Tag: light

An interestingly curated exhibit in Bogotá

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Yesterday, we went with María Clara to see the exhibit TOPOLOGÍAS – distancias variantes, utopías y heterotopías de la colección NC, at the NC-Arte gallery in La Macarena.

I of course was personally attracted by the name of the exhibition; the description in the gallery notes (by Andrés García La Rotta) mentions among other topics these:

  • Exploring the nature of forms and spaces we inhabit, placing at the center works that challenge us to consider how these spaces are configured by social, cultural and political narratives that work as “spaces defined … not just by their physical form but by the relations they establish among themselves”
  • A reflection on the role of “non-places” in our world, …, histories with no chronology, places with no place, cities, planets, continents, universes whose trace is impossible to find on a map or to identify in any heaven, as they do not belong to any space…

The notes are somewhat vague; they remotely evoke works of Calvino or Borges, or perhaps some Oulipo works (Queneau or Pérec might come to mind).

There were some compelling works – I tried to register some of them, although since so many of them are videos, it is difficult to really capture or convey the immersive experience – I prefer to invite whoever reads this and happens to be in Bogotá between now and the end of January to go see the show. The one exception is the work Suspension of Disbelief by Troika (a collective consisting of the two German artists Eva Rucki and Conny Freyer and the French artist Sébastien Noël) and fragments of two works by Mexican artist Rafael Lozano Hemmer (Bifurcación, sombra de obra 2 and Recurrent Mallarmé). I add here some photographs I took.

In Suspension of Disbelief, Troika plays with two light beams and some mirrors to create a sculpture with light and dust (created with dry ice). The shape is an ogival ark, as in Gothic architecture. One may cross and “touch” the sculpture, one may be lighted by it.

I thought of some sculptures by Fred Sandback; there, the thread yarn makes for brutally cohesive and at the same time visually limpid spaces (NC-Arte could have added a Fred Sandback piece to their TOPOLOGÍAS, of course!). Here, a kind of similar way of conveying solid space out of “thin air”, yet at times turning almost fleshy by the presence of dust! Some textures evoked human skin on folded limbs; I tried to capture photographically those fleeting moments. The interplay between those lights and hands and faces were also interesting.

Images from Suspension of Disbelief, by Troika

Here, just three images of a work with a suspended piece of wood, and a projection that somehow matches the rotation of the piece of wood. “Bifurcación” may be translated as “forking” (evoking of course even more Mathematics, although not quite Topology); the bifurcation or forking evoked simultaneously by the shape of the suspended wood and of the disjoint impressions of a three dimensional object and a two-dimensional projection of a more complex object.

Bifurcación, sombra de obra 2, by Rafael Lozano Hemmer

These haphazard letters (which I blurred on purpose in some photos) are parts of a collection of poems by Mallarmé; the algorithm mixes them, they move like “random particles” (or follow Brownian motion) but occasionally recompose an actual phrase from the Mallarmé poems. One has to be lucky to see those phrases; they never quite reappear the same way.

From Recurrent Mallarmé, by Rafael Lozano Hemmer

There are many other marvels. One of them, a trunk by Colombian artist Miler Lagos: he builds tree trunks from layers and layers of printed paper. They form the trunk, and it may (or may not) be decomposed into its layers. In the video in sight, one of those trunks is in the middle of the Dürer square in Nuremberg, and the wind (or passers-by) takes away one by one the “leaves” of the tree trunk, on which a Dürer engraving is printed. I found that work fantastic, especially in that setting. Another one, Fabrication, by USA artist Gregory Scott, is a video inside a Mondrian painting, of a man installing a Mondrian in a museum space. The video appears in one of the squares of the Mondrian; the effect is humorous and very eye-opening. Here is a photograph:

Fabrication, by Gregory Scott

texture of life

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Boiling milk, making arepas for Easter Breakfast with Roman and Wanda, making cream cheese, baking a (small!) chocolate cake, grinding pork rinds, chopping onions, sharing our breakfast on zoom with Roman and Wanda, watching Abdul walk into the playful light, escaping into the shadows of the garden, participating in an art event hosted by Miri Segal (on zoom, of course) in Tel Aviv, collecting fruit, watching organic-looking patterns on the drying (recycled and washed) plastic bags, watching time slip by, talking to a friend on zoom…

What else is there?

Amaneceres

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Todo esto ha cambiado fuertemente nuestro horario de sueño. Mucho más temprano todo: colapso nocturno, despertar. Abdul siempre nos despierta a las 4:30 o 5:00, pero ahora es mucho más común no limitarme a darle la comida a esa hora sino despertar y mirar el amanecer.

Se convierte todo en un tema de percibir luz, hojas frecuentemente trémulas, ires y venires de especies de aves, saltos de frecuencia vitales, sombras extendidas y refractadas, tálamos mentales y sueños esparcidos.

Y ese momento de dolor compartido al despertar – y preguntarse por un segundo a dónde va todo esto – antes de arrancar un nuevo día de cursos en zoom o meet, de escrituras al viento, de seminarios online, de intento de guiar a quienes tal vez ya se saben guiar, e intentos de andar hacia adelante a pesar de la sensación brutal de ausencia de futuro (o de peligro en este).

Notas de voces internas (como las de ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639) parecen dar claves…

at this point …

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… too much writing, too much wringing, too many possibilities these days …

Perhaps the young ones will know in their skin they can actually stop the world if need be! (I heard this on a zoom cocktail party with colleagues. I agree. I hope.)

Best understatement so far: Ayhan’s message.

Some images of our complete exhaustion (from confinement, from repetition, from …):

time / timelessness (or our eye / through a lens)

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Much has been written on the way cameras enabled a shift in visual perception, a major change in the way we understand what is perceived, what is focused upon, what is not. Two centuries of experimentation with cameras (preceded by more centuries of peepshow rooms and lens craft in the Netherlands) have perhaps given a crushing amount of material, of photographs, of perception traces. Watching carefully the work of Atget, of Kertész, of Talbot, of Cameron – to name randomly just four towering figures whose work, whose experimental work with perception is still fresh-looking today – may give the impression that all possible roads with respect to perception (and the lens, and the camera) have been taken.

Yet. Yet sometimes the light of a sunset (like a few minutes ago in Chía) or a visit to a new city or perhaps a combination of skin perceptions – the wind mixed with the light, the water overpowering and towering above – may radically open up new thirst for more perception experimentation.

This very thing happened about an hour ago, here in Chía, when the sun setting created a light infusion into boundaries of trees that somehow seemed fresh. Then I started (again) playing with time, with passing time, with perception of movement and stillness with open camera.

At some point, after the 5” exposures of myself – a thin hand, a vanishing presence – I went back to the mountain perception.

Meanwhile, while the photographs load (internet is very slow in Chía), I reread Felix Klein’s amazing chapter on automorphic functions…

Saint-Loup

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La ambigüedad que permea las visiones y descripciones de Proust es algo que ha sido muy comentado, muy estudiado. Estoy en este momento con el narrador en la playa veraniega de Balbec, en algún lugar mítico entre Normandía y Bretaña. En un lugar de luz marítima y oscuridades sociales, de gente pobre mirando el hotel iluminado de noche repleto de gente rica que se observa, se trata según título o posición social, según provincianismo o parisianismo.

Después de mucha observación acompañada de mucha reticencia, mucha compañía de damas ancianas (la abuela, su amiga noble Mme de Villeparisis – lo de noble es importante en el contexto del comedor del hotel, donde observan siempre quién saluda a quién), mucha conversación y ensoñación simbólica (los tres árboles en el paseo en carro con las dos ancianas – trío de árboles que parece anunciar mucha sensualidad a futuro – que parece enredado al encuentro con el grupo de campesinas que atraen al narrador).

Ahora llegó Saint-Loup, el joven sobrino-nieto de Mme de Villeparisis al hotel. Al principio antipático con el narrador, no le pone atención – y el narrador está embobado con el pelo rubio, la claridad de los ojos, el porte a la vez altivo y despreocupado de Saint-Loup.

[Leer este pasaje justo un día después de escuchar la entrevista a Aciman hace ver la influencia muy fuerte de Proust, de este momento, del encuentro del narrador con el marqués de Saint-Loup sobre el encuentro inicial de Elio y Oliver…]

Finalmente se lo presentan y Saint-Loup pasa de la antipatía extrema a una cercanía enorme con el narrador. Empatía fuerte en gustos literarios e inclinaciones políticas hacia el socialismo en el joven aristócrata.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

noche – parque

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Los parques en la noche pueden ser lugares de ensueño, de frontera entre el mundo racional normal y otros mundos que uno apenas atisba. Son lugares posiblemente inseguros (incluso en ciudades muy seguras) pero a la vez son lugares donde de alguna manera puede uno quedar “por fuera de la grilla” durante un rato breve. No hay carros, no hay que estar pendiente de semáforos peatonales, no hay recorrido obvio. Hay cierta libertad (seguramente usada por algunos para encuentros que no podrían darse a la luz del día, en lugares transitados). Pero sobre todo, hay árboles, prados, a veces animales (chacales en el Parque del Valle de la Cruz en Jerusalén, ululando no muy lejos de donde camina uno, o jabalíes en algunos parques de lugares del Mediterráneo), poca gente – y la posibilidad de imaginar el lugar anterior a la ciudad, de escapar de lo urbano.

El viernes por la noche pasado llegué tarde a Madrid, y tenía conexión de vuelo a Bogotá a mediodía el sábado – muy pocas horas en Madrid para hacer gran cosa. Buscar comida buena (algo fácil allá, y realmente muy barato comparado con Jerusalén e incluso con Bogotá) y caminar. Pero la ciudad se veía un poco monótona (sobre todo llegando de Jerusalén), un poco demasiado urbana estándar. Caminando de noche por las calles de Madrid la sensación (fuera del calor absurdo) era la de estar caminando por un lugar muy genérico, muy normal. Seguramente tiene magia pero no de manera tan apresurada. Decidí bajar hacia el Parque del Retiro – eran las 11:30 de la noche.

Al principio, la reja inmensa y nada adentro. Pensé que estaría cerrado – yo en esa vía desalmada que es la Calle de Alcalá, típica de una ciudad muy carrocentrista (Madrid de verdad optimiza demasiado todo para los carros y no lo suficiente para los peatones – los carros van raudos por avenidas inmensas con andenes muy estrechos) y el parque, misterioso, tras la reja.

Pero un par de cuadras adelante vi que estaba abierto el parque. Entré al lugar de ensueño, de maravilla, de felicidad, de misterio que es un gran parque urbano a esa hora.

Me dediqué a tratar de captar con la cámara esa atmósfera de gran felicidad y tranquilidad (y misterio).

El epílogo fue ligeramente traumático: cuando fui a salir, tal vez hacia las 12:30, habían cerrado la puerta. Me puse a andar y me encontré con un grupo de franceses y otro de argentinos que también buscaban la salida. Pasaron unos ciclistas españoles también buscando la puerta. Que si por Atocha, que si por la Puerta de Alcalá, que todo cerrado. Nos tocó pasar la reja (puntuda – qué susto) entre varios, ayudándonos a no resbalar. Nunca apareció ni un guarda, ni un policía, ni nada. Tampoco parece haber información de ninguna clase. España no es un país bien señalizado.

 

self perception

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Spectral Selfie

this “spectral” selfie is another one of those photograph taken in the middle of the night, with extreme sensitivity and exposure of almost ten seconds

I allow myself to breathe normally and move a little; the result is somewhat akin to an x-ray, at least in the arms

of course none of this is visible to the naked eye – the camera can, though, “see” all these things

66.5457 m

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According to Google Maps, that’s the distance between this apartment and our neighbors’ building in front (I doubt Google Maps’ accuracy, to the tenth of millimeter – but I do believe 66.5457 plus or minus 5 meters must be correct.)

66.5457 m is a great distance to feel, in Bogotá, as in some version of Rear Window: most neighbors have virtually no curtains. The area would perhaps be called “creative class” in other cities, I don’t know exactly what to call it. Chapinero Alto consists of not too rich, not poor people, who seem to travel a bit around the world, some involved in academia, some in fashion design, arts and crafts, writing, journalism, or just plain business. It is also considered “the gay” area in Bogotá – I still wonder exactly why (what I see is just a mix of families, couples, male-female, male-male or female-female, or single people, not too many questions asked in general – and a few enclaves considered “classically gay”: the supermarket on 63rd and 7th – quite a colorful and exciting place, I must say, the gym in front of it). For the most part, however, it seems to be an area where people like doing their own things and letting other people enjoy life as it comes, without much fuss. After almost two months living here, what I like best is perhaps walking (many nice walks near the mountains) or hiking into the Quebrada de la Vieja – where you can actually reach páramo altitudes if you have the energy – or just walking or running on Carrera 3A – all the way from 53rd to 72nd, and watching the super-eclectic architecture (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and even 10s all mixed up). I have come to like this mix quite a lot.

While I write I can see a neighbor dancing (she seems to be doing contemporary repertoire – from what I can judge). Two other neighbors seem to be discussing, perhaps enjoying some drinks. Someone has a computer screen on, with code. From 66.5457 m, all I can see is the unix-terminal-like screen, multicolored, and the guy typing code and going up and down screens. Someone else (not clear if a he or a she) seems to be playing violin. People sitting on couches, relaxing. Dogs or cats visible during the day, people with uncurtained windows at night.

Oh – of course, we have no curtains yet. We have not decided what to put. We must be watched by those people, from those 66.5457 m. I wonder what they see.

Luz sin cámara

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No traje la cámara buena esta vez a Chía. No sé bien por qué. Y me ha pesado por dos razones: por un lado, hoy sembramos el árbol para Mauricio Arturo – tomamos registro con otra cámara, pero no es lo mismo 😐 Por otro lado, como desde las 5.20 de la tarde la luz se puso extrañísima, absolutamente increíble (son las 6 y sigue, cambiando cada segundo, pero muy extraña). Hacia las 5.30 la luz estaba de un amarillo filtrado bellísimo, como una película de los años 70, con una llovizna breve y suave y mucho sol, y las montañas (la Valvanera, la Cruz, el Manjuy de Chía, etc.) pintados todos con un tono verde amarillo que parecía de esas películas o sencillamente de una acuarela mezclada de manera extraña. Luego siguió cambiando – ahora está de un vinotinto mezclado con azul claro y amarillo claro en los sitios aún iluminados por rayos de sol (ya detrás de las montañas).

No es claro que (incluso) con la (buena) cámara hubiera podido captar esos tonos. La verdad es que son nuevos para mí, aún habiendo estado aquí muchas veces. Es extraño el efecto que un cambio de luz puede tener en uno. Al tiempo salimos con María Clara a ver qué pasaba, por qué estaba tan bella la luz, por qué estaba tan extraño todo, como si el paso del tiempo se hubiera detenido.

El árbol que sembramos para poder recordar a Mauricio Arturo Moreno Guzmán es un feijoo (fraijoo – no sé bien cómo se escribe) pequeño, con un verde bellísimo. Ahí lo vendremos a cuidar.