The Circular Exile
2009 – 2010 | INSTALLATION | CUSTOM MADE PROJECTOR: 35MM FILM, ARDUINO + STEPPER MOTOR, OPTICS AND MIXED MEDIA | 27" X 28" + PROJECTION | ORIGINAL IMAGE: CARLOS SLEPOY'S PERSONAL ARCHIVE
In my latest work I’ve started to expand from the image to the devices used to expose them, by developing a body of work that elaborates on the indexical nature of analog image. In particular, I revisit the old cinematic devices and work in different iterations of film projectors that expose the physical phenomena of image making as the register of an emanation of light and its direct relationship with the object itself, as its trace.
This particular projector was built for the show Winnipeg, the circular exile, at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, 2010. The idea of the exhibition was to display through different analog
devices the image archive and the result of an investigation about both the Spanish Republican exile to Chile and Argentina with the arrival of the Winnipeg to Chile in 1939 and the exile from these 2 countries to Europe in the 70′s, and from this starting point a bigger reflection on what exile means, the consequences of having to leave one’s country and the social and emotional processes involved.
I chose to work with one image and deconstruct it, while it goes through an endless loop – the idea of the circular voyage and the ambivalence between the new country and the desire to return to the old land. The yearning and the unfulfilled desire to return home.
