MEDIUM

2024

Performatic Drawing/ installation
Dimensions variable


MEDIUM is a score that can be adapted to specific contexts and circumstances. The project is a performative drawing whose footprint are illegible, large format images. The artist assumes the role of a medium, who serves as a conduit to translate a message. Each drawing is made on a grid drawn by the medium during a determined period of time. Each drawing is the transcription of a period of dialogue and is understood as a singular message. This message is obtained by asking a series of values to Google’s online stochastic number generator . These values are used to extract images from a determined bibliographic collection and to make decisions such as the position and color of the drawing on the grid. The mediums are limited to operating the number generator, the collection and transcribing the drawings using their non-dominant hand.

On its first iteration MEDIUM occurred at the Harry Wood Gallery, at the Arizona State University Art Building in the Tempe campus.

It took the form of a 9 days durational performance that started on April 30th, 2024. During that time, 3 artists ( Auberi Zwickel, Jade Muñoz and Germán Benincore), channeled information and transcribed it into the gallery walls. The gallery was open from 9 am to 5 pm.  On The last day, Thursday, May 9th, a closing reception was held and the public had the opportunity to see the resulting message. On Monday, May 13th, the gallery walls were painted over.

In my project MEDIUM, I seek to create an alternative approach to a matrix of images that aim to explain the universe. Using drawing as a tool, I reflect on the supposed objectivity and “veracity” of images produced as tools for the dissemination of Western scientific discourse. Under its pretense of objectivity, these images make invisible the dynamics of power and violence typical of colonization processes.

Despite the proliferation of discourses about complexity and the migration of formats to the digital space, the encyclopedic scheme continues to be used to organize and disseminate knowledge. The disappearance of the artifact-encyclopedia/library created by the possibilities of digital space contributes to making the superstructure invisible and naturalizing a unique and particular way of understanding knowledge rooted in extraction and exploitation processes that have led to an unprecedented socio-environmental crisis.

The world of scientific discourse is transparent, knowledge can apprehend everything. This transparent world can’t stop, even if it’s falling apart. My proposal is a pause produced by noise, by illegibility that creates opacity as opposed to transparency. An absurd procedure as a counter proposition for knowledge making that it’s only possible in the interstice produced by the exhibition moment.