Rodolfo's first draft TOP

1. What have you been making? / 2. How did you do it? (method)

In my last and-or current project (Your Presence Was Cancelled - YPWC) I have been, mostly, looking at and working with a still image, scanning fragments - and possible meanings - of it.

The project emerged after focusing on and writing about memories related to the death of my grandparents. After going through my personal archive,I realized I had several photos from the day after my grandmother passed away last year and I decided to pick one and work with it.

At the beginning the main goal for the project was to create a short movie (about three and a half minutes), based on a still image, that I would be able to screen at the EYE Research Labs last February. There were, frok the outset, three main components that I had to work with: the image - how to make it move? how to edit? how can this work visually? -, the text - what and how do I wanna tell this story? - and the sound - do I want music? do I want a voice over?

In addition to these doubts that highlight predominantly technical issues, there were countless other questions that arose throughout the work process, such as: What’s in the picture? What does the picture mean for me? What can the picture mean for others? Is the picture a selfie? What’s a selfie? What was I looking at? Why did I cover my face? Was I trying to pose for the picture? Was I looking at myself on my phone screen? Was I listening to music? If yes, to which one? Can I get this information? What other sounds were there on the train? Could I (still) hear them? Were people talking? Was the seat comfortable? What did I have inside of my backpack? Can I recreate it? What do I actually remember? What did I have in my lap? Why did I decide to take this photo? How was I feeling? What happened before? What happened after? Where was I going? From where was I coming from? Where was the train? Was the train moving or standing still? How’s the configuration of the space where I am? What’s that space? Is the space pleasing? What are the colors of this space? Does it even matter? Do I want to show the real colors of the picture? Is it important? Or is it just an aesthetic/visual choice? Is it possible to separate me from space? Can I talk about space without talking about me? Which are the limits of my understanding of space? Who else was in the space? Who is this person? Who is this woman? Is she a ghost? What is she doing? Where is she from? How old is she? Does she have kids? What does she do? Does she work? Is she unemployed? Is she retired? Is she on a holiday? Is she married? Is she single? Is she divorced? Is she a widow? What’s her biggest dream? How does she feel now? Where is she going? What does she see from her seat? Did she notice me? What does she think about me? Could I be her son? Could I be her grandson? What would we talk about? Would we talk in Spanish? Would we have interests in common? Would I like her? Would she like me? Is it possible for us to share space again (somewhere in the future)? If so, where, how and when? Would I tell her about this project? Will she know about this project? Would she like it? Will someone like it? Will I like it? Is this worth it? What is this about? Is it about me? Is it about my grandmother? Is it about loss? Is it about memories? Is this about void? Is it all and nothing at the same time? Do I have any clue? Will I - at some point? What am I actually doing? How does (temporal/spatial) distance influence the way we deal with processes of disconnection, loss, grief? What is time? What is space? What is distance? How does distance translate into time? How does distance translate into space? How does distance translate into our relationships? What’s the role of distance in our relationships? Do relationships need distance? What does distance create? What does distance add? What does distance subtract? What can we gain through distance? What do we lose through distance? Are we always losing through distance? What’s the color of distance? Does it have a color? Is distance poetry? Can it be poetry? Can we create poetry through distance? Or we can just create it through closeness? Does distance create a feeling of being close? Of being closer? Does it increase what we feel? Or does it decrease it? Is distance shallow and superficial? Or the other way around?

So far, I don’t think that I am able to answer to most of these questions - and probably that was not even the aim of the work - but I think that the outcome of the project for the EYE is the result of a set of decisions that, back then, felt right for me and that made me connect and feel something towards the work that I created.

However, after the screening at the EYE, I felt that there was still room for the project to grow, and most important: to breath and gain new dimensions. So I decided to create an extended version of the movie, in order to create a bigger space for the image and the story to land. In parallel to this, and since I had written a lot during the process of creating the first video, it seemed interesting to me to put these texts together and work on a kind of publication/zine that would add, through words, new layers and perspectives to the image.

The different visions, perspectives and layers that I have been adding to this work seem to me to be the reflection of an attempt to understand a complex and voracious reality, difficult to fit into a fragment that is, in itself, an image.

3. Relation to previous practice

As Loss, a project that I developed before starting this program, YPWC is the result of a personal (grief) experience, which aims to process an emptiness/void created by our capacity of relating/connecting/love. Some months ago I wrote that Loss “made me connect not just with my inner reality with my feelings, but also with the way the world looked like on that day”. This made me realise that I did exactly the same with YPWC and that throughout my recent works, which always ended up arising as a consequence or from a personal experience, I always placed myself, initially, at the center of the action. But during the creation process, this center shifts and allows me to understand the complexity of what and who surrounds me. I have also understood that if this personal, almost visceral connection between me and the work doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense for me to create something.