NADA DE LO QUE YO TE DIGA (UNA Y OTRA VEZ)
Nothing of what I´m telling you. (Once and again)
2005, DVD, vídeo instalation, b/w, silent, 3’31’’.
Performer: José Miguel Sagüillo Arbones. Camera and lighting: Cristian Grandín Carvajal. Colaboration: Olga Viñuales. Edition: Roberto Martín Gálvez. Hangar. Location: Pontevedra.
Power, like gender, belongs to a silent order of things. This is the content of Nada de lo que yo te diga (una y otra vez), which has no sound and no apparent movement.
The cartography of the physical realm is limited, whereas the imaginary is insurmountable and infinite, so that the subjection of the mind is more difficult than the subjection of the body.
Any visual representation of equality will lack validity because true subjection is mental rather than physical or social. Resistance is also mental and defines us by establishing boundaries between the self and the ‘other’. The problem is not subjection but rather how it is signified. This is an uneasy topic because identity is constructed out of disgust, restriction and boundaries decided by other people and assumed as our own.
The body only exists as a metaphor for finiteness; attitudes, values, ways of thinking, the things that define and position us are intangible. When we realize that ‘power’ is the capacity to influence or modify the conduct of someone else, traditional roles cease to make sense (masculine-active; feminine-passive). In this way, the different and open and ludic ways of constructing power are what interest us now.
Equality is a value which is productive to society but it is a value in crisis, precarious and so utopian. The challenges in this case
The subject, as a representation of modern citizenship, is ordered to assume positions which are impossible to maintain for very long, as the video makes painfully clear. This presents a paradox as we are expected to make particular movements which turn out to be unsustainable.
