TRADUCCION DE ERROR (MISTRANSLATIONS)
Things are continously changing: a drawing you put on a shelf is decaying, dust accumulating - it is constant. Putting delineations on when change has occured can be arbitrary, yet decisive. Abrupt reconfigurations can be obvious if not “evidence” that change is not part of a spectrum but rather a binary operation. Before and After. Rota - home to the only US naval base in Spain. It sits right at the mouth to the straight of Gibraltar. For a time, this military base was one of the few sources of outside media flowing into the country - Francos isolationist policies were at their height in 1955 when construction on the base begun.
The United State’s agreement with Facist Dictator Francisco Franco took two years to negotiate before constrcution began. On the coast of this small town he built small vacation shacks for his soldiers which have since been fenced off- they are now occupied by the homeless of Rota. Close to these - in a small forest littered with chameleons - are dozens of concrete bunkers, filled with syringes and piss. You can still crawl down into the few that the sand hasn’t consumed. The only AA meeting is on the Naval base. The only place to get jalepenos is the Naval base.
They say before all this Hercules came to this place, after he founded Cadiz. There are still remnants of large walls used to trap fish constructed by the Romans. The town brags about this on many T shirts and posters. It’s touristy and bright, and vapid next to cathedrals and ruins and fish and sand and brutalist labor buildings. The dialect here is challenging even for someone who speaks the language fluently.
It’s all about change.
This is not my home, but I am fascinated by it - its changes and waves and bubbles. I am fascinated by the feedback loops that are born from each change, and the corruption of an image into something else. Using modern landmarks as the starting point to explore these sensations I set out to replicate the sensation of a foreigner in this place. In a highly process oriented attempt to make sense of my experience as tourist and spectator I began work on a series of 16 paintings. Each painting is a transition point in a larger story, a transition in a Video Work entitled “TRADUCCION DE ERROR” (Mistranslations). Many of these paintings are complete reiterations of the past work - large photocopies of the last rendition that are altered.
Below is the full video.