Text(s)-Images-Text

Barthes tell us that: "According to an ancient etymology, the word image should be linked to the root imitari. Thus we find ourselves immediately at the heart of the most important problem facing the semiology of images: can analogical representation (the "copy") produce true systems of signs and not merely simple agglutinations of symbols? [...] Nor are linguists the only ones to be suspicious as to the linguistic nature of the image; general opinion too has a vague conception of the image as an area of resistance to meaning-this in the name of a certain mythical idea of Life: the image is representation, which is to say ultimately resurrection, and, as we know, the intelligible is reputed antipathetic to lived experience."

Could we wonder ourselves, when entering a space of representations (or an artistically intervened space), if it is the person’s own body the object of study for its own mind through its perception, or if it is being the mind a subjectivity surveying a body producing text-images on itself. Merleau-Ponty's statement brings a possibility to enter not the questioning itself precisely, but a way to consider the mediation of such questioning further by stating, “Nothing determines me from outside, not because nothing acts upon me, but, on the contrary, because I am from the start outside myself and open to the world.”

A geometrical composition using text. Text as image, image as text. To our mind, a word becomes more than a word once it is evoked, it produces an image, a meaning. It is through speech that we share the world and learn its knowledges while we become thsoe knowledges, those consciences. According to Ranciere: “The human animal learns everything in the same way as it initially learnt its mother tongue, as it learnt to venture into the forest of things and signs surrounding it, so as to take its place among human beings: by observing and comparing one thing with another, a sign with a fact, a sign with another sign”. In the “Concept-Context"; iterations & variations on-going series, the geometricity in the word-game design becomes a consequence of content, an encounter with form; the word-game becomes an infinite loop of possibilities, it is a statement as much as it is an invitation to continue playing with it.

Various Text-image Installations

2014 - on going. A series of Installations departing from TEXT-IMAGES-TEXT,
An Attempt to Produce Dialectical Articulations Between Space, Image, Text and Spectator.

*Multimedia installations. Materials vary according to site, concept and situation specificity. In these series, materials and displays vary from permanent to precarious installations, and variations from photocopies to acrylic plates, and from projections to illuminations. 

†These works have been included in several exhibitions and publications, including:
Grandes Éxitos (2018). Edificio de Correos, Guatemala City.
Juannio (2017). Art auction and publication. Museo de Arte Moderno, Guatemala City.
Espacios Públicos (2016). Edificio de Correos, Guatemala City.

El Museo de la Luna (2016). Concepción 41, Antigua, Guatemala.

Entresiglos; Arte Contemporáneo de Centroamérica (2015). Exhibition and publication. Museo de Arte Moderno, Guatemala City.
Propuestas Improbables (2015). Galería S1, Guatemala City.

Rudin Prize (2014). Norton Museum, Florida, US.
Finding A New Order (2013). BB15 Gallery, Linz, Austria.
Primitives (2013). W139 Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Propuestas Improbables, Sótano 1

In 2014 curators Gabriel Rodriguez and Diego Sagastume invited me to produce work for their legendary space S1, situated in the heart of Guatemala's downtown historical district. This relatively distinctive and informal venue located in the basement of a bar is actively hosting exhibitions from the local contemporary art scene.

On our first meeting the curators propose to lend me the space for one month to show some work. In response to their offer and after a few meetings, I propose that I will use the gallery as a studio for the duration of one month to do research, sketch possibilities, create interactive pieces for the audience and produce interventions on the walls of the gallery as means to detonate conversations. Finally, when I would have reached the time limit, we were to produce a public opening event to celebrate the closing of the event.

Although it lasted a month, it only lasted one day. During the month I produced a variety of pieces, we documented the processes and conducted philosophical, artistic and banal conversations systematically to activate artistic enquiry, also during this process visitors were allowed to join conversations and enquire on the working processes. The last day before taking the exhibition down legendary Guatemalan curator Rosina Cazali organised a guided visit and a conversation joined by fellow artists.

The work earned its name "Propuestas Improbables" towards the conclusion of the project, it was called like this because every week I came with one or two, or a few proposals to execute without knowing if they will be executed or not in the limit of the time frame. In 2015, *Gabriel Rodríguez wrote for Nómada Magazine: “…Within his own process, he realized that the best proposal he could give us was improvisation. It had never happened to us during the two years the gallery has been open, that someone would propose a Non-proposal.” Uncertainty and play were essential components on this process, but not everything was left to chance because coincidentally I was deeply involved with a theoretical reflection on "Deleuze & Guattari's Rhizome Theory", which became not only a transversal axis, but also a matter of concern throughout the project.

Concepts at play, or playing with concepts became the bonding agent which kept all efforts into coherence; something that I came to call at the time: "Conceptual Ludicism or Ludic Conceptualism". Gabriel quotes in his article the following: “During the setting-up, he created several terms which, in my opinion, are one of his best contributions. The one I like the best is Conceptual Ludicism. He coined it as he was thinking about the Borgian Labyrinth drawn on the floor of the gallery.”

*Notes taken from the Nómada Magazine article: "Renato Osoy, La teoría y la práctica son lo mismo ¿o no?" (in Spanish only).
**A detailed list of the "Propuestas Improbables" project can be requested by email.

Automatismos Inesperados, Universidad Rafael Landívar

(The Exhibition as a Site for Knowledge Production)

Using conceptual detonators as prompts, one of my areas of interest in research and artistic production is based on embarking into the unknown as an epistemological exploration. This approach is rooted in embracing the unexpected and uncovering the knowledge that emerges from unconscious exploration. Inspired by the Surrealists' use of automatism, I engage in artistic activities paired with rigorous research and reading, allowing the process itself to reveal new paths for producing knowledge. By proposing techniques such as automatic writing and associative thinking, I encourage starting from any point of departure and journeying into the unknown, trusting that the path will manifest itself. This trust is built on the foundation of our lived experiences, images, stories, and accumulated knowledge, ensuring that something meaningful will be produced.

The Surrealists proposed a series of simple mechanisms to access the unconscious of the thing. We refer to ‘psychic automatism’. Such a proposal conceives the automatism as an activity and as a metaphorizing vehicle that is capable of transporting things of the unconscious into the space of the conscious, converting the unknown into image, language, representation. What we know about the thing is what we name; that is our limit, the indicative we assign to them. Now, what could be intriguing is everything we don't know about the thing, all that which has not yet been interpreted, manifested; that which remains hidden in the unconscious. How then do we look at what is not seen, or how to create text-images that we do not know? In the case of this exhibition, the use of psychic automatism is proposed, not only as an exercise but as a revealing-liberating agent, as a trigger and as a possible way of unexpectedly entering the threshold of imaginations.

In 2016, A site-specific installation for the art gallery at Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala, Three walls and two windows outline the space. In one wall there is a geometric composition formed by a set of self-written essays on the topic of “psychic automatism”, the text can be read onsite or they can also be dowloaded via a QR code located on the wall. On the other wall there are 21 envelopes mounted to the wall, each envelop contains a different instruction typed on the paper, for the audience to perform either there or away from the gallery. The other wall has a diagrammatic poster that proposes the combination of art+idea+process as value concepts for knowledge enquire. Finally, next to it there is a large text printed on vinyl letter types which alludes to the concepts of automatism and chance as proves for knowledge production.

Textperimento(s)

2015, "Textperimento(s)", a collaborative project between artists Camila Fernandez and Renato Osoy. An innovative venture that reimagines the realm of text as a playground for creativity and experimentation. In "Textperimento(s)", text transcends its conventional literary boundaries, evolving into a multifaceted entity that embodies ideas, sensations, voice, play, image, and thought. This project is a celebration of the transformative power of text, encouraging innovative attitudes in individuals and their environments.

Our approach to text was holistic, encompassing both writing and reading while venturing into uncharted territories where text becomes a representation of more abstract concepts. The project is structured around a series of experimental sessions or laboratories, designed as spaces for exploration and experimentation. These labs activated demonstration-action, observation, thought, and the practice of 'making by doing' as means to amplify creativity, knowledge, and techniques in using text as a communication system.

Camila Fernández, with her background in Language and Social Sciences from UFM and as a member of the School of Psychoanalysis of Guatemala, brought her unique perspective of poetic creation through text as a phenomenological event. Renato Osoy, a visual artist, teacher, and researcher with degrees from the Royal Academy of Antwerp and the University of Amsterdam, delved into the epistemic possibilities of text through conceptual playfulness. "Textperimento(s)" was a confluence of their ideas, forms, and sensibilities, offering a new lens through which to conceptualize and materialize text into image, and image into text. https://www.textperimentos.com/laboratorio

Variations.Uniformity at Bradwolff Projects

2014, “Deleuze & Borges Labyrinthic Encounter”, Part of the group exhibition "Variations.Uniformity" at Bradwolff Projects Amsterdam. The exhibition's point of departure is a shared interest in artistic research as a method of working. The notion itself – artistic research – is, just like the colour red, a collective term for a large amount of variations. To make these two words resonate with polymorphism and differences in nature. But like a uniform definition of red is claimed by specific cultures, artistic research does not seem to be associated with academic tools; it is for this group of artists.

The portal-mural piece evolves around the recurring notion in my work, that concepts can vary their meanings, depending on their context. The same is true for forms and colours and in mixture, these changes in meaning form a personal playground, using typography and the assets of the location as expressive tools.

Gilles Deleuze's notion of Rhizome, intertwines unexpectedly in a labyrinthic encounter with Jorges Luis Borges tale “El Jardín de los Senderos que se Bifurcan”, translated as “The Garden of Forking Paths”. The meditation on the nature of reality, space and time as fictional realms with infinite possibilities, and the consideration that perhaps every space-time node could work as the center of a system of branching or forking paths, as an ever-recurring moment of departure and encounter.

*The installation included a mural made with acrylic paint, a participative performative lecture with photocopies, sound and projections.

*The video was made as a response to curator Alexandra Landre, on the question of an extended email, on how the installation was going to look as a finished piece. I replied to her questions with a question of process—I was not departing from improvisation but from performative conceptual ludicism and automatic writing.

Word & Image & What is In-between

2011. A collaboration with artists: Miriam Lombaert and Mieke Wessecker. In our current exhibition, we delve into the profound realms of human imagination, inspired by the philosophies of Merleau Ponty and Bachelard, two monumental figures in French phenomenology. Our journey, unfolding over six enriching contact moments, has consistently gravitated around a central theme, yet the paths we've explored have been as varied and intricate as the human mind itself.

Drawing primarily from Gaston Bachelard's seminal work, 'The Poetics of Space', particularly his chapter on 'Shells', we immerse our audience in an experience that transcends mere intellectual engagement. Bachelard’s exploration of the imagination as a force that operates in the delicate interplay between mind and matter, logos and opsis, subject and object, word and image, sets the foundation for our exhibition. The chapter on shells is not just a treatise on spatial poetics; it is an invitation to an empathetic reading, urging an immediate, visceral perception and direct experience. It demands an active participation of the imagination, acting as a bridge between the world of words and the realm of images.

Our exploration is centered around the concept of 'slow continuous formation', a phrase that encapsulates the essence of our artistic inquiry. This theme is a guiding light in our quest to understand how imagination shapes our perception of the material world. The exhibition is an experiential journey, inviting the viewer to engage actively, allowing their imagination to sketch its own portrait in confrontation with the physical world.

Bachelard’s work on shells brings to light the fascinating interplay of enlargements, the dialectics of large and small, the hidden and the manifest, concealment and revelation. He draws on examples from scientists, artists, and philosophers to illustrate the poetic details that, under the influence of imagination, can suddenly fill an entire space. This idea mirrors our fundamental fascination, primal experience, and original imagination that 'the shell' elicits in us.

In curating this exhibition, our aim is to create an experience trail for the viewer. The layout is designed to gradually work on the visitor's imagination, promoting a mode of reading that allows for the slow formation of images in the consciousness. We consciously avoid overtly clear imagery, as it can stifle the imaginative process. Instead, we foster a space where imagination and perception coalesce, inviting each visitor to embark on a unique and personal journey through the landscapes of their mind.

† This work was part of a collective exhibition: Word & Beeld & Wat er Tussen Zit, Curated by Dr. Johan Pas at KASKA, The Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium. 2011-2012.