The Secula Seculorum project addresses the disturbing numbness of the collective sensibility regarding the situation of violence
that our country is going through. In this sense, the approach begins by identifying the paradox that the fact that even in Mexico
we live immersed in an atmosphere that for some years is characterized by its acute levels of insecurity -comparable to countries
involved in armed conflicts-, we have learned , however, to remain indolent.
This apparent normalization of violence in the Mexican collective imagination seems to suggest that we have become accustomed
to living in alarming conditions of insecurity, to such a degree that violence has become part of our routine, moreover, it has
become familiar.
While the mass media have tried to stop reporting the overwhelming number of homicides that occur daily in our country, it is
possible to find alternative media such as blogs and social networks, countless information that accounts for such violence.
However, from the position opposite to that adopted by the mainstream media -that is, through the incessant circulation of
information always available within a few clicks-, the same effect is produced as that resulting from the position assumed by the
media. traditional: a kind of sustained indifference.
Thus, the explicit strategy of Secula Seculorum consists of a two-bladed propeller. On the one hand, in order to return the
information to the level of significance -to transcend the state of explanation, the project proposes to
disguise real and daily events (which reflect in a pure state the violence of our country) through the manipulation of the sordid
images that account for them. The purpose of this artificial procedure is to convert these snapshots - whose content is frightening
- into images that contain a seductive beauty at the surface level. That is to say, a paradoxical concealment is posed because it is
intended, through adding a veil of beauty, to once again grant meaning and substantivity to that information towards which we
remain indolent.
On the other hand, the project uses a language in clear harmony with our contemporary sensibility. It is an aesthetic that draws
on the formal lexicons typical of some of the highlights of the history of recent art, particularly the minimalism of the sixties.
However, the minimalism that arises here is far from the classical minimalism defended by Sol Lewitt. It is, instead, a paradoxical
minimalism. One such that no longer assumes a position of indifference to the viewer, and which therefore ultimately could not
qualify as belonging to L'art pour l'art. In this sense, instead of assuming as its own the premise of a cold and indifferent art, the
characteristic beauty of minimalist structures is used, but to which - unlike the historical one - it is endowed with an obscure
content.
Image of a corpse thrown into the street that reflects the pure state
of violence, but through the manipulation of images, turning them into
pieces that contain at surface level a seductive beauty to give meaning
and substantivity to an information towards which we remain indolent
The
title correspond to the result obtained translating the day of the
publication of the note in which the image was found to the number of
the crime that would correspond to that day in average.
