ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………... ii

Chapter

1. INTROCUCTION……………………………………………….. 1

PART I. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2. RESTLESS MATERIALITY……………………………………. 2

The rise of the individual (as object)

What about proper objects? The case for industrialized and

manufactured materials

3. ARE WE PAYING ATTENTION?................................................ 10

4. TOWARDS AND IMPROBABLE ALLIANCE………………... 21

5. AND SURFACE……………….………………………………… 25

PART II. THE ACTUAL WORK

6. IT´S LIKE TALKING TO A WALL AS A TESTING GROUND… 28

Proud to be your object

You-turn

I want in

A love song (on the negotiating table)

7. THE LEFTOVERS………………………………………………. 39

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………… 43

BIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….. 45

1

1. Introduction

The present paper is divided in two parts. In the first, I go through a number

of theories that reflect on the nature of materiality as a whole. The objective is to

set the tone and explain how is it that I understand the artificial nature of the

object-subject divide. I try to combine the post-humanist and decolonial

perspectives in order to suggest an emancipatory potential in the changing of our

approach to materiality in general.

The second part consists of an analysis of my MFA show titled It´s like

talking to a wall. I go through each and every piece trying to explain how they are

informed by my particular theoretical approach to materials, and how each one

performs a specific role and/or function within the show´s discursive program.

2

PART I: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2. Restless materiality

-Has it ever occurred to you that plants can feel, know, even comprehend? These trees, this hazel-nut bush.

-This is the alder-tree. -It doesn´t matter. They don´t

run about, like us, who are rising, fussing, uttering banalities.

That´s because we don´t trust nature that is inside us.

Always this suspicious haste and no time to stop and think. (Dialogue between the doctor

and Maria, The Mirror (1975) by Andrei Tarkovsky)

In Moche1 mythology, there is a tale known to scholars as the “The Revolt

of the Objects”. This event is represented in numerous ceramic vessels and murals

(See Figure 1) found in Moche temples and burials. In these representations,

weapons and utensils such as maces, clubs and slingshots appear

anthropomorphized. They are presided by two deities and seem to be attacking

their human masters. Nevertheless, this myth hides a deeper complexity. German

anthropologist Jurgen Golte tries to delve into some of this myth´s nuances in

order to better comprehend how the Moche understood the world:

“In this paper, we will only talk about one theme depicted in a series of ceramic vessels that have come to be known as “The Revolt of the Objects”. We consider this name to be problematic given that despite of the fact that the depicted events account for a war of objects against the Moche, this is not directed against their owners. We have to understand that in Moche´s conception, objects were not Moche´s subjects, they belonged to the

1 The Moche civilization occupied the northern coast of what is now Peru between 100 and 700 AD, the most productive agricultural land in the country till this day. It was comprised of numerous kingdoms that shared a same culture, ideology, religion and socio-political system. It was a highly sophisticated society that mastered diverse forms of arts and crafts, exelling in metalurgy and pottery. They left no written language that we know of and so most of the knowledge we have of them derives from some oral traditions, a few second-hand Spanish colonial chronicles but mostly from iconographic analyses on Moche´s imagery depicted in murals and pottery by 20th century and present-day scholars still influenced by Panovsky´s analytic methods.

3

realm of the Underworld and as such they were fighting against the Moche in order to surrender them to the Lunar Divinity and the Owl God, who also belonged to the Underworld, the world of the wet season. This is why we prefer to call this Moche myth the “War of the Objects”.” (p.104, “La guerra de objetos contra los moche”. Antropología. Cuadernos de Investigación. N.13. Ed. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Quito, 2014).2

Figule 1..Vessel of the “War of the Objects” under the command of the Moon Goddess and the Owl God

In the Revolt of the Objects myth, objects appear to be alive. The fact that

they were made by humans, doesn´t guarantee their allegiance as submissive

subjects, as mere non-deliberative entities. They have agency, take sides and pick

their fights accordingly. In short, objects participate in the social and political

struggles of humans as their equals. There seems to be no ontological separation

between men and non-human entities. Men and objects are just instances and

manifestations of a same continuum. This is underlined by Golte´s maneuver

when renaming the myth the “War of the objects”. In this seemingly

inconsequential act of renaming, all of a sudden, we are all deemed objects,

humans and non-humans. By default, subjectivity is left out of the equation and

2 (Translation by the author) Golte´s studies on Moche iconography are amongst the most innovative in the field. His unorthodox and speculative approach not only connects present-day cultural traditions in the Andes to Moche mythology, but he was also the first to include iconography´s three-dimensional support (the ceramic vessels) as an active significant element in the semiotic analysis. Until then, Moche iconography was analyzed as two-dimensional images independent from its spherical support, much like a painting in the Western tradition which lead to a linear and sequential reading.

4

with it the whole dialectic and dichotomic object-subject construct so

quintessential to Western Modern thinking.

In The Beginning of Ownership, Thorstein Veblen argues that the

« savage´s individuality” covered a wide range of objects, “remote things which

may or may not be included in the quasi-personal fringe » (Veblen, 1898).3

According to Joshua Simon when referring to these early individual´s objects:

“These were part of him, not owned by him. And he was part of an early community that

shared a communal life.” (p.86, Neomaterialism. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013)

“The Revolt of the Objects” and Moche mythology account for a different

epistemology that challenges our modern understanding of the world.

Nevertheless, alternative epistemologies are not something of the past. They

survive in different and numerous communities and cultures all around the world,

but they have been marginalized and their status as valid producers of knowledge

has been denied. By appropriating the idea of contemporaneity, Modernity left out

every other epistemology and condemned them to an “undead” existence, relics

from the past living in the present but not belonging or participating in History.

I believe that my work addresses these issues in a very subtle manner

through abstraction. Being explicit is a legitimate way to go about it, but there are

alternative and equally effective ways. When referring to abstraction related to

queer and transgender issues, David J. Getsy states the following:

“It´s precisely because of its own refusals of representation that abstraction seems newly

political to many artists. Abstraction has become a position from which to prompt new

visualizations and to propose new relations. Again, it resists the cultural marking of the

body by refusing the figure. Some might see this as utopian and apolitical, but there are

many artists who put forth abstraction as a way to make space for a critique of relationality

and for worldling differently. Again, it´s not the only strategy, but it is one that has been

3 p.86, Neomaterialism. Joshua Simon. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013

5

increasingly important in recent years as a means to think beyond the limitations of an

exclusive focus on the politics of representation.” (p.51, “Appearing Differently.

Abstraction´s Transgender and Queer Capacities”. David J. Getsy in conversation with

William J. Simmons. In Pink Labor in Golden Streets: Queer Art practices. Berlin:

Stenberg Press and Vienna Fine Arts Academy, 2015)

Then he goes on with the same argument when referring to Jonah

Groeneboer´s work:

“The visual discourses made by the sculptures in response to the viewer´s commitment

to get to know them are, in this way, nevertheless restrained and intentionally partial. Not

all is available to looking. Similarly, Groeneboer´s practice uses both sculpture and

painting to create works that frustrate visual discernment…” (p.53, “Appearing

Differently. Abstraction´s Transgender and Queer Capacities”. David J. Getsy in

conversation with William J. Simmons. In Pink Labor in Golden Streets: Queer Art

practices. Berlin: Stenberg Press and Vienna Fine Arts Academy, 2015)

Returning to the notion of subjectivity´s evolution, German Idealism tried

to counter the secularist and the fact-driven rationale brought about by the

Enlightenment that started the process of disenchanting the world in the 18th

century (Weber 1918). Hegel developed a model that went back and forth in trying

to dismantle the ontological separation between object and subject in order to

restore the world´s unity, deeming them mere instances of consciousness in the

process of the full manifestation of spirit. In this model, multiplicity is a mirage

and the other is more or less the reflection of the self, the spirit or the essence in

the process of revealing itself through a dialectic dynamic. The manifestation and

unfolding of spirit may go in zig-zag, but it is teleological in nature and inevitably

linear and progressive in trajectory. History is thereby born. This means that the

gap between object and subject would be impossible to bridge in the long run

given that the object, regardless of its instrumental role within this model, was

6

already acknowledged as a concrete reality and as the opposite of a new

ideological central entity: the individual.

The rise of the individual (as object)

Modernity´s main ideological construct was the notion of the individual as

the central subject of its epistemic project. New technologies of power were set in

place in order to secure this new historical agent´s position. It had to remain a

stable entity and in order to do so, new technologies of power were envisioned

and applied: disciplines and surveillance (Foucault 1974). As Foucault pointed

out, this was achieved through Panopticism4 whose aim was to domesticate and

make docile bodies out of individuals. Hence, individuals became a source of

knowledge subjected to examination and the scientific method as a whole. A

blurring between subject and object began to occur. In Foucault´s words:

“I am not saying that human sciences emerged from prison. But, if they have been able

to produce so many profound changes in the episteme, it is because they have been

conveyed by a specific and new modality of power: a certain policy of the body, a certain

way of rendering the group of men docile and useful. This policy required the

involvement of definite relations of knowledge in relations to power; it called for a

technique of overlapping subjection and objectification; it brought with it new procedures

of individualization… Knowable man (soul, individuality, consciousness, conduct,

whatever is called) is the object-effect of this analytical investment, of this domination-

observation.” (p. 305. Discipline & Punish. The Birth of Prison. Vintage Books. New

York, 1995)

4 Inspite of the fact that Bentham´s idea of the Panoptic as an architectural model for prisons didn´t achieve much of a success, according to Foucault his idea of dissymmetry in the seeing/being seen dynamics brought about a system of surveillance that is, arguably, the corner stone of power relations in modern society till this day.

7

What about proper objects? The case for industrialized/manufactured

materials

It is not farfetched then to say that if people could become resources,

objects didn´t even stand a chance since they belonged to the lowest order in this

value scale.

I believe that my work attempts to engage with these issues through an un

and re-coding of labor, craft, functionality and productivity. The objects that I

present to the viewer are, up to a certain extent, aimless. Materials in my work are

stripped from their functionality, their aesthetic qualities are aimless, and their

discreteness is put into question.

Deleuze and Guattari spent a few lines discussing how raw materials´

original configuration determine man-made forms when trying to explain their

complex theoretical model regarding the idea of territory and consistency as

consolidation:

“… But more recently, materials such as reinforced concrete have granted architecture as

a whole the possibility of freeing itself from the arborescent model, that came by pillar-trees,

beam-branches, vault-foliage.” (p.334, Mil Mecetas. Capitalismo y esquizofrenia. Ed. Pre-Textos.

Valencia, 2015)5

Lumber´s strength is determined by the elongated configuration of wood´s

structure: the grain. Grain works as concentric layers that run parallel to each other

as pipes inside one another. There are two types of layers, a hard and a soft one.

These are the result of the tree´s growth during the dry and wet season. It works

as a marker of time. In order to industrialize lumber, it needs to be serialized in

the form of modules: dimensional wood. These modules are basically different

5 Translation by the autor.

8

sized parallelepipeds, being the two by fours6 the standard and most consumed

size in the construction industry.

Here I would like to tie this idea to Foucault´s thoughts on discipline and

how it operates. Discipline produces docile bodies by increasing its economic and

utilitarian forces while diminishing their political potential through obedience.

Discipline renders elements “interchangeable, since each is defined by the place

it occupies in a series, and by the gap that separates it from the others. “(Foucault,

1995 [1974]; 145). I cannot help finding parallels to what industry does to raw

materials, such as lumber. Isn´t industry applying the same disciplinary

mechanisms to nature by treating it as a mere source of raw materials? Wasn´t

nature the first entity to be disciplined? After all, the modern prison, hospital and

school systems were designed following the factory ideological blueprint.

Coming back to Foucault´s ideas suggesting the blurring of the lines

separating subjectivity from objecthood, one could conclude that discipline is a

technology devised to create particular kinds of individuals. This operation

requires granting a specific body a subjectivity in order to (paradoxically) become

objectified (and therefore exploited). Hence, one could infer that individuals are

subjects and objects at the same time, one does not exclude the other. If that is the

case, then the logical conclusion is that everything must be an object. Subjectivity

appears as a mere device aimed at domesticating bodies that cannot exist in a pure

and absolute condition or state of being. If there´s no consistent ontological

separation between humans and non-human entities, then by default everything

6 According to wiktionary: “(chiefly Canada, US) A length of sawn wood of cross section approximately 2 inches by 4 inches, most often employed as structural framing lumber (dimension or dimensional lumber).” (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/two_by_four)

9

has the potential to possess a subjectivity of its own. It is a two-way street. The

object/subject dichotomy is then revealed as artificial.

Humans have been and still are resisting Modernity´s “tyrannical”

epistemic regime in different ways and for centuries all around the world. The

logical question to ask then is whether non-human (especially non-sentient)

entities are also resisting.

10

3. Are we paying attention?

This line of argumentation does indeed fall in the post-humanist theories´

footsteps. Nevertheless, there is a precedent that may offer a more fitting

conceptual framework for the present thesis. James J. Gibson´s version of the

Ecological Psychology theory provides a model in which the environment

interacts with the human agent by providing or making information available to

it, almost like an act of communication. Perception is then rendered as a two-

directional process and it is based on information rather than sensations.

When Bergson discusses how throughout history philosophers have

debated on whether materiality is an external (realism) or an internal (idealism)

property or phenomenon to men, he brings up an interesting question in regard to

objects:

That there is solidarity between the state of consciousness and the brain, is

unquestioned. But there is also solidarity between the cloth and the nail from which it

hangs given that if the cloth is pulled off, it falls. Because of this, should we say that the

nail´s form designs the cloth or that it allows us to somehow have a presentiment of it?

(p.28. Materia y Memoria. Ed. Cactus. Buenos Aires, 2017).7

I personally find the idea of a possible solidarity existing among objects

very appealing. And this brings me again to the question of whether objects and

non-human entities in general are struggling, if they are actually resisting the

epistemic regime they have been subjected to.

My thesis show, titled It´s like talking to a wall, features one piece that I

feel exemplifies this idea. The piece I´m talking about is titled A handshake in the

You-turn. It will be discussed in the second part of this paper, but I think it is

pertinent to bring it up at this point because it´s an instance where and when a set

7 Translation by the author.

11

of “collaborating” sentient and non-sentient beings manage to express themselves.

A handshake in the You-turn involves a plywood U-shape wall with a number of

holes through which several palm tree leaves go through and poke in. The leaves

living inside this semi-enclosed space are braided. From a distance, these leaves

seem to form a sad face (two eyes, a nose and an up-side-down arch as a mouth).

I interpret this as these entities trying to express themselves (collaboratively) in a

language that is legible to us: a face. As Deleuze and Guattari say, a face is the

blackhole of subjectivity. These plants are clearly not satisfied with this particular

arrangement and they are expressing their discontent in a way that we humans can

understand.

I would suggest that materials and objects that have been processed and

transformed by industry into becoming consumer goods may be resisting by

simply not fully complying to the various duties they have been assigned. I argue

that objects and materials´ “undesired” decay, or endurance rates, and non-

planned malfunctions may be their way of not complying, of resisting. Rusting

and rotting in the case of metal and lumber. They refuse to endure. Plastic wearing

out and loosing strength but not degrading is also a good example. It refuses to

simply go away when becoming useless.

In the first case, materials that refuse to endure are treated with chemicals

and different kinds of coatings to prevent them from decaying. These, of course,

have a limited efficacy. Again, this reminds us of Bergson when talking about

perception, matter and memory (Bergson, 1896). All things belong to a continuous

totality but in order to represent them to ourselves, we need to subtract them from

that same totality, make discrete entities out of them. Fragmentation produces

objects in that it segments and suspend the flow of reality. Objects are required to

12

be stable and that is why we need to force them into becoming independent from

the continuous, unfettered flux of reality. Industrialized goods operate in a similar

way as representations do in this model. We as a civilization as so invested in the

futile business of harnessing materials, extirpate them from their environment and

force them into subjection. This, of course, is the cause of the current

environmental crisis.

Is there any alternative to this system? How can we break away from the

inertia that is driving humanity to its doom? Would it be possible to establish a

collaboration or an alliance with materials?

These issues seem to be gaining more and more relevance and are currently

being explored from diverse perspectives. One of the most recent developments

in this regard is taking place in the field of design, which, of course, has a central

role in this problematic. Architect and designer Neri Oxman, director and founder

of the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab, is the precursor of the

Material Ecology theory which she summarizes as follows:

Material Ecology’s intimate relationship between design and biology proposes a

shift from consuming nature as a geological resource to editing it as a biological one. And

this journey from mining to growing is accelerating. Top-down form generation

(additively manufactured) combined with bottom-up growth of biological systems

(biologically synthesized) opens previously impossible opportunities: photosynthetic

building façades that convert carbon into biofuel; wearable micro-biomes that nourish our

skin through selective filtration; 3D printed matter that repairs damaged tissue. In the

Biological Age, designers and builders are empowered to dream up new, dynamic design

possibilities, where products and structures will be able to grow, heal, and adapt.

But striding nature’s way is far from natural. It requires a change in the way we

see “Mother Nature,” from a boundless nourishing entity to one that begs nourishment by

design. As we master ‘unnatural’ processes at a speed and sophistication that dwarfs

evolution, Material Ecology propels us into the age where we mother nature by design.

13

(Towards a material ecology. World Economic Forum, 2016:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/towards-a-material-ecology/).

Oxman stresses the urgency to stop considering material as a subordinate

of form, a notion that still drives the industrial mode of production where form is

“detached and independent of environmental forces and influence” (Oxman,

2015). She makes a case for designing material behavior instead. Bitmap Printing8

is an example of biologically-inspired layered fabrication (See Figure 2).

Figure 2. Example of bitmap printing technique. Design: Neri Oxman in collaboration with Prof. W. Craig Carter, Object Ltd., and The Mathworks, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2012. Photo credit: Yoram Reshef.

Exciting as these developments are and acknowledging them as an

innovative, interesting and significant step in the right direction, it must also be

said that they lack an emancipatory component given that Material Ecology

doesn´t address the asymmetric power relations and the epistemic bias the modern

8 “The bitmap printing technique allows for the capturing of material property data in high resolution as a collection of bitmap files printed in 16µ resolution.” (Towards a material ecology. World Economic Forum, 2016: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/towards-a-material-ecology/).

14

industrial model operates under. It is as if it were only trying to tweak the system

instead of subverting it.

If any alliance or collaboration is to be established between us and

materials, it needs to be one aimed at sabotaging the functionality and utilitarian

role imposed to them. I envision an asymmetrical and tactical approach: poetic

and political action that would erode, destabilize and eventually subvert the

established epistemic order.

I believe my work aims toward these goals, though it doesn´t necessarily

provides definitive answers and it definitely does not intend to be prescriptive. I

view It´s like talking to a wall as a laboratory of sorts where functionality and the

materials´ need to express themselves are played out to negotiate their terms with

each other, sometimes with contradictory results.

There are some political initiatives that address the environmental crisis

from this perspective and sensibility. Such is the case of the Movimiento por el

Agua y los Territorios-MAT (Movement for Water and Territories), a Chilenean

activist movement fighting for the right of rivers and water courses in general to

be recognized as legal subjects with the same rights before the law as any other

(human) citizen. MAT is one amongst many other activist groups all around the

world fighting for the same cause. Rivers such as the Ganges in India, the Quindió

in Colombia and the Urewera in New Zealand have been granted such a statute by

their countries´ governments. I view this as a tactical move in that its practical

effectiveness is very limited given that corporations and governments can always

find the necessary loopholes that will allow them to denaturalize the spirit of the

law. After all, they still hold the monopoly of power and violence. I say that it is

a tactical move in that these initiatives do not seem to be necessarily or uniquely

15

aimed at beating the system in its own game. I argue that these tactics intend to

destabilize the ideology that is the basis of capitalism and the nation-state as a

whole. By extending the notion of citizenship to non-human entities, the modern

individual, which is still the corner stone of the established order and the dominant

epistemology, becomes de-centered, almost peripherical.

The same sensibility informing these explorations and developments in

politics appear to be trickling down into the realm of science (or the other way

around). For example, in recent years many researchers have been focusing on

how “stressed plants show altered phenotypes, including changes in color and

shape”(Khait, 2019). According to very recent studies, plants also seem to emit

‘airborne sounds’ in the same circumstances.9 French botanic scientist Francis

Hallé goes even further when inquired about his radical ideas on plants as

intelligent beings:

M.C.: How can plants be intelligent if they have no brain?

F.H.: They don´t have lungs either, nevertheless they breathe. They don´t have eyes, still

they can see light. They don´t have an alimentary canal, still they feed. That intelligence

requires a brain, is what a dictionary says. But who wrote that? A human being that has

defined intelligence at his own image and likeness.” (Francis Hallé: “Las plantas son

inteligentes, quizás más que nosotros”. Interview by Michelle Catanzaro in elPeriódico.

Barcelona, Monday 21st September 2019)10

Admittedly, it seems easier for us to get our heads around the idea of living

organisms as intelligent beings and therefore bearers of some kind of subjectivity.

How do we make the same case for non-living objects? First, let us talk about

organic materials such as wood. What is wood but a dead tree, a corpse.

9 Plants emit airborne sounds when stressed by I. Khait, O. Lewin-Epstein, R. Sharon, K. Saban, R. Perelman, A. Boonman, Y. Yovel, L. Hadany. bioRxiv. The Preprint Server for Biology, 2019. Yet to be certified by peer review as for January 2020. 10 Translation by the autor.

16

In pre-Columbian Peru, ancestors, patriarchs and kings were mummified

after death fulfilling a new place and role in their communities. They were known

as mallqui. They were active members of society not only participating in diverse

rituals but even politics. This is not exclusive to the ancient Andean culture.

Various other contemporary cultures and ethnic groups have similar practices in

Asia today.11 These cases defy the idea of life as a threshold, an established

criterion and an attribute that defines the extent and limits of a sentient being´s

agency. Active participation in the world cannot be limited to beings living in the

present, it must be extended to all that came before us and that are still to come. I

argue that the same criterion must be applied to all organic matter, i.e. wood.

Now, what about non-organic materials and objects? Here I would also

have to come back to other cultures´ worldviews deemed animistic in Western

eyes. In ancient Peru´s worldview, which remains very much alive in the country´s

highlands, mountains, creeks and rock formations were considered deities with

human qualities: wakas. In the 16th century, the Spanish colonial authorities

carried out three campaigns that came to be known as the extirpación de idolatrías

(idolatry removals) in order to force the indigenous populations into embracing

Christianity by destroying their wakas. It was a futile undertaking that highlighted

the epistemological gap separating these two very different and opposing cultures.

The wakas couldn´t be destroyed simply because their nature went beyond form.

No matter what you do to a rock, it will remain a rock. Wakas didn´t work as

representations or abstractions. In the ancient Andean world there was no real

separation between sign and signifier12 and this is something the Spanish couldn´t

11 Such is the case in the Toroja region of Sulawesi in eastern Indonesia. 12 From my notes on Dr. Hyman´s presentation titled Colonial Cuzco´s Aesthetic of Sameness at the Woldenberg Art Center in Tulane University. February 18th, 2019.

17

get their heads around. Forms can certainly be destroyed, but that is not the case

for matter. This is precisely what Oxman is trying to achieve through her Material

Ecology approach: to break away from the notion of material as subordinate of

form.

In my work, I am more interested in displaying this tension rather than

resolving it. There are moments when materials seem to direct form and others

when the contrary is the case. I try to embrace contradiction in my work in the

same way Peruvian literary critic Antonio Cornejo Polar understands the concept

of “Heterogeneity” as the defining cultural feature in postcolonial Latin America.

The Spanish conquest produced a split and irreconcilable subjectivity in the

inhabitants of that part of the world, one that is not entirely indigenous nor

European. It is a dilemmatic conflict with no resolution (a double bind) that

according to Cornejo Polar should be fully embraced as it is given that the real

problem is not the split in itself but the seeking of a resolution for it. It is Western

modern´s epistemology and its driving non-contradiction principal the source of

every conflict, simply because it fails to acknowledge reality´s complex plurality.

Uruguayan literary critic Angel Rama´s argument in La Ciudad Letrada

(1984) (The Lettered City) is that in the specific case of Latin America, Baroque

culture fulfilled early Modernity´s utopia in that the sign became king. Due to the

particularities of the process of colonization in Latin America, the lettered world

took an unprecedented relevance, in a way in which reality became subordinate to

the sign. The sign became independent and imposed a vertical and authoritarian

regime on reality by shaping it and thereby inverting the intuitive causal

relationship. I believe that a similar operation occurred all over the world in varied

degrees and characteristics. Jean Baudrillard´s and Italian Marxist philosopher

18

Franco “Bifo” Berardi´s theory of Semiocapitalism seems to fall on those same

lines. According to them, capitalism´s latest stage consists of a frantic production

and accumulation of signs conducive to the productivization of every aspect of

human subjectivity. This could have only been achieved after the sign´s regime

had harnessed reality.

Once again, Bergson has something pertinent to say on the matter of how

signs operate:

“Now, here it is the image that I call a material object; I posses its representation.

Where does the fact that it doesn´t seem to be in itself to me come from? It is the result

of the fact that, in solidarity to the totality of the other images, it continues in those that

follow it in the same way as it prolonged the ones that preceded it. In order to transform

its pure and simple existence in a representation, it would be enough to suppress from a

single strike that that fills it up, thereby not preserving anything more that an exterior

crust, a superficial film.” (p.50. Materia y Memoria. Ed. Cactus. Buenos Aires, 2017).13

Objects have always signified in the Western tradition, but consumer

culture exacerbated the scope of object-signs like never before. Art historian

Frederic J. Schwartz analyzes this phenomenon in relation to the Bauhaus:

“In the 20th century an increasing proportion of objects entered into a system of

social semiotics in the form of commodities… The consumer market place is one of the

preeminent signifying realms in Modernity.” (p.131. Utopia for Sale: The Bauhaus and

Weimar Germany´s consumer culture, in James Kathleen´s Bauhaus Culture: from

Weimar to the Cold War. University of Minnesota Press. London, Minneapolis, 2006)

From a more materialist perspective and according to Joshua Simon:

“Over the last four decades we have witnessed processes of dematerialization in

various fields: with the dissolution of the gold standard, money has been dematerialized,

commodities have been dematerialized with the ascendance of brand names, and art

practices were dematerialized by the emergence of movements such as Conceptual art…

These processes that aim toward dematerialization provided a new kind of materiality.

13 Translation by the autor.

19

Whereas life has gone through a process of spiritualization and abstraction, the abstract

and symbolic have gained material-like qualities. The commodity has become the

historical subject as it has come to utilize us as hunter-gatherers, reduced to merely

absorbing capital´s surpluses. Jaques Rancière aptly names the regimes that call

themselves democracies, “the lived world framed by the power of the commodity”.”

(p.17, Neomaterialism. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013)

Simon seems to suggest that objects and their accordant materiality have

gained subjectivity through the fetishist aura granted by their status as commodity.

This allowed for objects to become socialized by being subjected to a process of

abstraction through the means of labor and exploitation. I partially agree with this

premise in that it doesn´t address the origins of subjectivity. According to his

scheme, its original source is still the human individual and his experience in the

world. I view subjectivity as a projection of the self onto the world of things. What

I am about to say may seem as a reversal to the main thesis in this paper, but

subjectivity (in a lack for a better concept and definition) is preexistent to

humanity, consciousness and the self. We understand a human being as an

ontological unity, a totality of sorts. I argue that consciousness and the notion of

self are the result of many interacting subjectivities. In short, a combination of

numerous intersubjectivities: bones negotiating with muscles, the bloodstream

negotiating with the veins´ walls, etc. For the sake of argument, I will say that the

human body is the sum of endless discrete entities, each with its own particular

way of being-in-the-world (its own dasein, if you prefer). This particular

interaction produced us. We are not the source of the original subjectivity. We are

only one additional stage in the “progression” of materiality in the process of

negotiating its being-in-the-world. This is a fluid progression (a non-linear

trajectory, in reality) that resists any type of reductionist approach. Having said

that, the notion of discrete moments, states, beings and objects is used in this

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context only as a default concept, a merely instrumental one that will hopefully

put itself in evidence as an artificial one.

In any case, we are once again confronted with the problem of reality´s

fragmentation, this time through the means of representation and abstraction.

Coming back to the issue of non-organic materials and objects, form works

in the same way as signs in isolating them in our minds from the fluidity of reality

where they are in relation with everything else in a continuous dialogue and

negotiation. In my opinion, this interaction alone grants them an agency and a

potential subjectivity that goes beyond the confines and artificial boundaries of

life (and culture).

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4. Towards an improbable alliance

That Modernity constituted a seismic epistemological shift in Western

culture, wouldn´t have been necessarily as problematic if it had not claimed

universality for itself. This is where coloniality, the dark side of Modernity

(Quijano 1992), comes into play. Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez

(2005) coined the term “Ground zero hybris” (hybris del punto cero) to refer to

the pure, authentic, incorporeal and placeless locus that Modern Western rationale

arrogated for itself during the Renaissance (Mignolo 2015). Ever since, this has

been the only parameter with which everything and anything would be measured

against. This, added to the proselytizing nature of its Christian heritage, meant that

Modernity was not just another epistemology amongst many, it was deemed to be

the one and only Truth. Europe viewed itself as having the moral duty to bring the

Truth to everyone all around the world.

Additionally, the conquest of the Americas produced a new technology of

power: racism. Never before in history an entire population´s belonging to the

human race had been put into question. For the first time, discrimination was

based on biological terms and this newly “discovered” people were now deemed

racially inferior14. The polémica de los naturales (the polemic of the “naturals”)

that lasted for decades with law scholars, theologists and philosophers debating

on whether the indigenous peoples of the Americas had a soul or not, only

culminated in the Junta de Valladolid15 when these peoples were finally

14 Although Silvia Federici would argue in Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and the Primitive Accumulation (2004) that it was actually women in the Middle Ages the first human group to be discriminated against in biological terms. 15 The Valladolid Debate took place in Valladolid, Spain between 1550 and 1551. Theologian and Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas advocated for the Amerindians condition as free men while humanist scholar Juan Ginés Sepúlveda lead the opposite view arguing that the fact that they had indulged in cannibalism and other “crimes against nature” was unacceptable.

22

acknowledged as humans in possession of a soul, but the damage had already been

done. People could now become a commodity to be exploited if and when

considered inferior beings. This allowed for the original source of wealth

accumulation that gave way to the birth of capitalism. In a sleight of hand,

Enlightenment secularized the idea of spirit into subjectivity and this was granted

to a given body according to the need of exploiting it or not.

Parallel to this process, the dichotomy between nature and culture is

affirmed as a pillar in Modern rationality by dividing the world into two different

orders. It is a logic trap that produces a false dilemma given that these two orders

exclude each other, you have to belong to either one, not to both (Mignolo 2015).

Paradoxically, this absolute division also works as a scale to measure how far or

close to one of these two orders a given body is situated. A hierarchical and

gradual system operating in terms of gender, race, nationality, social status, etc.

assigns bodies a place in this value scale.

An additional and essential element in this equation is the regulation of

what bodies have the privilege of producing knowledge and which don´t: the

coloniality of being (Mignolo 2015). The world was schematically divided in this

way: Europeans produced knowledge, native Americans wisdom, and Africans

experience.

Nature becomes disenchanted, it is not a place where mystery resides

anymore. It is a source of quantifiable and qualifiable data instrumental to the

Modern project. It is a source of raw materials to be exploited by the centers of

power through the labor of peoples who are at the bottom of the social scale and

therefore closer to the natural order of things within this scheme.

23

Fast forwarding to the 1960´s and 70´s in Latin America, the Dependency

theory unveiled an established world order that had divided it between the

advanced industrial countries and the raw material producer countries; the

developed and developing countries; the center and the periphery. This was not

the result of chance, it was by design. Forty years prior to that, Peruvian Marxist

philosopher Jose Carlos Mariátegui was the first in realizing that the Latin

American independence process that took place in the early 19th century had only

been a castling maneuver where the colonial authorities were replaced by the local

(white) elites while keeping the old colonial exploitative system intact. The new

masters rapidly became subservient to the new and emerging metropolitan

powers: the British Empire and the French Republic to a lesser extent. “Free trade”

was the new means of European imperialism. The United States would later take

the post after the European powers´ decline. Emancipation was still (and still is)

a pending task and colonialism clearly continued after the establishment of the

new “independent” republics.

In short, brown and black peoples and countries were assigned a specific

role and a specific subordinate place in the world order. They were denied the

possibility of becoming producers of knowledge and true beneficiaries of the

system. These countries were relegated to be raw materials producers and a source

of cheap labor. I view this as an opportunity, as an open flank, an Achilles heel in

late capitalism´s logic. A possibility to forge an alliance with objects and materials

in order to subvert this unjust world order is on the table. The racialized peoples

of the world happen to be in this struggle´s frontline but given the spiraling and

ever accelerating depredatory dynamics of the system, no one will be spared. This

24

is why this potentially emancipatory project is not limited to racialized peoples, it

truly incudes everyone.

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5. And surface

Walls are instrumental in fragmenting reality and creating hierarchical and

specialized spaces. This is essential when it comes to producing patterns of

conduct, domesticated bodies and objects. As Foucault says:

“In organizing ́ cells´, ́ places´ and ́ ranks´, the disciplines create complex spaces that

are at once architectural, functional and hierarchical. It is spaces that provide fixed

positions and permit circulation; they carve out individual segments and establish

operational links; they mark places as indicate values; they guarantee the obedience of

individuals, but also a better economy of time and gesture.” (p. 148. Discipline & Punish.

The Birth of Prison. Vintage Books. New York, 1995)

In order to perform such duty, surfaces need to appear to act as definitive

and stable boundaries. They are supposed to be solid and opaque in order to

effectively separate spaces. As such, they necessarily have to conceal what is

beyond them. Not only that, in most cases they must also conceal the materials

they are made from and how their inner structures work (in the case of walls,

surfaces work as ontological mirrors; they inform about the nature of the space

they contain and the bodies that operate in relation to those spaces). Surface in

itself is not inquired or acknowledged as something in itself.

I believe my work shares a similar sensibility in regard to surface with that

of Brazilian artist Daniel Steegmann. His work deals with translucid and

undulating surfaces that act as walls. He is most definitely addressing the Brazilian

modernist tradition in architecture that shaped their identity as a nation in the 20th

century. These “walls” act as phantasmagoric presences that regardless of their

translucid, delicate and even soft nature, they are still able to govern and

“discipline” bodies in space as effectively as a proper hard and solid wall would.

In doing so, Steegmann reflects on the materiality of surfaces: where do they

actually exist, if at all?

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Figure 3. A leaf-Shaped Animal Draws the hand. Daniel Steegmann. Milan, 2019. Photo: Agostino Osio.

The question then is whether surfaces have a depth, an interiority of their

own. Dutch philosopher Timotheus Vermeulen brings this line of inquiry into the

realm of contemporary arts. He argues that after Warhol, in the postmodern

moment, the “beyond” in the work of art was abolished. While before him a

painting would convey ideas and sensibilities beyond its physical borders,

Warhol´s works simply do not. As Warhol himself said: “If you want to know all

about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of my paintings and films and me,

and there I am. There´s nothing beyond it” (Vermeulen 2015). In Vermeulen´s

essay The New “Depthiness”, the author makes the case for what he perceives as

a shift and a change in attitude in regard to how surfaces are being approached by

contemporary artists nowadays:

“… In stark contrast with the surface of Warhol´s Diamond Dust Shoes, which

articulated no clues about affections, localities, or stories behind it, the surfaces of

photographs, sculptures, and drawings by a younger generation of artists once again hint

at depth. As I suggested above, this is not an empirical or logical depth, but a performative

depth of what one may call, in the absence of a more appropriate terminology, the

“without”. The without is an approximation of depth which acknowledges that the surface

may well be depthless, while simultaneously suggesting an outside of it nonetheless. Van

Gogh´s surfaces were marked with traces of a behind. The surface of Warhol covered

these traces up. Contemporary surfaces, I would say, haven´t uncovered them, exactly,

but instead simulate them.” (The New “Depthiness”, e-flux. Journal #61, January 2015)

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I believe that my work relates to what Vermeulen postulates as a new and

emerging sensibility in the contemporary arts. Nevertheless, I have some

objections when he claims that this new interest in depth takes the form of a

simulation, a performance. He also views a simulation of depth as a “copy without

an original”. Of course, this falls in line with the Metamodernism theory he and

his colleague Robin van den Akker defend, basically claiming that our sensibility

is still shaped and informed by postmodernism. This means that we cannot do

away with irony (and cynicism) but the urgency for change in society (e.g.

environmental crisis and growing inequality) compels us to “act as if” we still

believed in the great modern narratives (i.e. utopia) that would allow as to bring

about the desired change.

I am going to be a little bit bold and risk being regarded as naïve. I believe

in depth, I also believe in the possibility of a radical change. But I don´t believe

in great narratives. I believe those two things are not necessarily tied together and

that in fact are antagonistic. I am for a radical epistemological change that will

hopefully allow us to reconcile ourselves with the “world of things”, to re-enchant

the world and establish a new sense of solidarity (even love) with all that

surrounds us. I would like to think that sentiment informs my work. As a closure

for this chapter, I will quote D.H. Lawrence on Herman Melville, not being

entirely sure whose side I pick on the matter:

"He ever pined for Home and Mother, the two things he had run away from as far as ships

would carry him.... Melville came home to face out the rest of his life.... He refused life.

But he stuck to his ideal of perfect relationship, possible perfect love.... A truly perfect

relationship is one in which each party leaves great tracts unknown in the other party.. . .

Melville was, at the core, a mystic and an idealist.... And he stuck to his ideal guns. I

abandon mine. I say, let the old guns rot. Get new ones, and shoot straight.” (As quoted

in Deleuze and Guattari´s A Thosuand Plateaus)

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PART II: THE ACTUAL WORK

6. It´s like talking to a wall as a testing ground

I have always had a special relationship with materials in my practice as

an artist. The tactile experience of making things with my hands is something I

have been drawn to since a very early age, it is something I deeply cherish. This

became a more conscious practice six years ago when I turned away from painting

and began making sculptural objects. Almost by instinct, I went into weaving

strips of paper into large sculptures, very much like the kind of work one does in

kindergarten as a kid (See Figure 4). It was a time consuming and methodical

labor that put me in a state of quasi meditation.16 I would have a very rough idea

of what the final outcome would look like when starting a project, and in the

process of making a kind of dialogue between myself and the material would

eventually be established. It felt like a negotiation between equal parts rather than

me taking the role of the one and only decision-maker.

Figure 4. The mechanics of becoming. 2015. Weaved strips of paper, cardboard. (Photo by the artist)

16 Given the crafty nature of my practice, this brings to mind Glenn Adamson when stating that “perhaps craft and labor are not about turning off the brain but reactivating different centers”. (p.82-84, “Thinking Through Craft”, Journal of Design History, Volume 22, Issue 1, 2009)

29

This brings me to the present moment and my personal experience in New

Orleans. As a Peruvian living in the US for the first time, I began to notice how

quickly and subtly I was being racialized and assigned a specific ethnic identity:

Hispanic. Unusual things started to happen. For instance, all of a sudden, I found

myself listening to salsa music in a way I never had before. I interpreted this as an

unconscious response to the new cultural (and ideological) context that was

operating on me, rapidly and efficiently assigning me a place in this social order.

Previous to my arrival in New Orleans, I had briefly experimented with

woodworking. I knew I wanted to continue that exploration. When making my

first round at Lowe’s to purchase materials, I couldn´t help noticing that all the

signs were both in English and Spanish. Of course, it didn´t come as a surprise

since most of the hand labor employed in the construction industry is constituted

by Hispanic immigrants. Later on, I would incorporate materials and construction

techniques proper to the construction trade into my artistic practice. I felt naturally

drawn to these without being able to make sense of why. I had also started to

incorporate plants into my projects. Gardening also happens to be an economic

activity where Hispanic hand labor seems to be prevalent. It was only after some

time that it finally hit me. I was dealing with materials and types of labor that were

and still are typically related to the community I now belonged to. It is most likely

that if I had arrived in this country as an immigrant instead of as a student, I would

have ended up working with these same materials, tools and objects in general. I

could not help myself wondering if these objects were trying to reach out to me,

if I was responding to my environment in a way similar to Gibson´s Ecological

Psychology model. Were materials trying to communicate and interact with me?

30

Were they acknowledging me as “one of them”? Were we establishing some kind

of collaboration, an alliance of sorts?

I believe that one of the key features into understanding my work in the

present thesis exhibition titled It´s like talking to a wall, is a series of pine two by

fours that have been carefully carved. After a long process of experimentation

with wood, I realized that the soft grain could easily be carved out leaving behind

the hard grain only in what resembled a strange carcass (see Figure 5). This

procedure not only rendered them fragile but also relatively flexible. By steaming

these carved out sections, I was able to warp them in different ways.

Figure 5. Details of Proud to be your object, 2020.

I view this operation as a gesture aimed at liberating the material from the

serial, modular and geometrical form imposed on it by the lumber industry.

Dimensional wood (form) can be understood as a very rigid code in that it

subjugates the material into a predetermined set of possible configurations,

combinations and permutations. As numerous as these may be, they are finite. By

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un-coding the material, a disruption takes place, one that will allow for the

material to actually express itself.

This operation performs an additional gesture that is characteristic to most

of my work but that in this specific case is particularly significant. This has to do

with the detailed, meticulous and time-consuming labor invested in these

carvings. I am not creating a new form or a previously non-existent image. I am

only “uncovering” something that was already there. It is like if I were carefully

copying a pre-existent form. I relate the attitude and the sensibility informing this

operation with Vermeulen´s take on other contemporary artists whose work have

similar characteristics in the context of his previously discussed Depthiness

theory:

“There are several other artists whose works - drawings, sculptures, drawn

sculptures, and otherwise – meticulously infuse humanity into the simulation, and as a

consequence reintroduce the possibility of an outside. For example, Ane Mette Hol

handcrafts three-dimensional simulations of everyday objects. Oftentimes the Norwegian

artist simulates objects that people overlook, ignore, or discard, like cardboard wrappings,

printing paper, and dust. In one particularly poignant piece called Untitled (Artificial

Light) (2013), she uses a pencil to meticulously copy the automatized, mass-printed

lettering that marks the cardboard wrapping of a TL light – the brand, the type, the

voltage, and so forth. To spend such time and effort on something as insignificant as a

copy of a wrapping of a TL light spells out an act of immense empathy. In these works,

much unlike the sculptures of Koons, simulation is not what preempts history, locality,

or personal affect, but precisely what returns it.” (The New “Depthiness”, e-flux. Journal

#61, January 2015)

Once again, I do not entirely buy Vermeulen´s idea of a simulation taking

place in such a gesture, especially when it comes to my carved-out pieces. I am

not copying an industrially produced image or form. I view it instead as if I were

“copying” a material in that I am traducing wood´s encoded information/data into

form. Nevertheless, I fully embrace the idea of the act of meticulously “copying”

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something as one of “immense empathy”. In my case, empathy towards the

material. I would even put it in terms of deep compassion.

Proud to be your object

Proud to be your object (see Figures 6) is what I consider to be the central

piece in my show. I view it as the staging of the dynamics and systems described

in this paper in regard to the nature of materiality.

Figure 6. View of Proud to be your object, 2020

In the first place, there´s the matter of surface. The piece displays a

convoluted plywood surface. On the “exterior” side, it is painted white and its

edges have been rounded. It is a polished and smooth surface that conceals its true

nature. Nevertheless, the structures that keep it in place are exposed in the back

side. In this case, we could talk in terms of a parody of concealment for the

purpose of staging the discussed dynamics. In any case, a clear division between

two different but dialectically complementary systems: surface and structure. This

undulating surface reaches a “dramatic” point where it turns 180° going up and

33

then down before touching the ground. This creates an inner space in the form of

a tunnel. In order to hold the whole piece together given the ongoing structural

stress resulting from this dramatic “move”, one would expect a number of beams

connecting and holding together the two walls of this tunnel. That is not the case.

The three beams that would perform this duty are carved out, partially hollowed,

and warped as if they were being compressed by the tunnel´s walls (which they

are). They have been properly defunctionalized and therby rendered useless. In a

way, they have also been freed from a (certain) regime of disiplined form. It is a

paradoxical and even contradictory type of freedom given that it is achieved only

under compression and tension. To me, this displayed tension is something that

resembles a true (idealized) expression of the material. This gesture may be

localized, but it has the ability to project its “emancipatory” potential to the totality

of the work. And beyond. Our perception and understanding of every piece of

wood is altered, we now see them as witholding these potential dynamic, elastic

and unpredictable uncoded forms/qualites. Every piece of wood now has the

potential to explode.

The division of these two different systems (the white, smooth surface and

the structure that sustains it), is emphasized by a couple of additional elements.

The surface has four holes or punctures that work as windows connecting the two

sides. One of these round holes located at the “front” of the piece, serves as a base

for a glass vessel that contains the sawdust obtained from the carving process the

mentioned beams were subjected to. This sawdust was previously sifted in order

to obtain two different particle sizes. These were arranged in a layered layout,

alternating one on top of the other inside the glass container. I view this as a

reaction to what´s going on inside the “tunnel”. The exterior surface, representing

34

some kind of stable system, is trying to restore (a dichotomic, dialectic, dual)

order. Through a second hole, a palm tree is poking out. The pot nesting the plant

remains on the back side, the one representing potential “disorder”: “truth”. The

palm tree´s leaves are braided, weaved into a grid-like arrangement. The space

they live in is disciplining them in a very consistent way.

You-turn

The last staged operation described in the previous paragraph in reference

to Proud to be your object is taken a little further in You turn (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Your-turn, 2020.

This piece consists of a standing white plywood surface making a U-turn.

It is supported by an external structure creating a partially contained space. This

surface doesn´t meet the ground at any point. The same two-system dynamics

operating in Proud to be your object is in place in You-turn. There are also a

number of holes along the horizontal length of the plywood surface. Four palm

trees are located out of this semi-enclosed space and one of each plant´s leaves

35

are poking through the holes. These leaves are braided. The rest of the plant´s

leaves are not. Within this U-shape semi-contained space, the four braided leaves

form what looks like a sad face (two eyes, a nose and a mouth). This resulting face

was admittedly unexpected, nevertheless I believe it falls in line almost perfectly

with the show´s discursive program in that it is the only manifestation of a human-

like face. Generic and un-specific as it may be (it is basically a caricature of a

face), it is the clearest expression of a humane-like subjectivity produced by what

may be interpreted as a collaboration of non-human beings and entities trying to

convey a “message” of sorts. I also feel that it establishes a link and a relationship

with A love song (on the negotiating table), a piece that will be discussed in the

following pages. In a way, both pieces work as a response to each other and thus

establish a kind of framework, maybe even a narrative that helps in unfolding the

show in a more coherent way.

I want in

This is a discontinuous sculpture/installation in that it takes place in

different locations within the gallery space. It is constituted by three elements.

Two of them are two tongue-like u-shape surfaces that come out of the gallery´s

walls at different points. They have a hole in the middle through which two of the

carved-out, carcass-like two by fours go through standing vertically on the floor.

Standing against the wall and at one of these elements´ side, there´s a framed

piece. It is compressed sawdust against a glass pane arranged in a staggered

geometrical design. As in Proud to be your object, this combination of subtractive

and additive elements suggests the existence of a dialectic system/cycle. The

particularity of this piece is that it involves the gallery´s walls, rendering them as

36

active participants within the show, thereby breaking the work of art´s

conventional constrains and expanding its scope into its container (and beyond).

Figure 8. I want in, 2020 A love song (on the negotiating table)

This is an installation consisting of a looping nine-minute video projection

together with a number of related objects.

I happen to have the particular ability/capacity to move and make my

ankle´s tendons vibrate at will. When pressing a solid object against my ankle

while vibrating, a beating sound is produced. The video depicts me on a white

plywood platform interacting with various pieces of wood, including one of the

carved-out carcass-like ones. These are laying on the platform while I go around

picking them up and “playing” them with my ankles. The video is framed in such

a way that only my naked limbs appear on the screen (see figure 9). This is an

intentional move aimed at leveling the table, so to speak. I relate the human figure

as a totality (being the face its central feature) to Deleuze and Guattari´s concept

of faciality traits, the core of what they deem as the blackhole of subjectivity

37

(Deleuze and Guattari, 1980). I am not claiming that traces of my own subjectivity

are not present in this video piece, but they become secondary and less relevant

given the absence of my full figure and body. My individual identity is certainly

obscured. My limbs take on a more object-like quality establishing a horizontal

relationship with the wooden pieces they are interacting with, as if they were

conversing in a skin-to-skin idiom. This unusual “conversation” has the ability of

estranging both the (my particular) human body and the objects themselves by

making them do things they would not normally do. They and their capacity to

relate to each other are being un-coded.

Figure 9. A love song (on a negotiating table) (still), 2020.

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The “bareness” of the objects participating in this video-performance

introduces a sensual element into the show as a whole. After experiencing A love

song (on a negotiating table), the viewer will see the rest of the exhibition under

a different light. The fact that all the sculptures/installations have a human-scale

will become all the more clear. These are objects that have been loved and taken

care of by a human body (and vice versa).

The placement of this installation in a separate room within the gallery is

strategic. The sound coming from the video projection will be audible in the whole

gallery. It will act as a background/environmental sound that will only make sense

to the viewer once they watch the video. In that sense, A love song (on a

negotiating table) is instrumental in the putting in place of different reading stages

(not necessarily sequential) within the exhibition. There are different layers of

meaning that the viewer has to navigate through in order to fully experience the

show. In short, it´s about setting up a (non-linear) experiential program.

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7. The leftovers

There are a number of pieces that may seem to be a little bit off-script

within the present body of work. These are divided into two groups. The first one

is what I have come to call the “screen paintings”. These consist of two pieces.

They both use an aluminum mesh as their main support. In the first case, a

meandering band runs through the screen´s surface changing colors and

configuration (see figure 10). The pigment has been applied in such a way that

they fill in the mesh´s square gaps and so their configuration resembles one of a

cross-stitch textile or a pixeled image. This inevitably touches on the longstanding

contemporary debate on painting´s nature and role. By stressing the pigment´s

physicality, painting as a three-dimensional object is brought to the foreground.

Figure 10. Once a map, 2019.

40

This screen painting also works as a kind of map. The depicted bands are

constantly turning directions and colors, intersecting each other in a system that

could be projected onto the whole exhibition. Nevertheless, it is not an explicit

proposition. The link between this piece and the rest of the show remains

ambiguous.

The second “screen painting” has a different approach to the same matter.

This time, instead of filling in the gaps, the mesh´s threads have been colored

forming a similar system/patter as in the previous piece. The color bands have a

more transparent feeling. The screen is entangled with three continuous wooden

structures that turn 180° several times and that intersect one another. This structure

does relate to various other pieces within the exhibition in that their curve´s

radiuses replicate those found in the other sculptures/installations. This implies a

shared system/language, a pattern. The sculpture sits on a weird-shaped white

plywood surface. This shape is the cutout letfover resulting from the jigs made for

the bending of the laminated u-shape two by fours used in other pieces

participating in the show. The plywood´s edges have been rounded and its surface

painted white. Its origins therefore remain obscure to the viewer.

Figure 11. No title, 2020

41

Finally, there are two framed “paintings” participating in the exhibition.

They are actually dot paintings. I used the grid system provided by the canvass-

like texturized paper to create my designs. The frames that contain them are

curved making them look as if they were physically interacting with the viewer,

trying to reach them.

Figure 12. Do you see me, 2019

The pertinence of the discussed pieces in the context of It´s like talking to

a wall is not entirely spelled out. I view these components as a necessary “surplus

meaning”. Meaning cannot be a fixed and stable thing and, in my view, there have

to be elements that break away from what may seem a rigid and consolidated

discourse. In that sense, I would argue in favor of a horizon of meaning instead.

The pieces described here are fundamental in providing a “vanishing point”. They

cannot be fully explained or justified and therefore they inevitably “compromise”

42

the whole body of work presented in this thesis show. To put it in Wittgenstein´s

words:

“Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached a bedrock, and my spade

is turned. Then I am inclined to say: “This is simply what I do.”

(Remember that sometimes we demand justifications for the sake not of their

content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation a kind

of sham corbel that supports nothing.)” (p.91. Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell

Publishing Ltd. Oxford, 2009)

Figure 13. It´s like talking to a wall, 2020. Carroll Gallery (View)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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BIBOGRAPHY Blas Isasi (Lima, 1981) is a Peruvian visual artist. He holds a Bachelor degree

with a Major in Painting from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006).

He is also an alumnus of the post academic program at the Jan van Eyck Academy

in the Netherlands (2014-15). In 2015 he received the Braunschweig PROJECTS

Scholarship granted by the HBK (Brunswick University of the Arts) and the state

of Lower Saxony consisting of a one-year residency in Brunswick, Germany. His

work has been shown in Peru, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.