CHILE
"LA VIDA ES UN GRAN CINE", 2007
(Picture. Video camera and security camera in a subway station.
Hamburgo/Alemania | Fotografía. Cámara de video y cámara de seguridad
en una estación de metro. Hamburg/Germany)
ARTIST'S MATERIAL:
"LIFE IS A BIG CINEMA"
It is about an art action, which was carried out in an underground station in Hamburg, Germany. I took the title from an advertisement slogan, which belongs to the Phone Company Telecom. The slogan could be read on posters in the Hamburg streets during those days when I made the art action.
The art action was about installing a video camera in front of a security camera. The art action lasted only the necessary time to take pictures, because security was there and had to stop the action. Regretfully we couldn’t record a video.
The action was made, first, due to a personal experience. After a year living in Hamburg, the environment of the city gave me the feeling of living in a Science Fiction novel, especially because of the incessant presence of security cameras at the underground stations. Those cameras are located at three meters height approximately, so it is easy to recognize their presence. Many times I thought that maybe the cameras even were off, because only their image there was enough to control.
The experience is completely different in Santiago de Chile (the city were I grew up). There the security cameras still are hidden, they don’t have that presence because they are located high up. Many of them are possible to recognize, because some TV programs transmit their images live, they show the traffic, the demonstrations and the weather conditions.
Beyond my personal paranoia, I think that security cameras belong to the overproduction of images phenomenon. It is about the intensification of electronic equipment that take pictures or video images, like mobile phones and digital cameras.
This portable equipment together with security cameras would determinate in some way the change of conduct of the pedestrians. Pedestrians might feel an intimidation and an appropriation of the public space. Besides, people with all these cameras, feel more fear than security.
In some ways, I think that video or photo cameras could be also control weapons, for example if you have a little photo camera with you, at any time can you document someone’s mistake, and then make it public on internet.
When I install a digital camera in front of a security camera, I ask to the observer who is actually in control, about our new need to record everything, about the destination of all those images, which the people are taking. Finally, I think about our eyes, that we are developing an objective, photographic gaze.
[ESPAÑOL]
Se trata de una acción de Arte realizada en una estación de metro en la ciudad Hamburgo, Alemania. El título lo tome de un slogan publicitario de la compañía de teléfonos Telecom, que por esos días se podía leer en afiches instalados en las calles de dicha ciudad.
La acción consistió en instalar frente a una cámara de seguridad una de video. La acción duró sólo el tiempo necesario para registrar en fotografía, ya que apareció seguridad y tuvimos que detener la acción. Lamentablemente no se alcanzó a registrar en video.
La acción se realiza primero por una experiencia personal. Llevaba un año viviendo en Hamburgo, Alemania, y el ambiente de la ciudad me provocó la sensación de vivir en una novela de Ciencia Ficción, sobretodo por la incesante presencia de cámaras en las estaciones de metro. Las cámaras se ubican a tres metros de altura aproximadamente, entonces es fácil reconocer su presencia. Muchas veces pensé que podían estar incluso apagadas, ya que su sola imagen bastaba para controlar.
La experiencia es totalmente distinta a la de Santiago de Chile (ciudad donde crecí). Porque allí las cámaras aun están escondidas, no tienen esa presencia porque las suelen ubicar a mucha altura. Algunas son posible de reconocer porque ciertos programas de televisión transmiten sus imágenes en directo, ya sea para mostrar el tráfico, las protestas, o el estado del tiempo.
Mas allá de mi paranoia personal, pienso que las cámaras de seguridad pertenecen al fenómeno de la sobre-producción de imágenes. Se trata de la masificación de equipos electrónicos que realizan fotografías o videos como los teléfonos móviles y las cámaras digitales.
Estos equipos portátiles junto a las cámaras de seguridad determinarán además el cambio de comportamiento del individuo que camina por la calle. Las personas sienten una intimidación, y una apropiación del espacio público. Además las personas con todas esas cámaras sienten mas miedo que seguridad.
En cierto sentido creo que las cámaras de video y fotografía pueden resultar armas de control, por ejemplo si alguien transporta una pequeña cámara, en cualquier momento esa persona puede registrar el “error” de alguien, para luego publicarlo en Internet.
Cuando instalo una cámara digital frente a una de seguridad, yo le pregunto al espectador quien esta realmente controlando, me pregunto por nuestra nueva necesidad de registrarlo todo, por el destino de toda esa cantidad de imágenes que las personas graban.
Finalmente pienso acerca de nuestros ojos, que talvez estemos desarrollando la mirada de un objetivo.
[BIO]
[CURATORSHIP TXT'S EXTRACT]
Marcela Moraga is also interested in the phenomena of spectacularization of reality and fear. Moraga integrates the group Testigo Ocular, a project created by Chilean artists to foment exchanges between Chile, Latin America and abroad. Living as a resident in Germany, Moraga works with urban interventions and photography, proposing a critical look at the post 09/11 scenario. Her work La vida es un gran cine (2007) refers in an explicit way to a publicity slogan used by Chile Telecom company. If in the one hand it infers to a romantic ideal that compares life and film, on the other it is haunted by the idea of the continuous televising of places, suffocating the potential experience of anonymity in public space. Confronting a surveillance camera in a subway station with an amateur video camera Moraga provokes a short in two different circuits, and makes evident the intersecting spheres of surveillance and publicity, in a photo where she registers the act of watching the watchers. In this intervention the artist adopts a silent strategy, setting an ephemeral scene protagonized not by actors or spectators, but by the dispositifs.
[TRECHO DO TXT CURADORIA]
A espetacularização da realidade e do medo são fenômenos que também interessam a chilena Marcela Moraga, que integra o grupo Testigo Ocular (Testemunha Ocular), um projeto criado por artistas chilenos para fomentar o intercâmbio entre o Chile e a América Latina. Vivendo como residente na Alemanha, Moraga trabalha com intervenções urbanas e fotografias, propondo um olhar crítico diante do cenário pós 11 de setembro. O trabalho La vida es un gran cine (2007) faz uma referência explícita ao slogan publicitário utilizado pela companhia Chile Telecom. Se por um lado remete a um ideal romântico de comparação entre vida e filme, por outro é assombrado pela idéia do televisionamento contínuo dos lugares, sufocando a experiência do espaço público como espaço potencial de anonimato. Ao realizar a ação de confrontar a câmera de vigilância da estação de metrô com uma câmera de vídeo amadora a artista coloca em curto dois circuitos distintos, evidenciando o entrecruzamento das esferas da vigilância e da publicidade, em uma foto onde registra o ato de vigiar o vigia. Uma intervenção que opta por uma estratégia silenciosa de montagem de uma “cena” efêmera, protagonizada não por espectadores ou atores, mas pelos próprios dispositivos.