SCALE OF GRAY

Through the creative process for a self portrait performance piece that I have been working on, I came to the idea that identity (personal identity) is not something clear with delimited edges that we can comprehend as a being, but a blur juxtaposition of layers, some transparent, some more opaque, that together create what we believe to be as persons. A friend of mine used to say "Life ain´t black or white, there is a whole scale of gray". I particularly like this sort of pessimistic, or at least just selective decision of excluding even the idea of color in the phrase. Excluding a whole universe of possibilities, and yet proposing an infinite of combinations with just the scale of gray. Identity, and the layers that compose it, is as multiple and vast as a scale of gray, and also as limited.

There are certain features carved in our nature that define the identity palet in which we will be able to move and develop throughout our lives. Inside that scale of gray, we are free to use the tones we prefer, to unconsciously choose some others that we might like or not, and to steal, copy, reproduce, imitate, pirate, or be influenced by all kinds of gray we might find inside our experience. We can not go against our natural features, but we can enrich, or limit them through the use of layers inside our scale of gray.

SCALE OF GRAY (Francoise Le Copycat / Jack Maldonado) is a two parts project that relates musical experience to an intent of understanding the sources of various identity layers. It is, so to speak, another try for a self portrait performance piece. Music and media have a great deal of influence in the construction of our personalities, some evident some concealed:

In FRANCOISE LE COPYCAT I search for the evident. By parasiting famous pop songs invested in the dress of a rockstar, I pretend to question the validity of copy, piracy and originality, both in an art work and in the construction of personal identity.

In JACK MALDONADO, I search for the concealed. By singing songs of my own authorship, I try to make evident for others (if not for myself) the influences of external factors both in composition and interpretation of these self portraying (or at least autobiographical) songs

[∙] WHERE DO i STAND?

I have always been interested in the same subjects: plesure, beauty, enigma, power, love, death, dream, etc. That has not changed, and yet when I look at my career, I can identify only one clear pattern: change.
My whole vision of art and my own work is absolutely different now than last year, and even more if we talk about 5 years or so.
Contradictory changes.

And through those changes I have always been jumping from one ideology to another, from one “faithful” reference to another. I mean, I have always had a point of influence and reference to grab to, until now…
I have switched my devotion from one interesting concept to another, until now…
We live in a time of lack of roots. In fact, I believe this characteristic defines our age, and I find myself in an uncomfortable situation.
Things like marriage, patrimony, pensions, spiritual faith, heaven or hell; exist no more, or at least I would not buy them.

All of this would be easier to take if at least I had a clear artistic ideology to hold to, but I do not. Must of them are quite groundless too; they get torn or neutralized by new, old or simply different ones.
There is no such thing as a common ground, a solid reference from which you can take off. Of course there are some brilliant ideas and talented people, but to me they seem to be floating around in the dark just like I am. I eventually run into one or two and find it amazing, even clarifying but not quite definitive.
I assume moments of limbo like this are some kind of a melting pot for new ideas.

NO OLD SCHOOL, NO DOGMA, TONS OF INFORMATION, AND JUST MY OWN.

It is frightening yet exiting.
Being naked in front of a crowd in a math test.
Loneliness and freedom.
An overwhelming responsibility and an opportunity of choosing.
To accept that the only one I can speak for is my own.
So I look at myself, and remembering that Oscar Wilde´s phrase (man is least himself when he talks in his own person, give him a mask and he will tell you the truth), I realize that I have always liked the same subjects, and that I want to keep talking about them.

NUNCA DIGAS ALGO SERIO DELANTE DE UNA PLANTA DE PLASTICO

There are certain places where it is expected from us to behave properly, politely, but above all things to be shallow.
It is some kind of an unspoken agreement that if by any chance is broken, leads to a terribly awkward situation.
If one were identified as the author of such situation, one might immediately be pointed out as an “order disturber” or even a “persona non grata” (all of this, of course, without speaking).
In that kind of environment, it is quite easy to find a certain amount of common accessories, such as:
Smooth, perhaps new age music, gossip magazines, conditioned air, etc. But specially, and playing the protagonist roll, plastic plants.

Because of all this reasons, I would highly encourage you to: “Never Say Something Serious in Front of a Plastic Plant”.
On the other hand, and talking about seriousness, I can not think of a greater example of a serious mood for speaking than Hamlet. Most particularly in that famous and perhaps overexposed soliloquy: “to be, or not to be, that is the question…”

Is there a more serious way to talk about a particular subject and, is there a more serious subject to talk about?
Hamlet and Plastic Plants are quite opposite features of our world.

“Never Say Something Serious in Front of a Plastic Plant”, is a performance piece that intents to bring this two ideas together in an uncomfortable, strange, and perhaps rather absurd situation, playing with the idea of places and situations where the “politically correct” sets the rules to a ridiculous level, and Shakespearian “existentialism” stands as the cliché of a taboo.
Death, and life meaning (or lack of it), “passionately” articulated to a symbolic element, by a symbolic character.
Deep and well known questionings spoken with coolness and absolute lack of real analysis.

When a social, spiritual or political wound is swallowed and digested by the media, it looses its power, its deepness of meaning, and becomes a tamed beast that can be contemplated behind bars without fear.

“Never Say Something Serious in Front of a Plastic Plant” is, more than a reflection, a mere portrait of these things

[ ] PLACER E INSATISFACCIÓN (meditaciones sobre un tema a coreografiar)

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlauful”

Oscar Wilde

“at least a cigarrette has the charm of leaving one unsatisfied”

Oscar Wilde

“con el frenesí consumista se expresa el rechazo del tiempo usado y repetitivo. Una lucha contra el envejecimiento del sentido que acompaña a la cotidianidad. No tanto el rechazo de la muerte y de la finitud como la angustia de fosilizarse, de repetir y de no sentir”

Gilles Lipovetsky

El planteamiento base para la obra es el hecho de que aquellos placeres a los que no nos rendimos hasta la satisfacción, o aquellos que por su naturaleza no nos satisfacen, son los mas placenteros. Incluso el hecho de que lo sean yace precisamente en la insatisfacción que nos provocan. La insatisfacción crea un eco glorificador que incluso rebasa el placer original que produciría una acción en particular.

Dicha insatisfacción se produce cuando la acción placentera (quizá subconscientemente) no cierra un ciclo que nos permitiría entender que esta ha terminado y así mover nuestra atención a otra cosa. Es la falta de conclusión la que nos deja queriendo mas. Muchas veces al desear algo (digamos, un chocolate), lo disfrutamos mas en el proceso del antojo que en la consumación de este, lo glorificamos en la imaginación aunque la sensación que nos produce no sea en realidad tan espectacular. Pero si además después de la primera mordida el chocolate nos fuera arrebatado, no solo nos frustraria: el placer del inconcluso bocado se agrandaría muchísimo en nuestra mente, manteniendo el recuerdo sensorial mucho mas presente que de ordinario. En cambio, si no solo no nos fuera arrebatado, sino que además nos zampáramos la caja entera, quizás el primero seria placentero, pero el disfrute se iría aminorando hasta que el último lo comeríamos incluso con indiferencia.

De ahí quizá que los productos exóticos sean tan fervientemente apreciados. Comer caviar beluga o trufas negras, o tener sexo con una top model no son cosas que ocurran todos los días, y cuando las experimentamos somos concientes (durante la acción) de que la delicia será escasa. Esa conciencia es la que nos hace poner una mayor atención en el presente, y tratar de obtener el mayor disfrute de el. Una vez terminado el momento, sentiremos que no fue suficiente y nuestra mente atesorará las sensaciones que experimentó dotándolas de cualidades mayores a las que en realidad tienen. Es decir, a falta del objeto real, es necesaria la grandilocuencia de la memoria para intentar equiparar el placer real a la añoranza.

Este hecho hará que la próxima vez que probemos el objeto de deseo, éste (a pesar de ser encantador) no estará a la altura de su propia versión mental. Y al esfumarse tan pronto, nos dejara placenteramente insatisfechos volviendo a iniciar el ciclo.

Hay cosas que a pesar de ser comunes, tienen el mismo efecto, porque contienen en si mismas la capacidad de crear (mas que placer) insatisfacción. Entre ellas se encuentra por ejemplo el tabaco. Oscar Wilde decía: “at least a cigarrette has the charm of leaving one unsatisfied” y esta frase me hace pensar que el placer que provoca el cigarro está puramente en la insatisfacción que nos causa, pasando de largo cualquier otro efecto que nos pueda producir. Incluso ocurre que entre una aspiración de humo y la siguiente, hay un pequeño lapso de insatisfacción que nos lleva a seguir fumando. el tabaco es también el mas efímero de los deleites, pues el de por si sutil efecto que produce ocurre únicamente mientras la columna de humo penetra nuestros pulmones; y desaparece en cuanto la inhalación termina, sin dejar la menor secuela en nuestras sensaciones.

Llego a la conclusión de que los “placeres de la insatisfacción” (como he decidido llamarles), están intimamente ligados con el presente, y siendo el presente algo impalpable, lo son estos con el. y es este hecho (y quizá también el saber que no los podemos controlar o siquiera poseer) el que los vuelve causantes de tanta insatisfacción, y por ende, tan exquisitos. Entre mas efímero el deleite, mas insatisfactorio y placentero es.