Iván Gómez

El fuego dormido [Dormant fire] is an audio-visual piece in which the relation between audio and image is not initially offered as an intrinsic component. A girl undergoes an eye operation, the image documents the whole process. The audio, however, corresponds to private moments associated with grieving processes. A female voice reads to us the letter she is writing. We understand that its recipient is the deceased person, upon whom falls a flood of reproaches, apologies and affection.

Two processes of change shown to the spectator which at first appear to be autonomous and unconnected, are eventually revealed to be about the girl, who is now getting up from the operating chair. Here we exhibit a link between the procedures of the mind and visual capacities as two parts of the same thing, which must nevertheless be exercised for the encounter to occur.

NEUTRALE ZONE
Es wird ohne Anruf
sofort scharf geschossen.

Coaches packed with tourists unload in Sachenhausen. At the entrance could be read the welcoming legend that presided over all the concentration camps in Nazi Germany: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Sets You Free). The tourists consult their maps, take photos and read on the information cards that the work of those conscripted to this place was the counterfeiting of currency. A few paces ahead were workers engaged on improvements to the camp as they adapted it to the needs of the new users.

We carefully keep and conserve all specimens. That's the rule. Our clients can, of course, visit them, when they so desire. But most people never return… enclose, separate and end.
Nobody brings objects to look back on over and over again, with nostalgia over and over again.

Yôko Ogawa
Original Title: Kusuriyubi no hyohon. [The Ring Finger]

We wander the halls of a science museum. The eyes of the stuffed animals watch us. Meanwhile, a voice reads us a novel that refers to the possibility of depositing memories in objects. The glass eyes of the beasts keep on following us, half way between being and oblivion.

Climbs the stairs slowly, elegantly.
On reaching the street turns towards the right.
Leaves the shot, which remains fixed
under the streetlamp positioned over the door.

We are unaware of their reasons, but these two characters accustomed to a life of ease have totally given themselves over to apathy. They decide to seek an experience to turn the situation around; she is going to do some sightseeing, while he embarks on a life on the streets. And that's how the weekend went by.

Mr and Mrs Fogging were sitting nice and peacefully in the winter sitting-room. She was knitting and he was smoking his pipe after dinner. / Just the two of them in the house. The children, grown now; each of them gone their separate ways. No clock spelled out a thing. The usual melancholy.

Without looking up from her chore, she said all of a sudden:
— They trepanned you just a year ago.

Furiously, he sucked harder than usual on his pipe. Smoke poured out of his nostrils, mouth, the hole in his head. She couldn't help but applaud; as on other occasions, as always.

Julio Cerón

Bob returned drunk after three in the morning. While he was trying to find the keyhole for 214, he heard the door of 212 open slightly. He wanted a few seconds and said quietly:

—Hello, you're my neighbour. I wouldn't mind another little drink, fancy joining me?

The door closed and Bob went back in. The next day Bob went out again. With the sunlight he didn't feel inclined to commit suicide. On his return to the hotel, the door of 212 was ajar once again and this time he didn't hesitate.

This video unfolds in a symbolic dimension that is very familiar in art: the live-in studio, house-workshop. Here, a simple achronic occurrence involving practices of theft seems to take place.