Texts

Or the other way around

Transmedial

electronically operated geodetic sight performance
videoprojection
Writing

Production:
Lukas Esser
abraso.org

2024

The central axis of the installation consists of a geodesic sight modified with electronic components to be used as a light projector. Rotating 360 degrees at a speed close to one earth revolution, the projected light simulates the presence of a sun moving over the structure of space. This apparatus, which was previously used to measure the world, is intervened with the intention of allowing the viewer to experience the tangible alteration of the perception of space-time through the presence of a body of light that distorts in relation to the irregularities of the place, increasing or decreasing its size and speed, apparently, according to the distances between its luminous integrity and the emitting center.

Once a day, the artist places himself in the space, and during the time it takes for the light to cross his face, a verbal act takes place that mobilizes the poetic interpretation of the installation through the amplification of a recital that reflects on the impossibility of seeing the sun directly. Linking empirical references on the equinoctial experience of the world through a fictional text to the sun, the artist exposes himself to the projected light for 18 minutes, reproducing through a speaker mask the text of his authorship and simulating the interpretation of the song "Tonada de luna llena" by Simón Díaz, sung by Caetano Veloso. During the action, an audiovisual projection accompanies the event with a live image of the artist's side profile. The projected image, rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise, shows the performer lying down, looking at the sky, while the text intermingled with the image follows the reading in a visual feedback produced by the reproduction of the image within itself.

Or the other way around is a transmedial project that articulates word, action, and audiovisual image in a performative installation. Temporally locating the current state of an affective research on the perception of space-time in relation to the experience of the sun, this project addresses the physical and emotional contrasts that have been suggested to the artist by undergoing a transatlantic distancing. Between empirical approaches that strain the historical relations between the northern hemisphere and the tropical Latin American region, Juan Pablo questions the hemispheric and western conditions that have colonized the perception of the world, provoking a verbal event that suggests the possibility of configuring affective and corporeal constellations through reflection detonated by paradoxical mechanisms.