_Contemporary Myths: request for presence
In ancient Greece, before rational explanation, the world was interpreted based on stories of gods, heroes and mythical creatures. Every natural and social phenomenon had a mythological reference, without the relation of cause and effect that science pursues.
This “Pantheon” of contemporary myths don’t expect to represent the classic myths, but to use them in the free and iconoclastic way that contemporary art does, paradigm of the possible but not necessary explanations, in times of few beliefs and no certainty.
“La religión es creencia.
La ciencia es certeza.
El arte no te pide fe.
Tampoco te pide pruebas.
Sólo te pide presencia.”
Javier Argüello, 2020
_Crystal Pieces: fragile fragments of the contemporary being
Fragile Fragments of the Contemporary Being, incomplete or faulty pieces of the hurried production and marketing of ourselves.
In our fast-paced society, with no time for reflection, our existence tends to develop around banal experiences that are depleted in an instant. We are building ourselves as we are reporting our being in pieces.
Life size Blister Packs of thermoformed glass, are the packaging of the ourselves marketing.
Empty, fragile and transparent fragments as contemporary existence. They are the remains of the consumption that can still be capable of generating artistic experience. Stripped of the instant of consume, they show now with transcendent character.
The object or subject that it represents is not already there, because it has been consumed, and we must imagine it by ourselves.
_Interpretaction: a call to participate
In my first reflections concerning the artistic act, I debated in understanding the true essence of art. Why are some things artistic and others not?. Why are they so for some people and not for others?
I deduced that in this discussion, two subjects intervene: the art work itself and the people who judge it. The key is in the interaction of both; art is not a tangible thing, it’s a sensation, an experience, a spark of intuitive knowledge that is produced in specific people facing specific pieces, at specific moments. “Artistic objects don’t exist but artistic experiences and appropriate objects to provoke them”
In fact, it seems as if there are pieces (objects, spaces, actions, sounds, texts…) conceived to provoke these (artistic) experiences. Even a series of individuals specialized in creating them: the artists. These people are capable of capturing these experiences in reality and, in some way, (the artistic method does not exist) through a process of concretion, give it form or materialize it in their work, thus comprehending that reality.
In this manner, artistic work seems to be a medium where the artist aspires to register his/her experience, which in reality is instantaneous, hoping that this experience will be reproduced in the spectator.
It becomes evident that the artistic media communication is not guaranteed; only in the best cases does the spectator achieve to interpret the artwork. It is difficult for the spectator to receive the same experiences as those of the artist in his creative process. But even with an “uncertain” interpretation, it seems that the artistic object in question can provoke in the spectator similar experiences. To perceive the artwork as an interpretation and not as an understanding of it implies, on the one hand, to accept the inviability of the communication, and a necessity of keeping its meaning forever present on the other. A making of it present, but not absolutely present.
I understand my artistic creation as a process in which my actions over the material provoke reactions which give me reason to think; thus I do not try to represent the past experiences, but rather to form the artwork through my actions, and therefore remain in my most absolute present. “Experience is product of received sensations, all sensations belong in the past… Only the action is present”
Nevertheless, while presenting the artwork, what appear are the actionsʼ traces: sensations, experiences, through which one has already passed.
I concluded that my artistic creation is so in the most absolute present because it does not refer to my past experiences but to my actions. This made me understand that when the spectator perceives my action, even live, their own experience is conformed through the received sensations. Even though it is an instantaneous experience, it is not their absolute present but mine. “What you see is the past”.
To be loyal to my idea of interpret-action, the spectator should create his own artistic event, take part in the piece so that it can be inserted into his most absolute present.
My intention is to create artefacts, installations which can be used as tools or as backdrops so that the interpretative actions can develop completely in the exact moment and place in which they happen.
“Because the work of art has no life on its own , depending only on whom makes it live in its spirit. But if we see it from its own point of view, it needs to provoke that artistic experience; for it to be or not to be a work of art depends on being appreciated as such.“
“INTERPRETACTION: the interpretactive action” Javier Blanco,1999.