Hurtado, Hempel, Ronay, Aparicio, Nogues

Space 1 Abraham Hurtado (Murcia, Spain, 1972) FAKEless

FAKEless centres on the conception of a space in which we can watch emotion being constructed, the possible ways of perceiving a face and the transformation of that face through an act of presence. Although the viewer's first impression is of digital manipulation, FAKEless makes no use of any kind of artifice or performative tool. It attempts to bring us close to the most intimate emotion generated by the slow, subtle movement the performers themselves produce during the action, avoiding any kind of technological process such as slow motion or still images. The installation consists of a total of fourteen black and white portraits projected from the ceiling to the floor.

Space 2 Lothar Hempel (Cologne, Germany, 1966) Opium

Opium is a much more a place than anything else. It's a place on a stage in a theatre somewhere in the floating world. And as we zoom into this smoky room with its ghastly light and sleepy waiters we realise that we've been put on stage as actors. So we act! We tumble like dice between the stage sets depicting a side street in this very same district where the theatre is located. And as the play continues we are being pushed to enter a door, which is painted on a false wall. And as we walk through it, we arrive in the same theatre again. Now we see ourselves as actors on stage. I think to myself: "It's very amusing to be your own audience. Especially when you are under the influence of a strong drug, such as opium."

Space 3 Matthew Ronay (Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 1976) Between the Worlds

In the rear of the space a domed room of black draped cloth encloses a world of in-between states; male, female, terrestrial, astral, light, dark, and enchanted. Titled Between the Worlds this cave-like yurt refers to places such as forests or deep sea abysses, which have a history of performing as archetypal coming of age sites. C. G. Jung and Joseph Campbell have written extensively on the use of these places in myths as being necessary to spark shifts in psychology that lead to acquiring self knowledge.

In the front of the space 12 new objects are presented that act as a kind of cemetery on the grounds of the aforementioned environment. These objects stand in a type of symmetrical order that reflects a feeling both of funerals and weddings. Frills and beads permeate the space in waves of numerals and patterns.

Space 4 - Lower Level Saelia Aparicio (Ávila, Spain-1982) San Borondón

Through her work she compares different dimensions of the absurd: the real one in which we live and the fictions the artist herself creates. She is also obsessed with modes of perception opposed to conventional social assumptions, which can be considered just as arbitrary as the fictions she constructs, and which our habits or upbringing lead us to accept as reasonable.

The project arises from the pointless fixation with distinguishing between true and false, from deceptiveness and from the theatrical device of trompe l'oeil, recreating the staging of a parallel world, a dystopic, futuristic hypothesis, for which the raw material is rubbish, borrowed from local factories, scrapyards, recycling centres and other waste management companies.

Space 4 - Upper Level Oriol Nogues (Reus, Spain, 1984) How Our Lives Become Stories

Oriol Nogues's artistic activity is deliberately multidisciplinary, being articulated and organised around a series of projects which are developed at the same time and in turn feed off each other, presenting us with a range of different contexts and mechanisms of reception.

The visual poems presented in the series of filmed actions entitled Wild Commotion, use the illusionistic techniques of seventeenth-century theatre to construct new forms of resistance in the private space. Denying objective reality is what lies behind Karaoke of Lovelessness, a device which endorses the therapeutic virtues of pure theatre in a playful and at the same time ironic way. One sings to pain cathartically, for one's own pleasure and always using other people's words.

HOW OUR LIVES BECOME STORIES - Performance COLLECTIVE ACTION FOR THE PEOPLE OF CEUTÍ Saturday February 4th at 12:00. Patio 2 of La Conservera.

Narrating to exist. Living to tell a story. Every community is a story that is constantly being narrated. To narrate (oneself) is in a sense to invent (oneself). This collective action is intended as a portrait/story of the collective actant, in this case the people of Ceutí. The project is the result of a process of symbolic construction based on elements that express the identity of the town. The narrative formulated through the action is intended to serve as a representation of the collective actant.

Abraham Hurtado, Lothar Hempel, Matthew Ronay, Saelia Aparicio, Oriol Nogues