quote John 10:9, ‘I am the door, if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved’, was spread among the audience, and a random program on the BBC News was playing at that moment.

Produced by DasArts
Amsterdam 2009

The drawing lesson (work in process)

2010-02-05T14:39:00.003+01:00

M: So, did you find the perfect advice?
V: I’ve been thinking, but it is difficult to do it with out knowing what do you want to get from this lesson. So, if can ask you, when you talk about ‘looking’, what is your artistic approach?
M: Are you asking from a drawing lesson or from a performative point of view?
V: That’s a good answer by the way, but I meant it as a drawing lesson?
M: But Vera, are you asking now as a model, as Vera or as a visual artist?
V: I’m talking as a visual artist who has a lot experience in modelling. I have a privilege point of view. (Vera starts to move intentionally) Actually, when I’m here, I feel myself as a tool that the teachers use to teach ‘art’. I become a kind of object that the students need to look at... And I’m afraid that all is about this, about ways of looking. The most funny is that it is the same for the traditional art and for the contemporary art. A teacher, as you said before, cannot teach to be an artist to anyone, no way. The only thing that an art teacher can do is to show where and how to ‘look’.

With the collaboration of Vera Korman

Pictures by Thomas Lenden©

Produced by DasArts

Amsterdam 2009

Fluid mind map

2010-01-17T10:41:00.000+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More ripples

Portrait of a wet country II. The birthday party

2010-01-16T18:55:00.001+01:00

Portrait of a wet country II. The birthday party’ is a collective and site-specific performance, happening through a window where a motorised lamellen-system was set. The performance (around 30 minutes) had a separated audio and visual channel. A parallel text about ‘Dutch realities’, resulting form the meeting of Karin Spaink with Boris Gerrets, was played during the simulated birthday party. Birthday parties illustrate on a cultural level one's own associations with self and relationships. In my native country, birthday parties are a thing of childhood and the event as celebration diminishes as one gets older. However in Holland the celebration continues into adulthood, but carries with it the adult weight of social obligation.

Developed at KijkRuimte in Amsterdam Noord.

Open publication - Free publishing - More performance

Portrait of a wet country. Chapter 1

2010-01-16T18:55:00.000+01:00

‘Portrait of a wet country. Chapter I’ is an ongoing performative installation* which machinery works as a sophisticated mechanism of building words. The installation consists in a pool of approximately 20 square meters and 10 centimetres deep, filled up with fake milk (a liquid that simulate in colour, odour and density the milk). Inside a human scale mouse wheel is being activated by human force; with the rotation of the wheel, a hydraulic mechanism pumps up the liquid. A canalisation system directs the liquid into a transparent rubber tube, which is installed on the wall, writing Dutch words**. When the liquid passes the tube, the words are easily readable. After this, the milk goes back to the pool passing by a jar, presenting an eternal liquid circuit.

* The presentation at Kunstvlaai 2010, was nine days of performance and four hours each day.

** Each day a new word appeared: 1 oeverloos, 2 overleg, 3 bagger, 4 polder, 5 neerslag, 6 gemeenschap, 7 aanhouden, 8 beheersen, 9 overvloed

Portrait of a wet country III. Eerste maandag van de maand.

2010-01-16T18:30:00.001+01:00

‘Portrait of a wet country III. Eerste maandag van de maand’ is a poetical gesture within the form of a video-performance. Every first Monday of the month at 12.00 o’clock, the approximately 4.200 civil defense sirens are set off in The Netherlands, just to keep the public aware of the system. My intention was to create a time-specific performance for that moment, while at the same time dealing with another defense system that The Netherlands has; Marram grass. This grass makes long root stalks which push deep down into the ground. Their protection against coastal erosion is essential to many coastlines, but especially in Holland where the land itself was originally won from the sea, which continuously threatens to reclaim its territory.

Portrait of a wet country IV. The islands.

2010-01-16T18:23:00.001+01:00

On my way to Veenhuizen, the train offers me an easily privileged point of view. A vast flatness. A perfect organisation. The landscape here goes through the entire process of a humanised equilibrium, where there is general consensus with respect to the word ‘nature’ and where each and every one of the parties have agreed to delineate the limits of the concept of ‘landscape’. For this fourth episode of ‘Portrait of a wet country’, I’ve created a site-specific performative installation at ‘Het Glazen Huis’ in Amstel Park. In this, the spectator will witness from the outside how two men, dressed up as fisherman, will create an artificial island, trying to recreate the ‘nature’ of the wet areas in The Netherlands, in a kind of idyllic environment, where vegetation and fauna are take in consideration. This action will takes place on a fake snow surface covering the entire surface. Once the island is finished the fishermen will take place in it, to peacefully keep fishing during the rest of the performance. The sound of birds and planes passing by will be reproduced all the time.

Presented at SLOW DOWN Winter Performance Festival 2011

V. I. T. R. I. O. L.

2010-01-14T00:26:00.002+01:00

V.I.T.R.I.O.L. es un proyecto de intervención entre el espacio de lo público y de lo privado, que se sitúa cerca de la acción. La propuesta consistió en el tapiado de la ventana de mi dormitorio. Este proceso se realizó con silicona de termosellado, por lo que el proceso duró unos seis meses. Asumiendo el concepto casa-hogar como refugio de privacidad, el planteamiento de la obra nos acerca a una norma intimista en la forma de concepción del proyecto. El resultado plástico, además de una instalación escultórica en el espacio de lo publico-privado, fue una serie fotográfica que documento dicha propuesta.

A transparency exercise I

2009-03-24T18:12:00.008+01:00

Through the window we see life passing by. Time marches before our nostalgic gaze and whole lives elapse through the glass with its cold presence which separates us from the world we observe, converting us into spectators, into the audience of remote. Stories of the personal or universal succeeding one another are repeated before our eyes without our being able to intervene, without even our wanting to cease being faithful observers of a story made of fragments of time and feelings which, since they are remote, we strive to keep from affecting us.

In The Netherlands, living room windows are large and left uncovered day and night. This pattern, which is widespread in all urban and rural regions in this country disappears abruptly as soon as the border into Germany is crossed where windows in general become smaller and consistently covered. Travelling south into Flanders, the disappearance of open windows is gradual but noticeable. The cognitive and sensory meaning of a single object in material culture, the Dutch window, can be examined as a concrete articulation of the boundary between the public and private realms, by looking at it through successive conceptual frames in sociology. In the DasArts building we can find 1.616 glass windows of varying size, colour and opacity. The idea is to clean them all, attempting to literally and metaphorically en-lighten the space that surrounds us. The purpose is to start the day with a demonstration given by a professional glass-cleaner who will show us the proper way to do this transparency exercise and at the same time, to share with us his experience, feelings and thoughts about his profession. Later we will take on the task of cleaning the windows at DasArts, performing a group cleaning ‘work out’ followed by a ‘transcendental dinner’ experience. There are three main elements in this project:

Window: A window is an opening in a wall that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are held in place by frames, which prevent them from collapsing in. The window is a metaphor and light is a symbol. Its very form, its original essence affords literary meaning to its existence: simply an opening in the wall to let light in, to enable us to see what is around us. Sometimes a small opening that allows us to see, but does not allow others to see us, slight defensive openings to await the enemy; large windows to look at the landscape, close to the sea, to let in light and warmth. Windows that work from one side only, to observe detainees and their interrogations, to spy on others. It can be a symbol for discussing curiosity, indiscretion, a way of peering into other lives which do not matter to us initially, but through which we eventually live our own. In film, Hitchcock´s Rear Window summarizes everything that can be said along these lines. But open a door, perhaps a window, to explore how the mass media have become the great rear window of our time. The world that used to gather around and chat in the patio and in the neighbourhood to gossip about the familiar environment is now dispersed and isolated in their homes, in front of electronic windows that offer indiscreet stories about far away people, myths that we ultimately strip to recognize ourselves in their miseries and to once again ascertain, with unavoidable pleasure, that the rich also cry. A fragile opening in a sturdy wall, in walls that delimit our lives, a close, everyday, controlled reality. Through those windows firmly held in place by a frame, the exterior enters into our homes and our minds. Through those misty window panes imagination enters, for the window is simply the frame through which we see the world.

Transparency: In optics, transparency is the material property of allowing light to pass through. The opposite property is opacity. Transparent materials are clear—they can be seen through. Translucent materials allow light to pass through them only diffusely: they cannot be seen through. Physically, transparency is explained by electron energy levels. The quantum energies of the incident photons must match available energy level gaps in order to be absorbed. For example, glass is transparent to visible light because electrons in it have no available energy levels above them in the range of the quantum energies of visible photons. The result is light coming through glass without absorption. Also transparency, as used in the humanities, when used in a social context, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning a "transparent" object is one that can be seen through. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, the freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc.

Cleaning: The act of cleaning could be considered menial in relation to an act of art, yet it is one we are nevertheless reliant on to create a habitable foundation for being. Buildings reflect the architecture of the body and mind, the external reflects the internal and vice versa. How can we create egalitarian systems of thought if we take for granted the social hierarchies we depend on, and how can we integrate the connection between thought, action and being, if we project our ideas onto the spaces we inhabit and the people we interact with, without first becoming transparent to the reality without our identity projection, without the defenses that resist contact with the other, unknown. The virtual reality of the mind’s projection onto objects and relationships becomes more real through a careful and conscious attention to detail… a work, like cleaning that must constantly be made aware of changes in environment and lapses of time, in order to maintain the integral system of detail perception. Sterility and the clinical both function to minimise obstacle materials and locate the point of focus in its most minimal, particle form. Transparency is something we loose with adulthood and social adaptation, but opacity and obscurity are temporary layers developed through time and experience that can also be washed away, to contact the invisible element within that takes on form not as ultimate expression, but reflection of the dynamic obstacle of localised space and time. Transparency is a metaphor for a progressive consciousness; receptive to the external it transcends the violence of identity projection through form, taking its identity source not from an external image but the invisible, formless and de-localised, transpersonal. The cellular forms of jellyfish in a microcosmic ocean, form an image of such beauty as they are shaped so harmoniously by their environment they appear analogous to water itself. The human question of identity can perhaps be answered when we create harmonious, reflective and transparent connections between thought and action, self and other, the internal world of subjective experience and the hierarchy of our performative and functional roles in society. Transcendence is an all inclusive process, beginning at the end and ending again at the beginning. Just as pleasure leads to work and work to pleasure.

With the priceless help of Tabitha Kane

Don Quijote van Den Haag

2009-01-19T22:55:00.012+01:00

Don Quijote van den Haag from Miguel Angel Melgares on Vimeo.

// Another transparency manifesto

2009-01-18T01:19:00.000+01:00

This manifesto escapes to any presumption of originality. If a manifesto is supposed to bring a series of renewal statements about a concrete issue, we are far too late. During the convulsive years of the economical crisis, every single institution has already created a ‘transparency manifesto’ before us.

In the daily rituals, when ‘light: X’ encounters ‘material: Y’, it can interact with it in several different ways. These interactions depend on the wavelength of the light and the nature of the material. We can distinguish the ‘X-Y’ encounters, for example, as ‘Transparency: T’ when the material has the physical property of allowing light to pass through, ‘translucency: t’ when a material only allows light to pass through diffusely, and the opposite property ‘Opacity: O’, when the transmission of light is not taking place.

Architectonically, transparency has evolved within the centuries, so we can observe how the Romanic opaqueness, was modified when the craftsmanship of the glass walls break into the Gothic churches, to later on, thanks to the industrial revolution, the glass buildings where a sign of development and modernity, to finally arrive to the post-modern times, where we are being constantly overwhelmed with the display of transparent building that represent what contemporary civilisation is aiming for: stability, security, cleanness, and of course: ‘T’ transparency.

September 2008 will be remembered as the month in which capitalism experienced one of the strongest headquarters in his history. September 2008 was the month in which Lehman Brothers collapsed, and with it, new orders in international economics values were set. The maxim ‘Lack of transparency’ was pointed out as the ultimate responsible for the crisis, that brought the fourth bank of the U.S.A. to a bankrupt. The relation ‘X-Y’ gave the impression to be in a ‘t: translucency’ state, when in fact was in the ‘O: Opacity’ region. The economical cataclysm that ‘O’ engendered, generated a new order consequently, a sort of ‘Transparency era’ where there is no room for secrets, where there is nothing to hide. ‘O’ had risen as the enemy to beat.

Since then, ‘transparency’ is not an option anymore, it seems to be a need, an obligation, or perhaps the only way to escape the worldwide mistrusted environment, raising ‘T’ as the ultimate device to show the needed solvency into the international markets. Because of that, every single organisation that pretends to have recovered credibility, designs and publishes in their own statutes a ‘T’ transparency protocol. The launching of ‘transparency manifestos’ has seeded the international platforms, corporations, governments and agencies, giving the appearance of an unusual crystalline status.

The idea of ‘market transparency’ pops up, and it seems that we are living in a super-transparent era, in which businesses, and even political spheres have monopolized the terminology and the uses of transparency. To give you an example, a quote from the UK government ‘Transparency Plan’. In David Cameron´s words:

‘We understand that people want government to be more effective in what it does, and to do it for less money. That means transforming the way the state goes about its business, using decentralisation, accountability and transparency to reduce dramatically the cost of government. And because sunlight is the best disinfectant, we will bring the operation of government out into the open so that everyone can see whether we are delivering good value for money.’

What else could be added to this!

The dichotomy that Cameron introduces in his text, takes place in the conflict area between ‘light and dark’, between ‘good and bad’, between ‘transparent and opaque’; it is basically the dichotomy that exists between one of the most primordial human needs: ‘the known vs. the unknown’.

It is human nature to search for understanding, and since Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, because their nosy blueprint, we all carry within us the duty of the original sin. The benevolence of God was betrayed for a disloyal couple that allowed themselves to eat from the Tree of knowledge. What seems to point out this primal biblical tale is that ‘knowledge’ should be only in the hands of ‘God’, and who else would try to get it from him, would be punished.

Centuries are passing by, and the place that the different churches had, appears to be replaced with another kind of organisations. The skylines of the cities are not dominated by the cathedrals anymore, on the contrary, they seem to shrink at the same rhythm that skyscrapers get higher and higher, manifesting the complex relationship between horizontality and verticality. The new leaders of the new power order, keep the top of their flamboyant and transparent buildings just to themselves, so while being faraway from a possible visual intrusion, they can be a bit closer to god, or at least try to represent having such status.

In traditional public relations management, damage control involved the suppression of public information. But, as observed by Clive Thompson, the Internet has created a force towards transparency. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and thus to directly influence your Googleable reputation. That’s why, while transparency ‘T’ becomes the watchword of many institutions and corporations, the word has become manipulated, demoralized and mainly radicalized.

What I’ll try to point out in the following lines, is my intention to recover certain levels of transparency, ‘T’ elements that manifest themselves into a more humanistic scale; so we could call it ‘human transparency’ or just ‘HT’. Somehow, transparency is related with the idea of truth, of awareness, intelligibility, clearness, lucidity, etc., terms all of then that can drive us towards conduct of the being in a social level.

Human transparency could be defined as a more conscience use of honesty.

So we are defending one idea of a transparency that makes people to communicate with each other in a proper balance, a transparency that doesn’t doubt about the others sincerity, an open transparency, a transparency that brings truthfulness and a transparency that is not under the threatend state of the international markets.

As a consequence of the previous reflexions, we must say:

· We believe in the inner beauty that transparency offers.

· We think that transparency is a quality ‘itself’, but not self-sufficient, so it needs to be maintained to keep the proper levels of transparency.

· We dislike the term ‘radical transparency’, because it goes against it’s nature. Transparency shouldn’t be radical.

· We don’t like semantics monopolies, because of that we reclaim the use of the term ‘Transparency’ as a word not only related with economical operations.

· We believe in human transparency, among other reasons, because it doesn’t work in a hierarchical scheme.

· We agree with David Cameron that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

· We define Human transparency as an ethical attitude towards fellow humans.

· We believe that a good question deserves a good answer.

· We believe in human transparency, as a way of seeding social awareness.

· We also would have been eating from the forbidden tree, because knowledge is good.

· We assume that this crisis period will bring a more equalitarian power distribution, in which the representational forces spread their winds. We say that because right now the notion of Democracy should be kept in quarantine.

· We agree to disagree.

Miguel Angel Melgares, in the name of Pleas[e]nter team.

Amsterdam, March 2^nd, 2011

Yolanda Roos. Acto I

2009-01-11T22:10:00.003+01:00

La escena se desarrolla bajo una luz fría, dura y fría la voz del narrador. El escenario, planteado como una pista de tenis de moqueta verde, se rige y articula por la disposición de sus líneas, ligeramente más finas que en una pista convencional. Esta se presenta frontalmente; la red divide con orgullo un espacio simétricamente perfecto. Descaradamente artificial. Tras esta, se sitúa JUEZ de silla, cuentista del primer acto. Su indumentaria, de un negro inmaculado, lo mimetizan con el fondo del escenario que aparece en absorbente penumbra. Rigurosamente centrado y sobreelevado por su silla de juez de silla.

White :- El tenis es un ejercicio de triangulación.

Red :- El tenis es un ejercicio de dominación y sumisión.

(Silencio)

JUEZ: Red fifteen
White love

Red es el rival de White, su negativo. Le ha ganado el punto al resto.

Incrédulo, White dirige su gran cabeza enmascarada hacia JUEZ. Se soportan cinco eternos segundos la mirada, y como era lógico, esta cae por su propio peso.

Las indumentarias que visten ambos jugadores son las propias para la ocasión. Sendas minifaldas se ciñen sobre unas tórridas piernas peludas, despegándose del suelo gracias a unas lindas zapatillas deportivas y calcetines tobilleros, de esos que lucen los tenistas. Camisetas completan su peculiar atuendo. La sincronización en el uniforme de trabajo se ve rota por un pequeño matiz, uno es rojo (Red) mientras que el otro es blanco (White). De no ser por este fortuito capricho no habría quien los distinguiera. Leves vicisitudes proyectuales.

White (Adoptando una actitud más agresiva e intentando dar un golpe de efecto): - El tenis es cosa de moñas.

JUEZ (Gritando aceleradamente): OUT.
(En un tono más sosegado): Second service.

White:- El tenis es un deporte afeminado.

Red (Con tentativa burlona y cierto cinismo):- El tenis se escapa a propuestas tan primitivas. Qué sentido puede tener el burdo hecho genérico planteado tras las aportaciones butlerianas al tema.

Red también piensa que el tenis es cosa de moñas, de bolleras y moñas, pero tiene que ganar el punto.

JUEZ: Red thirty
White love

Ya no tan incrédulo, White redirige su gran cabeza enmascarada hacia JUEZ. Se soportan cinco no tan eternos segundos la mirada, y como era lógico, esta vuelve a caer por su propio peso.

Se preguntará que por qué caen las cabezas. White y Red portan unas aparatosas máscaras que cubren por completo sus cabezas. Las carcasas-prótesis integrales alcanzan tales dimensiones, que se sienten más cómodos inclinando las cabezas hacia delante. Por cierto, estas representan-presentan la forma de la cabeza de un camaleón.

Una gran cabeza de camaleón común.

Grandes, enormes ojos auto-articulados a cada lado de la cabeza, presagian un control esférico de su entorno inmediato. Sus formas cónicas, despegan los ojos de su punto de arranque a través de una infinita textura sauria, convirtiéndolos en útiles a la par que vulnerables.

La boca cerrada. Para que no entren moscas.

White:- El tenis es un asunto de pelotas.

Red:- El tenis consiste en meter las bolas.

(Silencio injustificado)

JUEZ: Red forty
White love

Esta vez, White ni tan siquiera intenta levantar su gran cabeza de camaleón.

JUEZ: Triple break point

White se ve incapaz de controlar las implacables embestidas de su contrincante. Vaticinando la inminente ruptura de saque, prueba dar un poco de su propia medicina a Red, haciendo uso de la apelación al resto del primer punto jugado en el juego.

White (Con una mezcla de orgullo y miedo):- El tenis es un deporte de dominación y sumisión.

(Silencio justificado)

JUEZ titubea ante la legalidad de esta ofensiva meta-defensiva. En un intento de imparcialidad, la da por buena.

Red, incrédulo, dirige su gran cabeza enmascarada hacia JUEZ. Se soportan cinco eternos segundos la mirada, y como era lógico, esta cae por su propio peso.

La legalidad en la maniobra de White y la resolución perentoria del juego, hacen que nuestro Red -cargado de cierto recelo- enuncie las palabras mágicas que le glorifiquen.

Red (Triunfante):- Red es el dominante, White es el sumiso.

JUEZ (Sin titubear, como si tuviese clara la victoria de Red antes de oír lo que tuviera que decir):- Juego en blanco para Red.

White no dice nada. Asume su predecible derrota.

Red se dispone a consumar su triunfo. Llevándose las manos a la parte posterior de la gran cabeza de camaleón, arranca la máscara. Bajo esta, como suponíamos, se encuentra otra gran máscara con forma de cabeza de camaleón. Ya no es tan grande como la primitiva.

Esto le permite mirar un poco más alto.

English version.

Yolanda Ross-Scene I

The scene is developed under a cold light, hard and cold as the narrator voice. The stage, raised like a tennis court of green carpet, is in force and it articulates by the disposition of its lines, slightly finer than in a conventional court. This is appears frontally; the net divides with pride a symmetrically perfect space. Blatantly artificial. Behind that, it is placed the Umpire, storyteller of the firs act. His attire, of an immaculate black, merges it with the back of the stage that appears in absorbent penumbra. Rigorously trim and over-elevated by its chair of chair-judge.

White :- Tennis is a triangulation exercise.

Red :- Tennis is an exercise of domination and submission.
(Silence)

Umpire: Red fifteen
White love

Red is the rival of White, its negative. The point to the return service has gained him.

Incredulous, White directs its great head masked towards Umpire. The glances are supported each other during five eternal seconds, and as was logical, this falls by his own weight.

The clothing that both players dress are the own ones for the occasion. Individual mini skirts are fitted on torrid hairy legs, taking off of the ground thanks to pretty sport trainers and small socks, of which the tennis players shine. T-shirts complete their peculiar attire. The synchronization in the work uniform sees defeat by a small shade, one is red (Red) whereas the other is white (White). For the rest they completely one, nobody could make a distinction between them.

White (Adopting a more aggressive attitude and trying to give an effect blow):
- Tennis is thing of queers.

Umpire (Shouting quickly): OUT.
(In a more calmed tone): Second service.

White:- Tennis is an effeminate sport.

Red (With mocking attempt and certain cynicism):- Tennis escapes to so primitive proposals. What sense can have the coarse raised generic fact after the butlerians contributions to the subject.

Red also thinks that tennis is thing of queers, of queers and lesbians, but it must gain the point.

Umpire: Red thirty
White love

No longer so incredulous, White direct again its great head masked towards Umpire. The glances are supported each other during five not so eternal seconds, and like it was logical, this returns to fall by his own weight.

You will be asked that why the heads fall. White and Red carry spectacular masks that cover their heads completely. The housing-prothesis integral reaches such dimensions, that they feel forwards more comfortable inclining the heads. By the way, these represent-present/display the form of the head of a chameleon.
An enormous head of vulgar chameleon.

Great, enormous eyes self-articulated to each side of the head, foretell a spherical control of their immediate surroundings. Their conical forms, take off the eyes of their point of starting through an infinite saurian texture, turning them into vulnerable equipment at the same time as.

The closed mouth. So that flies do not enter.

White:- Tennis is a subject of balls.

Red:- Tennis consists of putting the balls in.

(Unwarranted silence)

Umpire: Red forty
White love

This time, White nor so at least tries to raise its great head of chameleon.

Umpire: Triple break point

White is incapable to control the implacable attacks of its opponent. Predicting the imminent rupture of serve, it tries to give to a little his own medicine to Red, making use of the appeal to the rest of the first point played in the game.

White (With a mixture of pride and fear):- Tennis is a sport of domination and submission.

(Warranted silence)

Umpire dude before the legality of this offensive meta-defensive. In an attempt of impartiality, he gives it by good.

Red, incredulous, directs its great head masked towards Umpire. The glances are supported each other during five eternal seconds, and as was logical, this falls by his own weight.

The legality in the White’s maneuver, and the fixed resolution of the game, makes that our Red - loaded of certain distrust- it enunciates the magical words that glorify to him

Red (Triumphant):- Red is the dominant one, White is the submissive.

Umpire (Without thinking, as if it knew clearly the victory of Red before hearing what had to say):- Game blank for Red.

White does not say anything. It assumes his predictable defeat.

Red get ready to complete its triumph. Taking the hands to the back of the great head of chameleon, it takes the mask. Under this, as we supposed, is another great mask with form of chameleon head. No longer it is as great as the primitive one.

This allows him to watch a little higher.

Los dibujos que hace la hierba cuando la mueve el aire.

2009-01-11T22:00:00.001+01:00

Capítulo 1

‘Corollary 1. There is no single thing in nature which is more profitable to man that a man who lives according to the guidance of reason. For that is most profitable to man which most agrees with his own nature, that is to say, man. But a man acts absolutely from the laws of his own nature when he lives according to the guidance of reason, and so far only does he always necessarily agree with nature of another man; therefore there is no single thing more profitable to a man that man, etc.’[1]

Me esfuerzo en entenderlo mientras hablo por teléfono con él. El volumen de su móvil siempre está bajo y el viento hoy sopla especialmente fuerte. Él me cuenta algo de un cumpleaños y de unos amigos y de una fiesta a la que irá mañana, y al mismo tiempo que le amenazo si se pone a ligar con otros, yo estoy mirando por la ventana. Me promete que será bueno y yo me quedo tranquilo. Estoy casi hipnotizado por el ritmo incesante del manto verde perenne que se estremece a mi alrededor, con la vista perdida entre los dibujos que hace la hierba cuando la mueve el aire.

Salgo a la terraza para poder sentir el viento en mi cuerpo. Es frío, pero no demasiado. Aquí el viento lo tiene fácil, solo tiene que avanzar, sabiendo de antemano que nadie lo parará, ya que no tiene rival que le plante cara. El cielo es bajo y el horizonte infinito. Una planicie que solo se ve interrumpida por las líneas que trazan los árboles de la carretera y los canales y por algunas casas que se separan unas de otras como si se diesen miedo. Barreras que no sirven de nada cuando el viento sopla con su fuerza invisible. Se pone a llover y me meto adentro.

La lluvia se alía con él y juntos lo limpian todo, eliminando el poco polvo y hojarascas que había, así como cualquier tipo de recuerdo, borrando la memoria que pertenece a un lugar para depositarla quién sabe dónde. Se los llevó volando.

Los bastos campos que me rodean conforman una especie de puzzle reticular, donde todas las piezas son verdes en diferentes gradaciones de luminosidad, tono e intensidad. Verdes que me hacen cuestionarme de donde vienen su pureza. Verdes que me hacen reflexionar sobre su naturaleza, al mismo tiempo que me hace sentir una paz interna. Un paisaje, que como explica Wilhen Hellpach[2], articula cambios psicológicos en las personas, trasmitiendo fertilidad y abundancia a nuestro subconsciente, al mismo tiempo que nos enfrenta con nuestra pequeñez humana.

A la mañana siguiente, me despierto entre un fuerte ruido de motor y el cantar de los alegres pájaros. Los rayos de sol a través de la persianas de las ventanas me hablan de un día radiante. Cuando abro la puerta me sobrecogen los dos tractores que equipados con sendas segadoras coreografían el corte de la hierva que me rodea. Trazando líneas que transforman el color y densidad de la superficie, van de un lado al otro del campo, del otro al uno y vuelta a empezar. Con infatigable severidad las segadoras avanzan aniquilando la verticalidad de la fresca hierva de la mañana, dejando tras de sí una horizontalidad forzosa. Es fascinante el espectáculo de las briznas de hiervas proyectándose hacia atrás al paso de las cuchillas, pero mas fascinante aún es el olor que desprende la hierva recién cortada durante unos minutos. En unas pocas horas, cuando los dos tractores se encuentran cara a cara, todo el terreno ha pasado de ser un fértil campo a una industrializada área de cultivo, lo que hace replantearme el sentido que tiene aquí la palabra naturaleza. Tan solo el perímetro de mi caravana continua siendo un oasis de vida. El deslumbrante paisaje en el que dormía anoche se ha convertido en un devastado campo de producción ganadera.

El viento vuelve a soplar, pero la hierva aquí ha dejado de moverse.

Capítulo 2

‘The following is my reason for so doing. Nothing happens in nature which can be attributed to any vice of nature, for she is always the same and everywhere one. Her virtue is always the same, and her power of acting; that is to say, her laws and rules, according to which all things are and are changed from to from, are everywhere and always the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, that is say, by the universal laws and rules of nature.’^[3]

Me esfuerzo en entenderlo mientras hablo por teléfono con él. El volumen de su móvil siempre está bajo y el viento hoy sopla especialmente fuerte. Él me cuenta algo de un cumpleaños y de unos amigos y de una fiesta a la que irá mañana, y al mismo tiempo que le amenazo si se pone a ligar con otros, yo estoy mirando a las vacas que veo desde la ventana. Me promete que será bueno y yo me quedo tranquilo. Todas son diferentes. Todas son productivas.

Me pregunto en que momento de la historia, las vacas decidieron pertenecer a los humanos, y por qué. Hoy he escuchado a Henry decir que en África las cebras no han podido ser domesticadas porque son agresivas y muerden. Que injusticia, las vacas por ser tan buenas han acabado siendo nuestras esclavas.

Ahora es primavera, y el paisaje se redibuja con sus gráficas siluetas blancas y negras. Todas son tan similares. En cierto modo ellas son las que marcan el inicio del buen tiempo, cuando salen alegres a pastar (con las patas atrofiadas tras pasar todo el invierno encerradas) a verdes prados cercados por frágiles vallas electrificadas (solo por su seguridad) Casi no levantan la cabeza, todo el día rumiando, incluso cuando reposan en el suelo con sus grandes ubres espachurradas siguen rumiando la fresca hierva. Y tras una larga jornada rumia que te rumia, bebiendo, meando y cagando, las señoritas vacas son invitadas por el caballeroso granjero a ser felizmente ordeñadas.

Todas tienen un nombre. Bertha 9616, Anouk 9638, Coba 9580, Roelie 9547, Cornelia 9650, Bertha 8999, Elly 8093, Sandra 9749, Carmen 9677, Liset 9852, Silvana 9887. Silvana, que gracia, así se llamaba la primera chica que besé. Silvana en una vaca como otra cualquiera, pero por los lazos afectivos que me unen a ella relataré su historia. Prometo ser breve.

Silvana, como todas sus congéneres en estas tierras húmedas y blandas, fue inseminada artificialmente. Al tercer día de su nacimiento, fue separada de su madre Truus 9591, quedando por consiguiente huérfana de padre y madre. Peor suerte corrió su hermano, que tras el tiempo de cebado y engorde (en cual no entraré en detalles) se fue a parar al matarife. Con su carne se hicieron ricas chuletas y con su piel lindos zapatos. Silvana pasó sus dos primeros años de vida encerrada el redil creciendo con sus compañeras, hasta ser un día felizmente inseminada y empezar su proceso de transformación en vaca lechera. Es ley de vida, si no hay bebes no hay leche. Tras ser separada de su hija cuyo nombre nunca sabremos, dos relevantes hechos sucedieron. El primero fue el conocer la luz del sol y el sabor de la hierva fresca, y el segundo, fue el experimentar la sensación de ser ordeñada automáticamente. Silvana produce una media de 25 litros de rica y fresca leche a diario, lo que supone unos 9.000 litros anuales, que no son pocos. Como cualquier mamífero que se precie, Silvana fue reduciendo la cantidad le leche diaria que producía a medida que pasaron los meses, por que fue inseminada nuevamente y con ello seguir siendo productiva. Hasta cuando Silvana soportará este ritmo y cual será su destino final son sendas incógnitas. En la granja siempre hay pesimistas y ellas rumorean sobre posibles trágicos finales, pero Silvana piensa que tras una vida de sacrificio y alto rendimiento encontrará su recompensa.

Silvana siempre estará en nuestra memoria como esa vaca ejemplar que pasó a la historia gracias a una campaña publicitaria que la hizo famosa. Pusieron su bonita cara (sin cobrar por los derechos de imagen) en miles de postales que viajaron alrededor del mundo, ayudando a otros tantos miles de personas a idealizar, en la inmensidad de los prados verdes, la vida de una vaca feliz.

Capítulo 3

‘Proposition 7. It perteins to the nature of subtance to exist.

Demostration. There is nothing by whichsubtance can be produced. It will be thereforebe the cause of itself, that is to say, its essence necessarily involves existence, or in other words it pertains to its nature to exist’.[4]

Me esfuerzo en entenderlo mientras hablo por teléfono con él. El volumen de su móvil siempre está bajo y un ruido infernal viene de fuera. Él me cuenta algo de un cumpleaños y de unos amigos y de una fiesta a la que irá mañana, y al mismo tiempo que trato de cortar la conversación mas o menos educadamente, porque no soy capaz de seguirla, trato de buscar de donde proviene ese dichoso ruido metálico y ahogado que no me deja concentrarme.

Tal y como me temía, el sonido proviene nuevamente de los tractores de la granja. Un zumbido incesante que golpea la tierra sin piedad.

Trato de esforzarme por reconocer que es lo que está pasando al otro lado del terreno, pero no logro conseguirlo. Mientras los tractores avanzan a un ritmo cadencioso desde la lejanía, trato de recordar cuantas veces y en que modos he visto pasar los tractores en estos últimos días desde mi habitación. Primero vi venir a las segadoras, luego fueron las mezcladoras, que con una especie de aspas a ras de suelo, hacían revolver las briznas de hierva con el fin último de acelerar su proceso de secado. Después de tres días inusualmente soleados y de sucesivos removimientos de hierva, vinieron las agrupadoras, un mecanismo que disponía la hierva seca en surcos, trazando y redibujando el terreno, dejando tras de sí la evidencia de la cosecha y la calamidad de un terreno arrasado, para finalmente dar paso a las colectoras, cuya misión consistió en extraer las líneas de hierva seca, limpiando el espacio y defiendo la planicie que se magnificaba por su vacío. Un alegre y rítmico artilugio que disparaba semillas como si fuesen proyectiles, al cual llamaremos dispensadora, fue el último de los artilugios mecánicos motorizados que se pasearon frente mi ventana.

Pero lo que viene ahora es algo que me supera. No logro a entender que es lo que están haciendo los tractores. Vienen hacia mí, amenazantes, con un gran depósito contenedor en su parte trasera, que me hacen sospechar de se puede tratar. La brisa que aquí corre, fuerte otro día más, me confirman mis sospechas. Es mierda. Mierda de vaca.

La abonadora Schuitemaker Coulter Injector es una máquina perfecta. Pura belleza industrial y extremada precisión funcional, que fue diseñada con el único fin de ayudar en la tediosa labor de fertilizar el terreno. Largas mangueras conectadas a los tanque que ya se dejan ver, me hablan de un trabajo impecable, el cual puedo oler pero no ver. En un ejercicio de ocultismo mecánico, los arados abren una tierra que no resiste, en una multitud de franjas paralelas que son sistemáticamente rellenados a inyección con la pestilente mezcla de caca y orines vacunos, para ser inmediatamente vueltos a cerrar por otro ingenio mecánico, dejando tras de si una superficie que parece no haber sido rota ni rellenada de estiércol. Todo queda bajo tierra, como si nada hubiese pasado, dejando tras de si una superficie plana y fértil.

No estaré aquí para verlo, pero se supone que en menos de un mes, este cuadrilátero de tierra, que ha sufrido todo tipo de transformaciones en el breve periodo de tiempo que yo he estado aquí, volverá a renacer como un bello prado verde, cuya hierva será nuevamente mecida por el viento, dibujando las azarosas formas a las que nos tenía acostumbrados. Este proceso de fertilizado, siembra y recolecta se repetirá probablemente unas cinco veces durante que aguante el buen tiempo, evidenciando la intensiva explotación que aquí tiene un suelo, al cual se ha borrado la memoria a fuerza de fertilizantes. Un ciclo que tiene protagonistas a nuestras amigas las vacas. Ellas comen, mean y cagan, y que con su fresca leche nuestros hijos crecen felices, y con su bonita piel, zapatitos lindos, y con su rica carne divertidas barbacoas y con su hedionda caca, se fertilizan los verdes campos que en invierno les darán de comer, y así vuelta a empezar, pasando todo ello a través de un equilibrio humanizado, en donde la palabra naturaleza han sido consensuada y en donde todas las partes se han puesto de acuerdo para trazar los límites del concepto paisaje.

[1] SPINOZA, Benedict: Ethics. Wordsworth Editions Limited. Hertfordshire. 2001.

[2] HELLPACH, Willy: Geopsique. El alma humana bajo el influjo de tiempo y clima, suelo y paisaje. Madrid, Biblioteca de ideas del siglo XX, Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1940.

[3] SPINOZA, Benedict: Ethics. Wordsworth Editions Limited. Hertfordshire. 2001.

[4] SPINOZA, Benedict: Ethics. Wordsworth Editions Limited. Hertfordshire. 2001.

Yolanda Ross: La soltera que muele su propio chocolate.

2009-01-11T21:55:00.004+01:00

1. El tenis: Dialéctica del onanismo.

En la presentación del libro de autoría colectiva Más allá del posmoderno, Antonio Toca elaboraba una sofisticada comparación, no exenta de populismo, entre la producción cultural más reciente y el tenis, un deporte elitista en el que el público asiste atónito a una celebración de algo que le es ajeno.

Woody Allen por el contrario recurre al tenis como metáfora de la agonía universal, del duelo permanente en el que se baten sin tregua la fortuna, voluble y caprichosa por naturaleza, frente a la virtud constructiva. El partido lo libra el individuo consigo mismo, en sí mismo, y la perplejidad surge del espectáculo azaroso de la propia trayectoria vital. En definitiva el deporte le sirve como excusa y soporte para construir una visión renovada de la tragedia.

El propio Miguel Ángel Melgares en su breve obra de teatro previa adopta una posición intermedia alejada tanto de la pura exterioridad como de la interioridad sofocante. Su definición puede aclararnos algo más la cuestión:

1º “El tenis es un ejercicio de triangulación”.

2º “El tenis es cosa de moñas”.

3º “El tenis es un asunto de pelotas”.

4º “El tenis es un ejercicio de dominación y sumisión”.

A Toca se le podría reprochar un cierto desconocimiento del juego estético más allá de la práctica arquitectónica. Frente al discurso cerrado de la modernidad, las propuestas artísticas actuales renuncian a la verdad en singular, a los valores eternos apriorísticos e idealistas heredados de la tradición germana que tanto fascinaban a la crítica formalista americana de posguerra. La obra se regocija en su propia apertura, en la disolución de la idea misma del límite. En ese sentido debe convocar de forma inexcusable al espectador, puesto que resulta imprescindible para la emergencia del significado, un significado abierto y polisémico, susceptible de ser ampliado más allá de la voluntad del artista.

El público deja de ser un convidado de piedra, un voyeur apasionado o frígido; pasa a convertirse en uno de los núcleos de catalización para la generación de esta significatividad polisémica por la obra.

Con el ardid del tenis el cineasta neoyorquino vuelve a Hamlet, e incluso a Sóflocles contra Sócrates y Cristo para hablar del precario equilibrio que separa el éxito del fracaso, de las embestidas del destino contra la constancia de la virtud. Una idea antigua aunque plena de vigencia. En cualquier caso no estaría de más advertir que pese a su hipervisivilidad, el juego de simulaciones de los jóvenes triunfadores neoconservadores no es el único posible, ni desde luego el más interesante.

Melgares da una definición del tenis con tintes autobiográficos: Macho, moña y apolíneo. Un juego de dominación y sumisión.

En el deporte elegante por excelencia se citan unas normas complejas, un ritual, un juego de seducción y engaño geométricamente calculado, una estrategia distante, cerebral y civilizada, a la vez que un impulso inmediato, una voluntad de dominio primitiva, visceral. Esta doble naturaleza le confiere el estatus de alegoría privilegiada del juego erótico, entendido en clave de lucha de poder, con un sofisticado ritual de cortejo y una consumación próxima al canibalismo, puesto que uno de los dos jugadores ha de quedar excluido forzosamente en la celebración de la victoria.

El artista, la tenista, se enfrenta solo/a a los fantasmas de una dialéctica terrible del poder y el deseo cuya membrana resulta muy difícil de rasgar. La ausencia de contrincante resume cruelmente el discurso y lo/a encara, nos encara, a la soledad sin eufemismos. Se origina así una catarsis destructora contra el otro que ni siquiera asiste. Un ritual contra la sombra del invitado ausente. Un demoledor saque contra lo bello y lo frágil paciente y virtuosamente construido a modo de nido del deseo condenado a ser deshabitado.

2. Le pese a quien le pese: Yolanda.

Hablar de un alter ego femenino supone invocar de inmediato la figura de Marcel Duchamp, por más que algunos estudiosos como Juan Vicente Aliaga consideren sobredimensionada su relevancia en este campo. Yolanda es una soltera que juega con la ayuda de una máquina lanzapelotas. La máquina erótica fue uno de los motivos de fascinación de Picabia y un tema recurrente en la obra de Duchamp. El molinillo de chocolate reutilizado en El GranVidrio forma parte de una serie de máquinas onanistas en la que se incluyen los solteros vestidos con uniformes estereotipados de la virilidad prestos a desnudar a la novia. Yolanda sin embargo presenta grandes diferencias con respecto a este precedente:

1 La soltera no se muestra lánguida y expectante, sino activa y llena de rabia.

2 No espera ser desnudada por un soltero uniformado. Ella misma se disfraza y advierte que la suya es una puesta en escena protéica; dicho de otro modo, Yolanda va jugar con todas las máscaras, con todas las identidades en la medida que le resulten convenientes.

3 Frente a la soledad sexual y genital de los machos célibes, la suya es una soledad de índole metafísica. No desprecia el falo, pero es mucho más lo que ella espera. La máquina más que en un gadget onanista, se convierte en un artefacto bélico contra el aislamiento existencial provocado por un adversario que no ha aparecido a pesar de haber sido convocado desesperadamente.

Con su dosis nada desdeñable de frivolidad y su gusto más que dudoso, Yolanda encaja a la perfección en el perfil tópico de la heredera de un emporio tan prosaico como rentable.

El mecenazgo deportivo de Landy, como la llaman sus íntimos enemigos del club de tenis, cumple una triple función en la estructura del clan. Papá pensó que se trataba de una manera excelente de aliviar el peso de los impuestos. Para mamá ver asociado el apellido Ross a un evento de este tipo no deja de suponer una ocasión excepcional para arañar el prestigio social que la visa platino no puede pagar. La abuelita sueña con la ocasión de un nieto político a la altura de las circunstancias, un joven del gran mundo que bien pudiera prendarse de la belleza y la espontaneidad de la rica heredera sin sentido común.

La soledad de Yolanda, jugadora exclusiva y excluyente, frustra las aspiraciones de grandeza de la estirpe. El torneo propio es sin duda un gran asunto para esta familia de negocios a la que aún falta un par de generaciones para integrarse en el patriciado.

A pesar de su entorno plebeyo, Yolanda cuenta con ilustres antepasadas, con parientes mundanas más o menos próximas. Otras mujeres que como ella constituyen el alter ego de un artista varón. Por ejemplo Jessie, el personaje creado por Carles Congost, aunque, salvando las lógicas diferencias a ninguna está tan vinculada como a la tía abuela Rrose Sélavy, la criatura sofisticada y cosmopolita creada por Duchamp en los años veinte del pasado siglo. El nombre de ambas surge de un juego de palabras por aproximación fonética, ambas plantean una estrecha relación analítica con el erotismo; pero sobre todo comparten su naturaleza de identidad temporal y mutable. Son mucho más que un salvoconducto para el artista. Constituyen la posibilidad de plantarse en los zapatos del otro, de la otra para ser más exactos, y poder abordar de este modo todo lo que la identidad de género rígidamente bipolarizada deja al otro e inexpugnable lado de la luna.

Cuando Melgares se levanta la máscara, lo que descubre no es nada más y nada menos que otra máscara. No juega a ser Yolanda, es indiscutiblemente Yolanda en el centro de su microcosmos racional y pulsional. Yolanda y sus circunstancias que dirían los orteguianos, todas las yolandas para los posmodernos más recalcitrantes, Yolanda y sus complementos en palabras de la propia Yolanda.

Entre la esquizofrenia que atraviesa la contemporaneidad desde el mítico encierro hölderliniano y la polisemia que diluye los vínculos entre el significante y el significado como rasgo esencial de la condición posmoderna, Yolanda es ante todo un ejercicio de travestismo coherente con el signo de los tiempos. Una suerte de paseo funambulista sobre el abismo limitado por la superposición de influencias y referencias ocultadas, asumidas, inconscientes o impúdicamente exhibidas de un lado, y por otro los hitos, los señuelos en la “cacería del zorro de los significados” por los que el artista nos permite orientarnos sin caer en la obscenidad de la explicación directa.

3. El camaleón y la máscara.

Aletheia, la verdad que debe ser desvelada, un núcleo que late envuelto en costras hueras de trivialidad. Una divinidad cuyo desnudo esencial, portador de significado debiera ser vehementemente buscado con el ímpetu estuprador del amante en celo y la precisión del neurocirujano. Este es el concepto de verdad que heredamos del mundo griego y en torno al cual gira buena parte del pensamiento heideggeriano. Constituye por extensión la base del arte moderno en la medida que asocia un significante con un significado unívoco y cerrado.

Pensemos en la posibilidad de considerar el embalaje como parte esencial del regalo, tal vez el juego no consista en buscar el secreto guardado en la última caja. De algún modo aceptar que la postrera muñeca rusa, la más pequeña, no contiene más que su propio vacío, y la certeza de que con ella el juego termina, obliga a replantearse el viaje a Itaca y aceptar la experiencia, el deleite y la sabiduría de cada uno de los puertos en los que recalamos, desviar la atención desde el punto de llegada hacia el trayecto en toda su extensión.

Miguel Ángel Melgares no desdeña la superficie, sabe que tal como mantiene J. Baudrillard “La superficie y la apariencia son el espacio de la seducción. Al poder como dominio del universo del sentido se opone la seducción como dominio el reino de las apariencias”. Lo que hay de enigmático en su obra viene planteado por una esfinge con cabeza de camaleón y que por tanto la validez de las respuestas está en función de un juego de seducción a varias bandas, con referencias mutables, proteicas e inestables.

Frente al desprecio por el mundo de los accidentes visuales de origen, primero griego y luego cristiano a través del neoplatonismo, la reivindicación de la epidermis del mundo constituye una actitud netamente transgresora. En este sentido en El balcón de Jean Genet, se reduce la diversidad del universo a los escenarios de un burdel. Sus personajes deambulan como reflejos efímeros por el azogue de los espejos. Solo tres personajes tienen el privilegio de podar fijar una imagen, tomar una fotografía. Tres bellos muchachos malheridos provenientes del sueño: La sangre, Las Lágrimas y El Esperma, dispuestos a ser curados en un lupanar en el que solo encontramos “máscaras y disfraces”. El Esperma, lejos de considerar insuficiente la dotación del burdel, y por extensión del mundo, mantiene que cuanto hay de bello y noble sobre la tierra se lo debemos a las máscaras.

Resulta tan simple como la oposición del juego frente a la esencia. La identidad a través de la máscara constituye por sí misma no solo la estrategia básica de la seducción, es además y sobre todo una invitación directa a la libertad. Escoger la identidad de forma consciente, fluctuante y renovada, posibilita jugar al otro lado. Iniciarnos en la deliciosa estrategia del ladrón de guante blanco, traicionarnos a nosotros mismos y lejos de la culpa moderna, aquella cuya raíz intenta extraer el psicoanálisis, gozar de forma múltiple en el proceso.

José Antonio Romera Díaz.

Figures the grass makes when blown by the wind

2009-01-11T18:11:00.000+01:00

Chapter 1

‘Corollary 1. There is no single thing in nature which is more profitable to man that a man who lives according to the guidance of reason. For that is most profitable to man which most agrees with his own nature, that is to say, man. But a man acts absolutely from the laws of his own nature when he lives according to the guidance of reason, and so far only does he always necessarily agree with nature of another man; therefore there is no single thing more profitable to a man that man, etc.’

I strain to understand what he is saying while I am on the phone to him. The volume of his cell phone is always low and today the wind is particularly strong. He talks about a birthday party and about some friends and about a party he will be attending tomorrow, while I threaten him telling him not to make off with anyone else, I am gazing out of my window. He promises that he will be good and I regain my serenity. I am practically hypnotized by the incessant rhythm of the perennial green blanket which quivers and trembles all around me, with my eyes lost among the figures that the grass makes when blown by the wind.

I step out to the terrace to feel the wind on my body. It is cold, but no too cold. Here the wind has it easy, it just has to move forward knowing that nothing will stop it since there is no rival capable of confronting it. The sky hangs low and the horizon is infinite. The plain is only interrupted by a series of lines formed by the trees planted along the highway and canals and by a few houses separated from one another as if fearing proximity. Useless barriers when the wind blows with its invisible force. It starts to rain and I go inside.

The rain becomes the winds ally and together they clean up everything, getting rid of the little dust and fallen leaves that were there, and any other type of memento, erasing the memory that belongs to one place to deposit it who knows where. It carries everything up and away.

The vast fields that surround me make up a type of reticular puzzle, where all of the pieces are green but exhibit different grades of luminosity, tone and intensity. Greens which make me question where their purity stems from. Greens which make me reflect upon their nature, while at the same time bestowing me with a sense of inner peace. A landscape, as explained by Wilhelm Hellpach, that prompts psychological changes in the individual, transmitting a sense of fertility and abundance to our subconscious, while all the time confronting us with our human smallness.

The following morning, I awake to the thunderous noise of an engine and the singing of lively birds. The rays of sun streaming through the blinds proclaim a brilliantly sunny day. On opening the door, I am startled by two tractors which, equipped with numerous mowers, produce a choreographical cut in the vast area of grass that surrounds me. Drawing lines that transform the colour and density of the surface, the machines travel from one side of the field to the other, then from one field to another, only to start all over again. With indefatigable severity, the mowers move forward annihilating the verticality of the fresh morning grass, leaving in its wake a landscape of forced horizontality. I am fascinated by the spectacle produced by the thin blades of grass swaying backwards as the blades of the mower pass through them, but even more fascinating is the fleeting minute-long aroma released by the newly cut grass. In a few hours, when the two tractors come face to face, the entire plot of land will have been transformed from a fertile field into industrialized farmland and this makes me rethink the meaning of the word ‘nature’ in this particular location. The only oasis of life left in this place is demarcated by the perimeter of my caravan. The astounding landscape which surrounded me last night has been turned into a devastated field for livestock breeding.

The wind begins to blow again, but here the grass no longer quivers.

Chapter 2

‘The following is my reason for so doing. Nothing happens in nature which can be attributed to any vice of nature, for she is always the same and everywhere one. Her virtue is always the same, and her power of acting; that is to say, her laws and rules, according to which all things are and are changed from to from, are everywhere and always the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, that is say, by the universal laws and rules of nature.’

I strain to understand what he is saying while I am on the phone to him. The volume of his cell phone is always low and today the wind is particularly strong. He talks about a birthday party and about some friends and about a party he will be attending tomorrow while I threaten him not to make off with anyone else, I am gazing at the cows that I can see through my window. He promises that he will be good and I regain my serenity. They are all different. They are all productive.

I begin to wonder: at what point in history did cows decide to belong to man and why? Today I heard Henry say that the zebras in Africa were never domesticated because they are aggressive and bite. It is so unfair. Just because cows are so good, they ended up being slaves to man.

Now it is springtime and the landscape redefines itself with black and white graphic silhouettes. They are all so alike. In a way, it is they who mark the onset of warmer weather when they happily set out to graze (with their legs atrophied after spending the entire winter locked up) in green fields enclosed by fragile electrified fences (for their security "only"). They hardly lift up their heads, and graze day in and day out, even while lying down on the ground, with their large udders squashed, they continue to graze on the fresh grass. And after a long day of grazing and grazing, drinking, urinating and defecating, the lady cows are invited by the gentleman farmer to be happily milked.

They each have a name. Bertha 9616, Anouk 9638, Coba 9580, Roelie 9547, Cornelia 9650, Bertha 8999, Elly 8093, Sandra 9749, Carmen 9677, Liset 9852, Silvana 9887. Silvana, (what a coincidence!), is the name of the first girl I ever kissed. Silvana, is a cow like any other cow, but because of the affective bond I have towards her, I will tell her story. I promise to be brief.

Silvana, as every one of her relatives in these humid and soft lands, was artificially inseminated. Three days after birth, she was separated from her mother Truus 9591, making her a maternal and paternal orphan. Her brother was not as lucky. After being subjected to the standard feeding and fattening period (about which I shall not go into detail) he ended up in the slaughterhouse. Tasty chops were produced from his meat and beautiful shoes from his hide. Silvana spent the first two years of her life locked up in the pen growing up with the rest of the herd until she was happily inseminated to begin her process of transformation into a milking cow. Such is life: no babies, no milk. After being separated from her daughter, whose name we will never know, two significant events took place. The first was her first encounter with sunlight and the taste of fresh grass, and the second, was to experience the sensation of being machine-milked. Silvana produces an average of 25 litres of rich, fresh milk per day, which totals 9,000 litres per year: no small amount. As with any prized mammal, as the months went by, Silvana’s daily output of milk gradually began waning so she was inseminated again in order to continue to be productive. Just how long will Silvana be able to withstand this pace and what will her final destiny be? Both these questions remain a mystery. At the farm there will always be pessimists who rumor about possible tragic outcomes, but Silvana is convinced that after having lived a life of sacrifice and having produced high yields, in the end she will be given her reward.

We will always remember Silvana as the exemplary cow who went down in history thanks to a publicity campaign which made her famous. Her beautiful face was put (without copyright payments for her picture) on thousands of postcards which traveled around the world in an effort to make thousands of people idealize the life of a happy cow roaming the immensity of vast green pastures.

Chapter 3

‘Proposition 7. It perteins to the nature of subtance to exist.

Demostration. There is nothing by whichsubtance can be produced. It will be thereforebe the cause of itself, that is to say, its essence necessarily involves existence, or in other words it pertains to its nature to exist’.

I strain to understand what he is saying while I am on the phone to him. The volume of his cell phone is always low and there is an infernal noise coming in from outside. He talks about a birthday party and about some friends and about a party he will be attending tomorrow, while I try to abort the conversation as politely as possible, because I cannot follow what he is saying, and I am trying to identify the source of that dreadful and suffocating metallic noise that will not allow me to concentrate.

Just as I imagined, once again, the noise came from the tractors on the farm. An incessant humming sound strikes the soil mercilessly.

I make an effort to understand what exactly is happening at the other end of the field, but it is impossible. While the tractors advance at a rhythmic pace from afar, I try to remember how many times and in which manner I have seen the tractors pass by during the course of the last few days from my room. First came the mowers, then the mixers, which, with their type of blade system working flush to the ground, churned up the blades of grass with the ultimate objective of speeding up its drying process. After three unusually sunny days and the successive removal of grass, the gatherers arrived. These have a mechanism to place the dry grass in furrows, sketching and redrawing the soil, leaving behind it evidence of the crop and the calamity of the pillaged land, to finally make way for the collectors, whose mission consisted in extracting the lines of dry grass, cleaning up the space and defining the huge plain now even further magnified by its emptiness. A happy and rhythmic contraption which shot seeds as if they were missiles, which we will call a dispenser, was the last of the motorized mechanical devices to amble past my window.

But what comes next tops it all. I can’t understand what the tractors are doing. Menacingly, they head towards me, with a huge hopper in the rear which makes me suspect what this is all about. The gusty breeze confirms my suspicions. It’s shit. Cow shit.

The Schuitemaker Coulter Injector fertilizing machine is quite perfect. Pure industrial beauty and extreme functional precision, designed with only one objective in mind: to help out in the tedious task of fertilizing the soil. The long hoses connected to the tanks which are now visible to the eye, suggest an impeccable job. One that I can smell but not see. In an exercise of mechanical occultism, the ploughs open up soil that offers no resistance in a multitude of parallel rows which are systematically injected with the foul-smelling mixture of bovine excrement and urine, to be immediately covered up again by a different piece of mechanical ingenuity, leaving behind a surface that appears never to have been disturbed or filled in with manure. It all ends up underground, as if nothing had ever happened, leaving behind it a flat, fertile surface.

I will not be here to see it, but supposedly, in less than a month from now, this quadrilateral plot of land which has been subjected to all sorts of transformations during the short period of time that I have been here, will revive again as a beautiful green meadow, with its pastures swaying in the wind once again, sketching the spontaneous figures to which it had accustomed us to. This fertilization, planting and harvesting process will probably be repeated another five times or so while the going is good, evidencing the intense exploitation that this soil is exposed to, until its memory has been totally erased by the shear force of fertilizers. It is a cycle in which our friends the cows play the leading role. They eat, urinate and defecate, and with their fresh milk our children grow happily, with their attractive hide we make pretty shoes, with their tasty meat we have enjoyable barbeques and with their stinky droppings they fertilize the green meadows which will feed them in the winter, only to start all over again, going through the entire process through a humanized equilibrium, where there is general consensus with respect to the word ‘nature’ and where each and everyone of the parties have agreed to delineate the limits of the ‘landscape’ concept.

La reina de las fiestas rompió la piñata

2008-12-08T21:27:00.014+01:00

Proyecto interdisplinar y de contextualización espacio-temporal que fue diseñado para el festival La noche blanca de la ciudad de Córdoba (España), cuya temática era el flamenco, y cuyo contexto lúdico-festivo funcionaron como matriz del proyecto. Partiendo de ciertos parámetros conceptuales desarrollados por Gadamer en su Actualidad de lo bello, la obra que se presentó consistía en una performance que partiendo desde la Torre de la Calahorra (situada en el Campo de la Verdad) se realizaba un recorrido en burro a través de la ciudad para finalizar en el Convento del Corpus Christi, actual sede de la Fundación Antonio Gala. La indumentaria para tal ocasión consistía en corona, cetro, banda de honor y unos zuecos holandeses pintados en rojo con lunares blancos. Durante todo el recorrido y en la segunda parte de la acción, la reina de las fiestas realizaba la performance con los ojos vendados, ya que no podría ser de otro modo como debiera darle fin a la piñata que le esperaba al final de su recorrido. Al romperla, un gallo vivo escapaba volando entre las guirnaldas y el confeti.

Como toda reina, ésta, la de las fiestas, tiene una función (no me vengo a refierir a la de dirigir una ONG con su nombre), que como os podréis imaginar no es ni mas ni menos que la de romper la piñata. Es más, para ser sincero debería de señalar que su función existía antes que ella misma, y ella fue concebida con este único destino. Pese a su vulgaridad funcional, nuestra reina no es una reina cualquiera, ya que ella, en vez de amadrinar burros de Rute, los monta, y en lugar de calzar Bulgari, se enrola en unos zuecos holandeses ‘con mucho duende’. Lo de su sonrisa era inevitable.

yolanda ross 2 (la instalción)

2007-10-23T10:55:00.006+02:00

ACTO I

La escena se desarrolla bajo una luz fría, dura y fría la voz del narrador. El escenario, planteado como una pista de tenis de moqueta verde, se rige y articula por la disposición de sus líneas, ligeramente más finas que en una pista convencional. Esta se presenta frontalmente; la red divide con orgullo un espacio simétricamente perfecto. Descaradamente artificial. Tras esta, se sitúa JUEZ de silla, cuentista del primer acto. Su indumentaria, de un negro inmaculado, lo mimetizan con el fondo del escenario que aparece en absorbente penumbra. Rigurosamente centrado y sobreelevado por su silla de juez de silla.

White :- El tenis es un ejercicio de triangulación.

Red :- El tenis es un ejercicio de dominación y sumisión.

(Silencio)

JUEZ: Red fifteen
White love

continuar.....

Yolanda Ross

2007-10-23T10:27:00.008+02:00

Yolanda Ross es un proyecto interdiscilinar que partiendo de la instalación escultórica, y pasando por la performance da lugar a la video-creación.

Yolanda Ross es un proyecto plástico que bebe la fuente literaria, de una propuesta escénica titulada como ella misma.

Yolanda Ross es una tenista. Camaleónica, pero tenista.

Yolanda Ross es una quimera. Quimera entendida como el mítico ser mitológico de la mitología antigua. Tiene por costumbre acumular poderes. A su implícita androgínia hay que añadirle una gran cabeza de camaleón.

Yolanda Ross es asonante a Roland Garros.

Yolanda Ross es la protagonista de nuestra historia. La historia es cuento que se cuenta para que salgan las cuentas.

Yolanda Ross es coqueta y presumida, algo nada casual entre los de su especie.

Yolanda Ross es, ha sido, y seguirá siendo una fantasía. La fantasía bebe de la fuente de la razón, haciendo uso subjetivo de la misma.

Yolanda Ross es una cuca asesina, que armada con su indestructible raqueta pretende dar fin a la fastuosa instalación que se le pone por delante. ¿Qué motivo puede ser la causa de su desventura? Solo ella lo sabe.

Yolanda Ross es todo esto y mucho más.

ACTO I

White :- El tenis es un ejercicio de triangulación.

Red :- El tenis es un ejercicio de dominación y sumisión.

(Silencio)

JUEZ: Red fifteen

White love

continuar.....

English version

Yolanda Ross, our tennis player, is in a lethal game againts the crystal installation in front of her. Helped by a ball machine, the objective of the player is to give an end during the performance-match to the great and fragile glass framework. The difficulty comes with the exaggerated chamaleon mask that the tennis player barely endure, resulting in a clumsy and ridiculous game, and at the same time, full of complex rituals, seduction and deceive geometrically calculated.

Open publication - Free publishing - More tennis

solo en la cama estaba el león (los amantes)

2007-10-22T16:29:00.004+02:00

En Solo en la cama estaba el león (los amantes) se presenta una relación íntima entre dos saurios que descansan sobre un etéreo soporte de pizarra negra. La forma que adquieren puede remitirnos al signo del infinito, preludiando con ello una relación atemporal. Realizados en resina de poliester, la capacidad mutacional que se proyecta su naturaleza traslúcida permite la comparativa con las cualidades propias de la especie amanazada.

Suburbios

2005-10-29T11:15:00.002+02:00

Datos técnicos

Título: Suburbios
Medidas: 195 X 195
Técnica: Cosido sobre loneta

Breve sinopsis

Cuando Lyotard planteaba las entradas de las ciudades como los arrabales de la postmodernidad, acertaba de pleno en el resurgimiento de la composición cívica de las periferias. Unas entradas a las que debemos prestar atención, ya que su difusa profusión tiende a fundirlas, a omitirlas e incluso en el peor de los casos a olvidarlas.

La obra Suburbios, trata de aproximarse desde un planteamiento estético a este concepto de periferia, intentando resolver la propuesta con la complejidad conceptual que manifiesta el laberinto y cargando su contenido de un intrínseco valor simbólico, tanto cromático como estructural.

Suburbios nos plantea una visión estricta en la realidad representada. Construido con hilo, aguja y dedal, escuadra y cartabón, presenta un laberinto que vacila entre la ortodoxia del dibujo técnico y lo incorpóreo de una estructura arquitectónica que flota en un intenso negro; sensación potenciada por la sutil degradación cromática que nos lleva del blanco del centro al rojo de la periferia. La figura del laberinto posee reminiscencias simbólicas que se conectan con la idea de la fortaleza, utilizándose como elemento defensivo. Cárcel y refugio, el laberinto está resuelto con un laborioso trabajo de costura, hecho que nos hace reflexionar en la cuestión del género, ya que estos usos están íntimamente relacionados con la feminidad.

Rojo, rama, laberinto

2004-12-31T20:59:00.007+01:00

Armado con una fastuosa bata de cola, el creador e interprete de la acción (+bata), se dispone a poner fin a la frágil instalación rojo, rama, laberinto. Compuesta por unas dos mil inestables y fléxibles varas de mimbre rojo, la instalación se nos presenta como un laberinto tanto visual como espacial. Haciendo un uso inconsciente del poder de su cola, el artista con los ojos vendados por una cinta transparenten, se mueve-conmueve entre el bosque rojo destruyendo toda la estructura.

Cargada de tintes autobiográficos, la obra plantea unos recorridos polisemánticos entorno al cuestionamiento de género.

English version

Armed with a magnificent tailed robe, the interpreter of the action (+robe) gets ready to give an end to the fragile installation Red, branch, laberinth, composed by around two thousand unstable and flexible wicker straws. Using unsconsciously the power of its tale, moves in between the red forest destroying the whole structure.

Rojo, rama, laberinto (+bata)

2004-10-23T12:00:00.006+02:00

Armado con una fastuosa bata de cola, el creador e interprete de la acción (+bata), se dispone a poner fin a la frágil instalación rojo, rama, laberinto. Compuesta por unas dos mil inestables y fléxibles varas de mimbre rojo, la instalación se nos presenta como un laberinto tanto visual como espacial. Haciendo un uso inconsciente del poder de su cola, el artista con los ojos vendados por una cinta transparenten, se mueve-conmueve entre el bosque rojo destruyendo toda la estructura.   Cargada de tintes autobiográficos, la obra plantea unos recorridos polisemánticos entorno al cuestionamiento de género.

Como obra resultante de la acción (+bata) nos encontramos con la serie fotográfica que bajo el mismo nombre la ilustra. Del mimo modo fue producido un DVD con una duración de 3´35" que recoje el desarrollo de la performance.

English version  
Armed with a magnificent tailed robe, the interpreter of the action (+robe) gets ready to give an end to the fragile installation Red, branch, laberinth, composed by around two thousand unstable and flexible wicker straws. Using unsconsciously the power of its tale, moves in between the red forest destroying the whole structure.

(+bata) from Miguel Angel Melgares on Vimeo.

PROYECTO JOVI, de intervención en el entorno rural

2004-01-29T10:40:00.002+01:00

Proyecto jovi, se trata de una intervención pública desarrollada en el contexto de la beca de formación de artistas Al Raso. Dicho programa de realiza en un pequeño pueblo del Valle de Lecrín de Granada. Ante la multitud de tabúes en torno a cuestiones de género e identidad sexual, opté por realizar un proyecto que afectara al corazón geopolítico de dicho pueblo: el bar, su bar Jovi. Frente a la mesa de billar se ubicaban la imagen de una exuberante mujer en una mas exuberante pose. La intervención consistió en el cambio de dicha imagen por un retrato mio, que intentaba asemejarse lo máximo posible con las características generales de la imagen anterior. El objetivo era el dar la posibilidad de cuestionar el rotundo cuerpo y la dudosa masculinidad de la imagen.

English version

Project Jovi is about a public intervention carried out during the Beca de formacion de artista AlRaso. This course takes place in a little town in Granada. Facing the multiple taboos around questions of gender and sexual identity in the place, I decided to carry out a project that will take affect the geo-political heart of the town: their bar. In front of the pool table was an image of an exuberant woman in an exuberant pose. The intervention consisted in exchanging the image by a selfportrait, trying to look as much as possible like the original image.

Estrias

2003-05-12T17:59:00.008+02:00

This project was developed during a very difficult time marked by illness. The act shows a body in crisis fractured from its sense of wholeness, unstable, questioning its limitations and nature, its betrayal through sickness, its changing shape and ability to heal.

The idea was basically to count the centimeters of skin that had been stretched due to a sudden weight gain caused by my body's reaction to the medicine.

I felt no longer in control of my body, of its senses and appearence, so this was an attempt to re-configurate myself in this alienated and fractured state. It was also a reflection on the clinical world we enter as a helpless, sick body, a world which has its own aesthetic rituals that give a sense of control and sterilisation, represented here by the act of observing and measuring.

The scars which ran vertically across my stomache were the most visible, external sign of what was happening within, these lines marked the changes I was going through, a pattern of metamorphosis. Using a red paint to represent blood and the internal body, I painted my scars in an attempt to turn myself 'inside out' and rolled along a white wall. I then measured the total area made by the red paint.

The result was 249 mm.

te quiero mama