[k][E][s][e][S][T][o][B][a][b][Y][y]

Taking as a basis an original illustration and phonemes of the vowels and consonants of the title of the work, the participant will be able to create live an image with collage characteristics and at the same time play with the different sounds, either randomly or trying to put together a melody with them. As the title makes it seem, the keys, k-E-s-e-S-T-o-B-a-b-Y-y are the ones that must be touched to generate the sounds and images, but you can also touch the number keys from 0 to 9 in addition to ¨+¨ and ¨-¨. The title presents the different letters in brackets to imply which one corresponds to each number (except Y which is ¨+¨ and y which is ¨-¨), thus analogizing it as a pseudo array outside the code. Letters and numbers can be played at the same time. Finally, the ¨?¨ key allows us to return to the original illustration.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

[k][E][s][e][S][T][o][B][a][b][Y][y]? It is a work that uses as a base my own illustration made in 2014 when I was 15 years old to turn it into an interactive reproduction of contemporary art, which has an essence of post-structuralism and expressionism with the particularity of creating images with characteristics similar to collage and melodies from the interaction of the participant.

This work requires the active participation of the viewer, who in this case we will call participant, since without him it would be nothing more than an illustration, an image captured on a screen. So I take one of the definitions of installation that Claire Bishop mentions in ¨ The art of installation and its heritage¨ (2008), page 46, “the viewer is considered in a certain way as an integral part of the conclusion of the work.” Because in this case, it is this same one that develops and finalizes an experience, the work is not the image or the sounds themselves, but the experience of the person who experiences it and plays with it.

The decision to choose that image for my work resonates with what César Aira mentions in ¨ On contemporary art¨ (2013), page 4, ¨ Poussin’s painting, in its exquisite workmanship, in its museum-like timelessness, is the document, written in code, of a history of experience, nostalgia, hallucination…¨. The analysis and understanding of the base image as an adult made me notice that this simple random drawing is also a document, written in code, of the context in which I found myself and how I assimilated it, being a woman and a teenager, what I consumed, what was called “pretty” by society and that even so, within it there is some post-structuralism reflected in an expressionist face that bursts in and questions what surrounds it with its gaze.

Despite this, it was never made to see the light of day, but rather was something that emerged in the moment, with no purpose of its own but for the pure playful practice of drawing and painting. As is also this ¨extended reproduction¨ which is [k][E][s][e][S][T][o][B][a][b][Y][y]?, which integrates sound and a kind of collage so that new works are generated from the original. As Marchan Fiz points out in ¨ Playful environments and spaces¨ (1994), page 191, ¨…, the game is closely linked to free expression, without ties. The game would become the form without objective, nor purpose, in the highest human behavior and founded on itself. The creation of the work becomes a playful, unrelated activity…¨ I wanted to have fun with the image and sound, and also make it attractive so that the participants want to play with the work. On a sound level, I also took Rosalia as a reference with the use of “chops”, which would be the phonemes of the lyrics in this case, like the ones she uses throughout her album “Motomami” (2022). I took inspiration from a past context and my current one.