¿Hicimos un happening?

With this work I try to explore some interactions with a neighbor throughout the five years that I have lived in this apartment. The viewer is faced with an object with clearly visible limits; he must choose whether to contemplate only the exterior of what is in front of him “in a respectful manner” or whether he crosses those limits with the violence of someone who enters without invitation (since the work does not contemplate doors or openings that invite entry into it) and discovers what is inside. The application needs access to your webcam, clicking with the mouse and dragging slightly while pressing changes the camera view, use the mouse wheel to zoom out and zoom in until you enter the cube and experience the result of having felt uncomfortable in my skin: a little miserable, indignant, surprised, forced to reflect and also somewhat envious of this character who undiplomatically demonstrates his displeasure and catalyzes a reaction in me.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

Within a 3D space I place an object that is separated from the background very clearly, whose limits are equally clear and visible, it does not have openings, entrances or transparencies towards the interior, as if it did not want to lend itself to exchange, but at the same time only one pixel separates us from its interior. Inside the cube the cameras, which evoke the mirrors of a building elevator (context of the happenings), force those who enter to have an encounter with themselves while listening to the existential questions that arise in the encounters with the 24 (the audio is my voice modeled in Reaper with reverberators and equalizers. The pans to the left and right seek to reinforce the idea of ​​being trapped in the action). Here inside I force the user to be, at the same time, a work, an artist and a spectator. Your actions will shape the work. As was the case with happenings, no two works will be the same, even if the same person enters the cube again and again. There will be no evidence of this, since there will be no records of its passage, assuming another fundamental characteristic of happenings: impermanence.

In this brief text I use the writings of Allan Kaprow and Christiane Fricke to “review” the encounters/happenings that gave rise to this work.

According to Kaprow, happenings present some decisive characteristics that are fulfilled in the meetings she and I had:

1. There is a context, the place where the work is conceived and performed where a small audience is confused with the act, thus, there is no separation between the audience and the work.
2. It has no obvious argument.
3. They are governed by chance and improvisation.
4. Impermanence: it is impossible to reproduce a happening.

“Happenings invite us to postpone those good manners for a few moments and participate entirely in the real nature of art and (I hope) of life. For this reason, a happening is abrupt and hasty (…).”

Perhaps the lady in question is actually an artist, a performer who chooses to put on hold the social conventions that govern the “hallway” greeting between neighbors and, as she approaches me, abruptly and hastily, more than I would like, with a tone that I enjoy even less, she shouts questions that seek to invite me to reflect on the deepest things: Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going? How and why do I react to violent ways?

I imagine she was a follower of Wolf Vostell, who, according to Fricke, experimented with the shock tactic, in a form that led directly to confrontation and provocation. Since I imagine her like this, her audios in the group of neighbors have a new tone (that audio in which she only shouted “Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo with with me like this, wake up alienated, alienated, alienated people, they’re robbing us!)

Maybe it is a matter of time before we wake up at dawn to the sound of some appliance exploding or maybe it is simply the president of the “consortium” showing off her little power…

Literature

KAPROW, Allan. (2015, 2016). “Happenings en la escena newyorkina (1961)”. En en Entre el arte y la vida. Ensayos sobre el happening. Barcelona: Alpha Decay.

FRICKE, Christiane. (1999). “El medio es el mensaje”. Comprender los medios de comunicación: las extensiones del ser humano. Barcelona: Paidós.

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