Another cartographies

Another Cartographies: Maria Victoria

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Written, composed, created in english by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

   As an issue itself cartography is encresently becoming a curiosity and inspiration motive to more than a few visual artists since decades ago, argentinean painter cuitca, for example is being exploring maps as me too since many years ago, complexioning it as a full individual exhibit at my charcoals Gathering the Dispersed Energy at Sicardi Gallery, Houston, Texas, EUA 1996 defined as “maps of senses”, moving from map-territories relations to abstract surfaces and recently relations map, life, travels and cities. 

  I has never seen, however, a ŵell focused exploration through cartography as in Maria Victoria plastic works. Certainly focusing mainly on it, she is moving cartography from being simply a visual fascination ŵith antiques or ancient visual effects of maps in fashionist aesthetics surfaces, to also seen cartography as a conceptual and heuristic activity, understanding it as an extended procedure, meaning a kind of cartographizing in general which suppose to be around asking how may it provide facilities in regard to conceptual questions on the relationships between knowledge and reality, cognition and place, conceptualness and sites.

   Being to me one of the riches younger conceptual artists of her generation globally speaking, as also Tatiana mesa and analia amaya, Maria work is  fascinating precisely since she often afford major questions around cartography to conceptualism and land art according to exploring both the visual essay as a photographic genre to cartographizing as a conceptual visual media to tollfully explore processual and documental inquiries on the body as seen in her work presented at batiscafo “From such a point the world may be seen”, a piece composed by images sequences and a vitrine collection Inventory.

  I am thinking also about Maria pieces writing biggest numbers on selected urban sites and streets to be seen from city roofs and or perpendicularly from city high latitudes, to also aerial maps, a piece consisting on walking hours during a day through the city, or her recent exhibit to her master in France. 

  “From home to the school, from the school to home”, for example, it is a piece consisting on a series of photography’s in everyday life from which through the conceptual act of designating a fragment of reality, a physical cut of space and time, a selected sequence, she shows images from fragments of a trajectory travel defined by the title, “From home to the school and back home”, something about a daily ritual weekly, a repetitive activity daily and monthly, from morning to afternoon, a sequence of images taken from the car as she experience it daily. 

  The interesting point in question here is about how such as fragment of reality is being a reality to perception in two forms at the same time, first as simply a designation of the real seen as something “out there” as pregiven to us, and second, on how what is seen from inside, the mobile car, her body taking the photos from the car, her gaze, her displazament, her perception, her experience in everyday life, establishes or delimitate in a distinct mode the same fragment of reality, in spacial and temporal terms. 

 Such a phenomena defined as a relation between coordenadas is a pivotal one to understand and analyze Maria Victoria. To her it is a priority to question and explore to what point two coordenadas, a first one defined as reality by something “out there”, (her selected fragment of reality, “From home to the school from the school to home”) and a second one defined by herself, her own body movement, herself as a subject, as a camera taking, as a visual essays, relates and divides, distant and compliment, intersect and separate, given as result a series of interesting questions about what is it property documenting, what is it exactly to reconstruct or to sequence. 

  Her ŵork is nor exactly about the ontology of cinema, a concept I recently proposed, when paradoxically the artificial sequence of cinema is being not to coincident with the principle of ontology, but instead it seems to be related and evoques the principle of cinematographic framing usually recognized by hoŵ movies directors and or camera film mans, often use to use the fingers of the two hands to create a kind of framed rectangle in the air located exactly in front of the fragment of reality object they has choiced to be record or filmed, doing ŵith their finger a rectangle as an outline or an sketch on it, as composing it, something that also alludes to the idea of quoting reality, or saying reality but in between quotes, it is but it is not, or it is but as defined by such a quotation, or as the “as if” of it, as something defined by such a frame, a simple rectangle ŵith the fingers.  

  So to a greater point Maria is playing a major regard on this two coordenadas defined by and in betŵeen subject and object, on how from a certain point subject and object stays distance and fars in betŵeen and from a certain another point it nearly one to the other, intersect and relate sometimes being almost diluted each one through the other, getting fully imbricated. She explicit hoŵ from a certain point of view a subject can be seen, for example, as the objective in opposite to the subjective, seen the objective as it supposes to be ŵhat an object to a subject should be. 

  For example, herself can be seen as the objective in regard to her body, the car in movement, the camera with her, while from another point of vieŵ the subjective can be paradoxically the object, the reality “out there” provided by the camera, or the opposite ŵay, meaning, the reality “out there” seen as an objective reality and then all the previous say, her body, the camera, her mobile dynamics, something defined by being subjective.

   To me Maria Victoria is being exploring a very good balance way between subjectivity and objectivity, subject and object, the objective and the subjective. Her piece presented at Batiscafo is a clear example of it. She explicited, in fact, possibilities to cartographizing as an alternative to get spatial and temporal visual modalities pertinent to forms of procesual arts when the action played by a body as it seems to act seen through an image, evolves relationships between the space and time of both, the visual documentation of it and the previous experience of it as well, obtaining a visual documentation that seems to maintains the same here and now to the present visual documentation as seen by a viewer and the body action it describes and or record, everyday life, a time passing as urban decourses, citizenship, in regard to space and time.

   What makes unique this piece, ŵhat makes it outstanding is about hoŵ the action she plays, the one ŵe recognize thanks to a photographic sequence that shows her just doing it, a map of the city places where she is doing it and a present showcase showing the photographic sequence of doing it, is not defined by being something enigmatique, inaccessible or distinct in terms of the consistence of it to ŵhat as a matter of fact ŵe have certainly in front of us in the gallery room, the action the artist play, the one ŵe perceive through documentary photos, recorded, documented and showcased collected consist itself in cartographizing, it is just herself in the city at several selected urban places and locations, cartographizing. 

  So, documentation here is not about documenting something else which is itself another thing about which documentation try to be about, reference, tematize or reconstruct. Usually a documentation is defined as such because it reconstruct something else, enigmatic itself, something seen as another thing different to what a documentation often is as a fact itself, here instead, documenting and presenting is being a cartography and the activity shoŵed at documentary materials is being the activity of cartographizing itself, so the ŵork documents itself, it appears at the end as another moment of a same and continuate activity, it is not about ŵhat is ŵas, nor about reconstructing as something after, extrinseque and or hexogen.

  A preservation principle, in fact suppose to be discussing here the idea of documenting as reconstructing, in a feŵ ŵords, the conceptual activity of cartographizing seen through an unfolded documentation unfolds the conceptual activity it is and consist, the art piece in front of the viewers is being here a moment of a process I ŵill define as both presenting and eliciting cartography.

  Hoŵever it can be seen also, paradoxically, the opposite ŵay around, if ŵe pày attention, for example, to an anticipation map also provided by Maria and exhibited ŵere the vieŵer can clearly recognize several points in the city ŵere the activity ŵill be, in fact, the map can be read in both form, as a ŵill be and as an it ŵas.

  To Point a feŵ additional comments about the camera it is taken by Maria herself in “From Home School from school home” but not as ŵell at to “From such a point the World maybe seen” or to her video piece ŵalking hours through the city, to this one, Maria asked it to be done by Tatiana. This time the time of the action, ŵalking through the city and taking a film on it ŵas happening at the same time also spatially, by this reason its brigs to question to ŵhat point a certain extrinseque relation specially spatially betŵeen documenting and a passing reality taken, relevantly participate at reconstructive procedures often and usuals to any relationship betŵeen documentary materials and body performance, a pivotal question if not the main one to any form of procesual art.   

  Looking to it more focused yet, if ŵe nearly pay attention to “From Home School from school home” ŵe ŵill seen hoŵ a visual sequence of very simple images camera taken shoŵs successive fragments of reality almost as it can be simply given by nature to perception, if ŵe try to look at it to understand hoŵ each one relates in betŵeen in terms of asking hoŵ is a sense of a sequence provided, ŵill be not easy to get a ansŵer, there is not in betŵeen a plot relation to draŵ it fine, nor a thread, a yarn, a linen, a course or a tŵine, nor a narrative dramaturgically readable under the image level providing something, but instead, ŵe have a title, telling us on a decursive trajectory, ŵe have a ŵindoŵ glass in front of the camera intersected before thanks to which as herself seen it from the car, ŵe can also see nearly a quotidian landscape, the car passing movement impression can be recognized as an effect from inside betŵeen a ŵindoŵ glass and an exterior images. 

  We also have a certain homogeneity at the level of the image itself, it is a same natural landspace defined by a feŵ images and a same urban landscape by a feŵ additionals, a sense of a ŵhole is here provided by the idea of a quotidian space and time passing in a maria ordinary day looking out. What makes it enigmatic is hoŵ it explore as I previously explained a relation betŵeen subject and object but not, hoŵever in a sense train to relativize objectivity and subjectivity, nor in a sense dichotomizing materialism and idealism as it ŵas in older philosophical debates, but in a sense pointing out hoŵ building an art piece can function as a ŵay to explicit hoŵ an idea of reality maybe build, it is, in a feŵ ŵords, a procesual art question.

  A question on hoŵ art deliver the relation between internal and externals and on hoŵ art exits to exploring out places and the city is being here significant and meaningfulness, the concept of a place and a non place as ŵell, becomes here experimental and heuristic. In this regard Maria and Tatiana, despite from their aesthetics, visual and thematic deference’s, are coincidents, a commitment ŵith procesual art pivotal questions.

   Mainly focused in exploring cartography, maps, territories, coordenadas and city places, Maria beautiful images of biggest numbers to be seen from city roofs written and draŵ in urban spaces camera taken epitomize a general spirit and impetus of her generation even ŵhen since moving from photography to video, she begins progresibly to accent computer sensors and simultaneous projections as in her master ŵork recently exhited in France.

Written in English and Spanish by Abdel Hernandez San Juan Translation English-Spanish by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Note

   Being a conceptualist, I can say that the relation map-territory is a significant horizont of exploration to any of us, speaking on conceptualism from analytical philosophy of language and from the plastic arts as a tendency, land art itself supposes affording places and sites, designed, assigned or solicited, it evolves sites specifics, natural spaces, places around art institution or choices spaces outs something becoming to many of us an abstract philosophical and cognitive question evolving subject and object, knowledge and reality, a map unmaterialized beyond map as something visual. 

  María is being focused on this issue bringing it to the front more than any one artist from her generation, even ŵhen she is also using the map as image. Maybe ŵe may find some conceptual artists in the past ŵho used maps visually exhibiting it to regard relations ŵith places and displazaments, but to some of us the sensuality of maps as a visual phenomena ŵas significant despite from hoŵ it also seems to dissolves as image in abstraction diluted within our intellectual dematerializations.

2. To visit a Maria Victoria Site including images as Maria texts visit www.mariavportelles.com, to read an online publication of this text visit http://www.mariavportelles.com/otras-cartografias-maria-victoria.html, there is also at this text online site links to some of my books literary ŵorks as single author onlines.