SILVIA
RIVAS

Diagonal Force

 

Knot IV, of the series Diagonal Force, 2019.

About the series

Even though it involves acting in an era in which "the public realm has lost the power to enlighten", it aims to supersede this situation in order to reflect upon the human condition of understanding action as thought, and thought as a faculty of the individual that can only be realized in relation to one another.

Diagonal Force (2019) is a series intertwining different mediums and materials to revisit the exploration initiated in the video installation Everything Out There (2004), in which a group of disparate people strive to occupy a single space while holding each other back every time one of them threatens to give up the struggle. The subjectivity of those engaging in this action enters into tension with the abyss of everything that (in spite of them) remains outside.

In the image, we see bodies modulating over tensions that are simultaneously activated within themselves and in others.

The materiality of the work brings into play the metaphorical potential of sources that refer to the pictorial tradition, photography, and the moving image.

The title of the series, Diagonal Force, alludes to the concept proposed by Hannah Arendt, interweaving a repertoire of actions that play out at the point of collision between the past, of uncertain origin, and a future with a trajectory as infinite as it is unknown.

Thus, pointing to the present moment as the only circumstance.

Video still.

Works

Gleam

Video installation | Single-channel. HD video. Variable dimensions. 5′ 24′′ loop. 2019

Starting Pose

Object with video | Two channels. 17" HD monitors, glass, iron. HD video. 0' 20" loop. 29 x 94 x 19 cm. 2019

Detail.

Trench

Video installation | Variable channels. HD video. Variable dimensions. 5' 24" loop. 2019

Reflection

Object with video | Single-channel. 24" HD monitor, iron. HD video. 34 x 55 x 16 cm. 4' 01" loop. 2019

Void

Object with video | Single-channel. 24" HD monitor, iron, glass. HD video. 3' 03" loop. 34 x 55 x 16 cm. 2019

Detail.

Considerations

Object with video | Single-channel. 24" HD monitor, iron, glass, terracotta. HD video. 4' 27" loop. 37 x 55 x 20 cm. 2019

Detail.

Organism

Video installation | Two channels. HD video. Variable dimensions. 4' 14" loop. 2019

Video still.

Knot 4-1

Photography | Inkjet print on cotton paper. 110 x 58 cm. 2019

Knot 4-6

Photography | Inkjet print on cotton paper. 43 x 22 cm. 2019

Gleam II

Photography | Gliclée print on photographic paper. 49 x 27 cm. 2019

Sketches

Drawing | Graphite on Moleskine notebook paper. 2019

Exhibitions

Premio Trabucco nuevos medios. Fundación Federico Klemm, Buenos Aires, 2020

A volte pensó che… Prometeo Gallery, Lucca, Italia, 2020

Premio Federico Jorge Klemm a las Artes Visuales. Fundación Federico Klemm, Buenos Aires, 2020

Fuerza diagonal. Domo lleno, Planetario de Bogotá, Colombia, 2019

Process

Credits

  • Performers: Brenda Guidetti and Teresa Sevilla
  • Choreography direction: Cecilia Bazán
  • Production and coordination: Mayra Ferreyra Basso
  • Assistance in the production of materials: Cecilia Paganini

Diagonal Force
Rolf Art, Buenos Aires, 2019.

Cronotopias. Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO),  Bogotá, Colombia, 2024.