ORLD - enblanco Projektraum este sábado

Este viernes viajo a Berlín para montar una exposición que se inaugura el sábado en enblanco Projektraum! Presento un proyecto nuevo bajo el nombre ORLD. Habrá una lista, un dibujo y una publicación hecha para la ocasión. Todo hecho sobre un fino papel de biblia de 60 gr... En días posteriores actualizaré la entrada con fotos de la obra y la inauguración. Mientras tanto dejo el texto que escribí para el proyecto.

Our starting point is game and absurdity. To buy a plane ticket, to sign in in any website, eventually, we will have to scroll down in a list with all the countries in the world to set where we are going, where we are coming from, where we were born...

The alphabetical order the countries are presented in these lists always made me laugh: Andorra after Albania? Canada between Cameroon and Cape Verde? Germany between Georgia and Ghana... Usually we are so used to see some things that don't realize how absurd they are...To have them in alphabetical order, of course, make sense, is easy to use...easy to find one in particular...but, what is the relation that this order creates between the countries?

We also know what happens with alphabetical ordered lists... they are very democratic, all the objects contented in the list, in the bag, are somehow equalized, there is no way to emphasize how much more important, or relevant in international politics is China than Fiji or how Russia is humongous compared to Luxembourg for instance.

This is similar to the beginning of some films in which the name of the actors appear in alphabetical order... I always think that the director does not want to hurt any actor...

I decided I want to play with it! But I wanted to change something before starting...Play pranks. What if we get rid of the first letter of each country? Everything stops making sense. What are we ordering now? Countries? Ountries? It doesn't make sense any more...And that is what I am interested in! the function of the list gets spoiled and the relation of the word with the geographical land gets really loose as well.

In order to illustrate this idea visually I am planning to create a ring linking every country in this NEW ORDER, like in a list, all the countries are standardized to fit in the same frame. In the ring the edge of on country overlaps the country set before..we don't care about the borders politics or the idea of step one land with another one.

Suddenly the map we are used to see becomes a ring...A door? A gate to another dimension? Absurdity in this case give cause for meaning development. If we don't understand the list, the words; if we don't understand the map, there must be for some reason. If the norms we have been using to understand and build the world have taken us to this senseless point we are living now, we must look for other alternatives.

Swiss artist Vanessa Mayoraz titled her thesis "Walking blind as a work in progress" I consider this assertion as my statement. I am not interested neither in creating images and objects with a very narrow meaning nor starting a project knowing where it is going to end. I think the conclusions must come while you are working and once you have finished it.

Os espero a todos (los que estéis por la zona) este sábado 19 de noviembre a partir de las 18.00 h. en enblanco Projektraum
Manteuffelstr.73 Berlin
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