la trayectoria de bella
video installation, sculpture
vinyl, discarded styrofoam, two-part expandable polyurethane, celluclay, cement, pigment, metal, sponge, epoxy putty, old acrylic nails, tinsel, organza, tape
2021
The objects shown in the video are part of the archaeological collection of the Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was digitized with equipment owned by the Access 3D Lab of the University of South Florida, as part of the Fulbright Fellowship carried out by the Fulbright Student Fellow Libbi Ponce.
'la trayectoria de bella' inhabits the type of futurism Jose Munoz describes in Cruising Utopia, a push to the edge, to the horizons just beyond what is not perceived. Ponce applies contemporary aesthetic methodologies (think video, projectors, LED screens, different types of plastic, foam infrastructures, and building compounds) in combination with the forms and uses of pre-colombian ceramics. In this piece, the point of interest are pet figurines buried with the deceased that serve as guides to the afterlife.
The LED videos abstract the scan captures as raw footage, providing a microscopic lens that mimics the edge of the scanners field of view. Simultaneously acting as this transition between our current existence, and what happens later. In brief, the installation presents the moment the anthropomorphic guide approaches that threshold, and before it crosses, places the viewer now on this journey.
Beeping of the lost tracking, eerily similar to lost tracking of a heartbeat
>>in the same way that electronic vital sign monitors alert hospital patients, the machine I worked with beeped when it lost track of the (object?)—(when it could no longer measure the subject
link to video: https://youtu.be/2jP_A3qAT94