La Voluntad de Dios

It is an interactive work made in p5js. In the midst of an electoral campaign where several candidates for deputies deny and try to hide the suffering of the people during the seventies, the work aims to ridicule the most visible face of the last Argentine civil-military dictatorship and refresh the viewer’s memory, immersing them in an experience with the appearance of a simple 8-bit game where they are complicit in the mockery.

To play, you must click on the fruits with the toilet attached to your mouse, but be careful! If you click too late or too early the point will not count and you will lose a life (for the point to count, there must be an intersection). Once the game has started, you cannot miss more than three fruits because you will lose a life.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

Based on Diana Taylor’s text on artivism (2012) and specifically on the section where she talks about the group H.I.J.O.S. and their different activities I got the idea of ​​doing something related. “H.I.J.O.S. organizes striking and carnivalesque ‘escraches’” (p. 126) is the quote that triggers a conjunction between memory and mockery: that is when I remembered the striking death of Videla and the possibilities that that event gave me in relation to provocation and comedy.

On the other hand, I found the idea of ​​“there is no separation between the public and the work” (Kaprow, 1961, p. 61) that arises from happenings interesting and I decided to reinterpret the phrase for this sketch, since although we can discern between the public and the work, it is necessary for the spectator to commit for the work to progress, a bond is created between both through the spirit of the game and the “game over” screen is shown when losing, that is, to see its entirety.

I believe that in every existing field it is possible and necessary to boost memory and, nowadays, especially in games (precisely due to the already mentioned level of immersion of the viewer in the work), that is why I did not want to miss the opportunity to make this work through the tools that the p5js library offers us.

The name of the work comes from an interview that the dictator gave to journalist Ceferino Reato for the book Final Disposition (2012): “God knows what he does, why he does it and why he does it. I accept the will of God. Not only do I not rebel against it, but I also do not believe I have the right to understand it. I believe that God never let go of my hand” (p. 14).

My final conclusion is that, after all, we can say that God has an interesting sense of humor, to say the least.

Biography

• KAPROW, Allan. ([2015], 2016). “Happenings on the New York scene (1961)” in Between art and life. Essays on the happening. Barcelona: Alpha Decay, pp. 57-74.
• REATO, Ceferino (2012). Final disposition: Videla’s confession about the disappeared. Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana.
• TAYLOR, Diana. (2012). “Artivists (artists/activists)” in Performance. Buenos Aires: Printed Matter, pp. 115-142.