ÓRGANO

Heartbeats keep our body alive, although it would be too much of a simplification of the process of the organ related to feelings. They do much more than that, they are the warning system par excellence in the face of extreme emotions, even in the absence of them. When we are calm we know that it is there but we do not really feel it, it works in silence, as if it were asleep in this very busy life. Even in those moments of stress it continues working normally, an expert in working under pressure, it works a 24-hour shift, without rest, without overtime pay, a slave par excellence.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

The representation carried out in the sketch is based on the thought that I have developed over the years, based on my own and others’ experiences, both positive and negative.

I believe that this organ says a lot about who we are, sometimes it can be “seen” clearly in people and other times it seems that we cannot perceive it, it hides very well. It is complicated to talk about what we carry inside, it is usually easier to look at others. It is not about defining it as good or bad, better or worse, but rather recognizing how difficult it can be to face ourselves.

The work was created in p5.js, using a 512 × 512 pixel canvas and a palette limited to grayscale. The image of the heart is mainly constructed using ellipses, Bézier curves, and a triangle, while the veins are generated from points organized through for loop structures. The combination of these primitive shapes allows an organic representation to be constructed from simple geometric elements.

The movement is produced through endogenous data, mainly frameCount and the sin() function. Through scale(), the heart increases and decreases in size, generating the heartbeat. map() is also used to transform the oscillation values into different shades of gray. Through the keyPressed() input method and a conditional, it is possible to alternate between the representation of the heart and a second cardiac monitor screen. In the latter, the repetition structures generate a baseline and a peak, while the superposition of displaced layers produces a visual trail.

I am interested in the represented organ working constantly, just like the code that constructs and executes it. This relationship allows me to think of the generative image as a process in which rules, structures, and data produce a form that remains in motion.

In relation to the texts by José Luis Brea, I find a connection with his reflection on intellectual and affective production in post-Fordist societies. I am also interested in his observation about the speed of technological transformation and the difficulty of language to keep up with it. These ideas lead me to think about how we try to understand and express that which constantly changes, both in technology and in our own experience.

As an artistic reference, I use Ben F. Laposky’s Oscillations, whose images were produced through electronic oscillations and recorded using an oscilloscope. I am especially interested in the way in which mathematical behavior can become a visual experience. In my work, this reference appears on the cardiac monitor screen, where repetition, oscillation, and the superposition of layers generate an image based on determined rules.

Bibliography

BREA, José Luis. (2002). “Breve (y desordenado) antiglosario –o diccionario de tópicos– sobre el arte electrónico” en La era postmedia. Acción comunicativa, prácticas (post)artísticas y dispositivos neomediales. Salamanca: CASA Editorial, pp. 4-8.

BREA, José Luis. (2008). “Redefinición de las prácticas artísticas (s. 21)” en El tercer umbral. Estatuto de las prácticas artísticas en la era del capitalismo cultural. Murcia: CENDEAC, pp. 106-113.

Brief resume

“Nath” Castro, Venezuelan artist, born in Caracas in 1994. In 2014, she began her artistic training at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), a journey that, although she did not complete due to political and economic reasons, reasons that also led her to emigrate at the age of 21. This meant a break in her hopes and dreams, and completely transformed her way of looking at, creating, and inhabiting the world. She is currently a student of Multimedia Arts at the National University of the Arts (UNA), in Argentina, where she continues exploring the intersections between art, technology, and everyday life.

Her practice emerges from a constant search to find connections between art and life. Passionate about color, she understands it as a language and as a way of expressing that which inhabits her. Experimentation occupies a central place in her process: trying, altering, repeating, discovering, flowing, and looking again are part of a way of creating in which the result is not always defined.

Like this work, for example: will it be complete? Will it be finished? Will she be satisfied with it? These are questions that are also part of her creative process. Always searching for the possibilities of transforming rules, structures, and data, there is no limit, label, or prejudice that defines this artist in construction.