El ruido entra igual
Amid tall cement structures, people, colors, noises, and dreams, I find the inspiration to create new worlds. The city as trigger. A superposition of figures.
Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual development
For the production of this work I drew inspiration from the work of artist Grace Hertlein, specifically “Genesis: The Womb of Water (from the Creation Series)” and “City Painting.”
I have always felt a strong pull toward big cities; I find a certain beauty and mystique in the infinite possibilities and situations they can generate. Chance becomes more interesting there. This immensity, this overstimulation, produces in me a constant effect of inspiration and lets me expand the scope of my dreams. The city as a dreamscape, as a territory of fantasy. And of course I also mean daydreaming — projecting possibilities, longing for another reality driven by whatever I’m passionate about.
Brea notes that the work of art and the work of dreams resemble one another because both are translations of states or emotions: “for more than one reason we should liken the work of art to that of the dream […] what is essential in them is not the form or appearance they take on at any given instant, but the field of intensities in which they occur.” And I see this piece as an excuse to express what living in a big city stirs up in me — a mix of adrenaline, nostalgia, mystery, curiosity, ambition, solitude, vertigo, and fascination.
I see cyberspace as a dream space, since, in its broadest sense, it is a place where the possibilities for creation are infinite. Human emotions are reflected in it, and it is also a tool of expression. Worlds are created there that resemble the real one, and others that are entirely surreal and delirious. Just as happens in dreams. Just as happens in the city.
Paul Valéry writes about the reproduction and transmission of artworks, naming music as the only art form (at the time) capable of being reproduced anywhere on the globe without losing its nature. With the arrival of multimedia devices, this changed, adding a new artistic language to this concept of ubiquity, since virtual arts can now be reproduced anywhere in the world, at any time, in their entirety. “To be able to choose the moment of an enjoyment, to be able to savor it not only when the spirit desires it but when it is demanded and, as it were, already sketched out in the soul and in one’s being […] is to allow its creatures to be resurrected in a living medium not so different from the one in which they were created.” As an artist, it’s deeply satisfying when an audience is moved emotionally by your work; coming from the performing arts, everything there happens in the here and now. But in this digital language of creation, that shifts — its ubiquity grows. Today, nearly everyone has a computer, phone, tablet, or some kind of screen capable of reproducing a work.
The city is my field of inspiration, and in this piece I chose to build up lines in layers — like a weave of dreams, of realities, something that coexists and blends together. As happens in virtuality. Interconnections you don’t know where they’ll take you (or whether they will at all), where the element of chance is captivating — no dream is ever quite like another, no street is ever quite like another.
I’m using this opportunity to explore a new language of expression and a new way of conveying what the sheer magnitude of clustered buildings and corridors of sky makes me feel. A language far more abstract than what I’m used to working in.
Bibliography BREA, José Luis (2008). “Redefinitions of Artistic Practices.” Murcia: CENDEAC. VALÉRY, Paul (1928). “The Conquest of Ubiquity.” The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection
Brief resume Paula Felix was born on July 15, 1999, in the city of Ushuaia. At eighteen she moved to Buenos Aires to study acting. Since childhood she has always loved art in its different forms and sought ways to learn more despite the limitations of growing up in a small town. She studied acting at the Escuela Metropolitana de Arte Dramático, and after finishing her degree, discovered electronic art. After a year spent playing with programs like TouchDesigner and Resolume Arena, she decided to pursue the field professionally and enrolled in the multimedia design program at UNA. While the performing arts remain her true passion, she is interested in exploring this new form of expression and how the two disciplines can be combined.