I wanted this work to explore the ides of "time in space" through video and my goal was to create an abstract collage instead of focusing on a chronological narrative that follows a logical order.  In the work there is a meta-awareness that we are watching a video and that time is passing by, but the space created in the video is not a real physical space and that the time in the video can be manipulated and is manipulated by repeating images and sounds, cutting out material and putting it back together and reversing certain footage. The narration are thoughts or ideas I have and how I relate to my time and space however, it is also a mockery of the over complicated internal monologues or voiceovers seen on film. 

I have recently read a lot about postmodernism and minimalism and I was inspired by these conceptions of art being nothing more than what is in front of us and the impossibility to innovate or create new things in art. I have been producing so much work in such a short period of time and have received very little stimuli from the outside world or even from my own life that sometimes it feels like there is nothing new to be created or anything that truly inspires me. It was until I read “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” by Fredric Jameson and learnt about his theory of Postmodernism being composed by “pastiche and schizophrenia” that I knew what I wanted to do. In this text he talks of how these two terms define space and time. Pastiche on one hand is a neutral parody of a specific style, a replica and is born from this idea that there is nothing new to do in art and that individuality is dead or is a myth all together. Therefore all new art is based in the past, in nostalgia, and what we create are replicas of past work. Meanwhile schizophrenia for Jameson is a disconnection in language that makes the subject live an intense present and have no understanding of the continuity of time. In a way I identified with both of these terms as with the pandemic I have been living in this simulated reality where I live in a reduced space and the present seems to be the only thing that exists as time seems to stay still, even though I have been here for over nine months. Nothing changes in  my room and the days seem to be the same, I feel disconnected from what was my old reality and I am therefore having trouble innovating. 

My work then is an attempt to explain this struggle and disconnection of time I am experiencing. It is nonsensical and in a way depicts this feeling I have of going crazy as I am trapped in my room and all I do is think about the past or consume media to distract myself. The lack of change I experience is represented by my room and Bogotá and it is contrasted to this idealization of the past and escapism through films and TV which is represented by this atemporal space that is New York. New York I think is an antonym of what I am experiencing now as I have always viewed it as “the city that never sleeps” and a place where everything is happening. A place with infinite possibilities that makes me think of an exciting future instead of being trapped in a boring present. 

Being trapped at home this semester has made me feel like nothing is happening in my life, meanwhile when I was in New York I felt like I had changed into a whole other person. I had transformed and, like the American movies and tv I had always watched, I was just like one of these exciting characters. Therefore I used footage of all the movies and tv shows that I could remember that took place in New York and manipulated this media that made me idealize so many things about my life and make it say how I am truly feeling. I also tried to interlace footage from New York and my own room and hometown. The footage I used from the city was in some part recorded by me when I was back in New York and the other part of the footage was recorded by my assigned work partner, Anais. When discussing our projects Anais had the great idea that it could be fun to exchange footage and as I wanted to focus in New York as this imaginary place so I thought it would be perfect to have recordings of the city without my presence as I have no idea how the city has truly changed since I left. 

This work therefore explores my own disconnection from my time and space as I yearn for New York and being the persona I want to be instead of being the perception that others have of myself. After all, no matter how much people think they know me or how close we are, we never get to really know each other. People know the image that we are presenting them and the ideal they create of us is different to who we are. Who I am at home with my parents is different to how I am with my friends from home and that is different to who I am with my friends from New York. And the person I present to be in class is not the person who I am inside and with this work I hope to present this new self portrait, an evolution of the first project, that is not put together, but reflects my mental state now and creates an image of myself without attempting to do so.