Tiempos de Expansión

“Times of expansion” refers to the acceleration of time after the industrial revolution, which was a transformation process where everything changed: cities, work, the way of living and even the way people understood the world. Everything began to move faster, forcing people (including artists) to reinvent themselves so as not to be left behind.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

My work is directly inspired by the text “New Media” by Christiane Fricke, which served as a starting point for me to understand how technology transformed art: the influence of the industrial revolution and how it affected artists and their way of expressing themselves. Before, styles lasted centuries and “rules” were more stable. If art wanted to remain relevant, it had to enter the world of technology and use new media: photography, video, film, television and computing.

The objective of this work is to present an art in motion, following the line of the figures of abstract cinema: “to replace the static character of painting with the dynamism of cinema, applying the practical and theoretical foundations of an art in motion.” Therefore, we sought to represent not a fixed figure, but a living structure. This is manifested through interaction, which defines the states of the work. The two hundred figures that make up the piece symbolize different artists facing change: each one with their own path, their own way of understanding modernity. In the initial state, the work appears ordered, with a neutral palette and a rigid circle of cylinders that represents academic art before the technological revolution. The clockwise rotation of the figures works as a direct reference to time, its inevitable passage and how art was dragged by that same speed. Through user interaction (right/left click) the work is transformed, generating color, movement, dynamism and expansion. This refers to how art stopped being limited, breaking rules that previously seemed untouchable. In this way, the viewer stops being a passive observer and becomes an active part of the process, intervening directly in what was previously only contemplated.

Finally, the work is also linked to today, we live in a time where technology continues to advance: artificial intelligence, images that are generated in seconds and content that disappears as quickly as it appears. That feeling that nothing lasts too long brings Cézanne’s phrase “everything disappears” back to the present. That is why this work not only talks about the past, but about how we try to adapt to a world where change never stops.

Literature

FRICKE, Christiane. (1999). “Nuevos Medios” en AAVV. Arte de siglo XX. Vol. II. München: Taschen.