luzinterruptus – Página 26

Labyrinth of plastic waste / Laberinto de residuos plásticos

9 junio, 2014

El pasado mes de mayo nos fuimos a Polonia, invitados por el festival de arte urbano Katowice Street Art Festival para llevar a cabo una nueva pieza, Laberinto de residuos plásticos.

Llevábamos tiempo queriendo hacerla, buscábamos visibilizar, de manera poética, la cantidad de residuos plásticos que se consumen en nuestra vida cotidiana, además de poner un punto de atención lumínica en el gran negocio del envasado de aguas, que acarrea gravísimos problemas en países en vías de desarrollo, cuyos ciudadanos han visto cómo impunemente se privatizaba sus acuíferos para el enriquecimiento exclusivo de grandes empresarios y clases gobernantes sin escrúpulos.

Después de 4 días de trabajo frente a la imponente escultura al Soldado Polaco, conseguimos 26 metros de residuos plásticos transitables, materializados en una pieza de 7 x 5 metros y 3,40 de altura, llena de pasillos laberínticos en los que jugar, perderse o simplemente pasear, en un entorno de misteriosas veladuras en el que todo lo que acontecía se percibía difuminado y en el que los rayos de sol llegaban tamizados a través de los envases coloreados. De noche, la pieza se transformaba en un recinto mágico, una especie de capilla íntima y brillante, con paredes hechas de mosaicos plásticos casi monocromáticos.

Para dar forma a esta instalación, utilizamos más de 6000 botellas de agua, conseguidas en una planta local de fabricación y embotellado, que nos cedió todas las desechadas por no cumplir los estándares de calidad exigidos para su comercialización.

El resto del material fue contribución de los vecinos que nos ayudaron a rellenar la pieza con las botellas consumidas durante los 4 días que duró el montaje. Damos fe de que en esta ciudad se bebe agua embotellada en cantidades alarmantes.

Los envases fueron depositados en bolsas transparentes que iluminamos con leds autónomos y que fueron suspendidas por las asas de una estructura metálica fabricada con elementos modulares y reutilizables.

La pieza se pudo disfrutar durante 2 semanas, abierto día y noche y finalizado este periodo, se desmontó completamente y cada parte de la instalación fue convenientemente reciclada.

Estamos muy contentos de que en Polonia por fin sea obligatorio reciclar, hace 3 años, cuando estuvimos la primera vez en Varsovia, no se hacía, pero ahora parece que esa práctica se toma muy en serio, las calles están llenas de contenedores de todo tipo y por lo que pudimos comprobar la los utiliza.

Pasamos unos día estupendos, conocimos a gente muy interesante, la organización fue impecable y los voluntarios de lo más profesional. Eso sí, trabajando bajo un sorprendente sol de justicia que nos dejó un bronceado de obrero que nos va a costar quitarnos de encima.

Gracias a la multidud d amigos que voluntariamente decidieron echarnos una mano y aportar soluciones para que todo saliera como habíamos planeado, trabajaron más de 25 personas en la pieza, sin ellos ni remotamente hubiéramos acabado la tiempo y tampoco lo hubiéramos pasado tan bien. Gracias también a la organización del festival que tenía todo planificado para que no fallara nada, además de echarnos una mano en el trabajo rutinario y sacarnos a conocer la ciudad de noche, un placer trabajar con todos ellos.

No queremos dejar de agradecer a la empresa envasadora que nos proporcionara desinteresadamente sus botellas desechadas, al colegio infantil próximo a la instalación, que nos guardó el material y a los vecinos que contribuyeron con su aportación diaria y que usaron la pieza y la disfrutaron.

Y un agradecimento especial a todos los que trabajaron en el desmontaje final, según nos han contado, trabajaron 3 días para que todo quedara impecable y cuidaron de que no quedara ni una pieza sin reciclar convenientemente.

Graciassssss a todos. Ha sido un auténtico placer trabajar con vosotros en esta pieza.

Las fotos son, como siempre, de Gustavo Sanabria y las del desmotaje nos las ha mandado Oskar Adamus que estuvo supervisando todo el proceso, gracias amigo.

Tiempo de montaje: 4 días.
Daños ocasionados: 0.
Permanencia de la intervención: 2 semanas.

————————————————

In May we travelled to Poland, where we had been invited by the Katowice Street Art Festival to present a new piece, labyrinth of plastic waste.

We had been wanting to do this for some time, we were looking to demonstrate, in a poetic manner, the amount of plastic waste that is consumed daily, in addition to focusing attention on the big business of bottling water, which leads to very serious problems in developing countries, whose citizens have watched as their aquifers have been privatized with impunity for the exclusive enrichment of large business owners and ruling classes without scruples.

After 4 days of work in front of the imposing sculpture of the Polish Soldier, we created 26 meters of transitable plastic waste, turned into a 7 by 5 meter, 3.4 meter high piece, full of labyrinthine corridors in which to play, to lose oneself or simply walk, in an environment of mysterious shades in which everything that happened was perceived as diffused and the sun’s rays were filtered through the colored packaging. At night, the piece was transformed into a magical site, a kind of intimate and shining chapel, with walls made of plastic, almost monochrome mosaics.

To create this installation, we used more than 6000 water bottles, which we got from a local manufacturing and bottling plant, which gave us all the ones they discarded because they did not meet the quality standards required to sell them.

The rest of the material was contributed by the residents who helped us to fill in the piece with the bottles consumed during the 4 days that it took to assemble it. We can attest to the fact that in this city they drink bottled water in alarming quantities.

The containers were deposited in transparent bags which we illuminated with autonomous LED’s and which were suspended by their handles from a metallic structure constructed of modular and reusable elements.

The piece could be enjoyed for 2 weeks, open day and night and at the end of this period, was completely disassembled and every part of the installation was conveniently recycled.

We are very happy that in Poland it is finally compulsory to recycle, 3 years ago, when we were in Warsaw for the first time, they did not do it, but now it seems that the practice is taken very seriously, the streets are filled with containers of all kinds and so we can verify that they are used.

We had a great day, we met very interesting people, the organization was impeccable, and the volunteers as professional as possible. Working under a surprisingly strong sun that left us with a construction worker’s tan that is going to be difficult to get rid of.

Thanks to the multitude friends that voluntarily decided to lend a hand and provide solutions so that everything worked out as we had planned, more than 25 people worked on the piece, without whom we would not have come even remotely close to finishing the piece on time or have had such a good time. Thanks also to the organization of the festival that had everything planned so that nothing would fail, in addition to lending us a helping hand with the routine work and helping us to see the city at night, it was a pleasure to work with all of them.

We must not forget to thank the packaging company which selflessly gave us their discarded bottles, the primary school next to the installation, which saved material for us and to the residents for their daily contributions, who also used and enjoyed the piece.

And a very special thank you to all those who worked on the final disassembly, who we have been told, worked for 3 days so that everything was left impeccably clean and took care that not one piece was not recycled properly.

Thanks to all. It was a real pleasure working with you on this piece.

The photos are, as always, by Gustavo Sanabria and those of the disassembly were sent to us by Oskar Adamu who supervised the entire process, thanks friend.

Time of installation: 4 days
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 2 weeks

Portfolio Luzinterruptus

1 mayo, 2014

Después de mas de 5 años iluminado la calle y de haber producido un considerable material documental, tanto que se ha hecho inmanejable en formato blog, por fin tenemos un portfolio decente con las piezas más representativas de nuestro trabajo.

Empezamos con unas 40 y de ahí en adelante ampliaremos con las que mas nos vayan gustando.

Esperamos lo disfrutéis…

El portfolio.

———————————————–

After more than 5 years lighting up the streets, and having produced such a sizeable amount of documentary material that it was not manageable anymore in blog format, we have finally created a decent portfolio with our most representative work.

We are starting with about 40 of our creations, and from now on we will continue adding the ones that we like the most.

Hope you enjoy it.

The portfolio.

Rights to trample on / Derechos que pisotear

24 marzo, 2014

En España parece que los derechos sociales adquiridos durante muchos años de democracia están en peligro de extinción. Estos derechos, considerados básicos para los ciudadanos de sociedades evolucionadas a las que estamos deseando parecernos, ahora se están diluyendo y si no tenemos cuidado, acabarán desapareciendo bajo maniobras de distracción, que no engañan a casi nadie, que no quiera dejarse engañar.

No contentos con hacer desaparecer los derechos de los trabajadores, de los ciudadanos, con dejar la educación y la salud bajo mínimos y los impuestos en máximos históricos, ahora pretenden decidir sobre los derechos fundamentales de la mujer, reduciendo las posibilidades de abortar a prácticamente inexistentes.

Esta nueva ley, que ya ha sido aprobada en el congreso, prohibe la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo, excepto en casos muy extremos de peligro para la vida y convertirá a la mujer que decida hacerlo en una delincuente, poniendo el dinero en primer termino de la decisión y haciendo que sólo tengan acceso a este tratamiento los que puedan pagar por ello.

Pensando en cómo los derechos de la mujer están siendo pisoteados por los políticos y los legisladores, decidimos echarnos a la calle a manifestar nuestro rechazo a una ley, dirigida claramente a ganar votos de la derecha más radical.

Cargados de muñecas de plástico a medio inflar y a las que pusimos luz y sellamos la boca, nos fuimos una noche del mes de marzo, frente al Ministerio de Justicia de Madrid y lo sitiamos con nuestras figuras, colocadas en el pavimento a modo de alfombra de cuerpos femeninos preparados para ser pisados.

La acción se llamó Derechos que pisotear y tardamos un par de horas en llevarla a cabo. FInalmente lo recogimos todo para no dejar los alrededores del Ministerio lleno de plástico, y ahora tenemos en nuestro poder un montón de muñecas, que estamos deseando repartir entre todo el que las quieran adoptar. Si te apetece una ponte en contacto con nosotros y te la haremos llegar.

Las fotos son de Gustavo Sanabria.

Gracias a Diana, Alex, Pablo y Hector por echarnos una mano en el montaje, fue divertido…

Tiempo de montaje: 4 horas.
Daños ocasionados: 0.
Permanencia de la intervención: 2 horas.

———————————————————————-

In Spain it seems that the social rights acquired during many years of democracy are in danger of extinction. These rights are considered to be basic by the citizens of evolved societies which we desire to be like, are now being diminished and if we are not careful, will eventually disappear through maneuvers of distraction, which do not deceive almost anyone, who does not want to be fooled.

Not happy with taking away the rights of workers, of the citizens, with reducing education and health care to a minimum and taxes at historical highs, now they are trying to make decisions on the fundamental rights of women, reducing the possibilities de abortion to virtually non-existent.

This new law, which has already been approved in congress, prohibits the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, except in very extreme cases of danger to life and converts the woman who decides to have one into a criminal, making money the first consideration in the decision and making it so that only those who can pay for it have access to this treatment.

Thinking about how women’s rights are being trampled by politicians and legislators, we decided to take to the street to demonstrate our opposition to the law, quite clearly intended to win votes from the more radical right.

Loaded with half inflated plastic dolls into which we had placed lights and sealed their mouths, we went, one night in the month of March, to the front of the Ministry of Justice in Madrid and we placed our figures on the pavement like a carpet of female bodies ready to be trampled upon.

The action was called Rights to trample on and it took us a couple of hours to carry it out. Afterwards we picked up everything so as not to leave the vicinity of the Ministry full of plastic, and now we have a lot of dolls in our possession, and we would like to give them away to anyone who wants to adopt one. If you would like one please contact us and we will get it to you.

The photos are by Gustavo Sanabria.

Thanks to Diana, Alex, Pablo and Hector for lending us a hand setting up, it was fun…

Time of installation: 4 hours
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 2 hours

Shopping with Santa Claus

2 marzo, 2014

Trying to fill ourselves with the best of the Christmas spirit, on the 23rd of December we decided to accompany Santa Claus’s envoys on their search for Christmas gifts.

With a very, very limited budget because of the crisis, we had no choice but to stay far away from the customary temples of consumerism, to find an alternative means of acquiring their merchandise during these times.

We walked with them, searching the overfilled garbage containers, in which we were able to find, besides the expected broken objects, other which were completely usable.

Our Christmas action, of minimum cost, we call Shopping with Santa Claus and to carry it out, we simply acquired two typical Christmas dolls, from the corner store, we covered them with lights and transporting them in a shopping cart, we walked during the night, through the streets in the center of the city, inspecting the discarded objects we found along the way.

Through our nighttime intervention, we want to remind you that in Madrid, the number of people that eat and live from what they find in the garbage containers, has grown in an alarming manner since the beginning of the crisis, in spite of the fact that City Hall, completely against these practices, decided in 2009 to punish anyone caught in the act with a fine of up to 700 euros.

On this busy night, we were accompanied by Gustavo Sanabria, to whom the photos belong.

Time of installation: 5 hours.
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 5 hours.

……

Corazones de papel anti franquicia / Anti-franchise paper hearts

1 febrero, 2014

El primer día de las rebajas decidimos hacer una campaña luminosa contra las franquicias y los centros comerciales que abarrotan las calles principales de Madrid, convirtiendo nuestro paisaje urbano madrileño en exactamente el mismo que se puede encontrar en cualquier capital del mundo, donde reina la feliz globalización tan del gusto del turista que quiere desplazarse a los confines del mundo pero sin renuncia a tomares el café en su cadena de establecimientos favorita.

En la Gran Vía, una de las zonas de mayor comercio de la capital, de los 198 locales comerciales, 25 tienen la persiana echada y apenas queda una docena de tiendas de toda la vida. El porcentaje de establecimientos cerrados ha pasado del 6% al 12% en un año. Los comerciantes de la céntrica avenida huyen por el alto precio del metro cuadrado y la liberalización de horarios, que beneficia a las grandes superficies. Empresarios, urbanistas y arquitectos lamentan: «La Gran Vía ha perdido su personalidad, ya no se diferencia de cualquier centro comercial de la periferia». Entre los comercios cerrados, hay tiendas que llevaban abiertas desde mediados del siglo XX.

Y en ese contexto decidimos intervenir, armándonos con 250 corazones de papel, fabricados con nuestras propias manos, siguiendo un fantástico patrón de origami, apropiado para ocultar nuestra carga subversiva.

Y es que dentro de todos ellos metimos, además de nuestras acostumbradas luces, esta vez rojas y parpadeantes, una etiqueta magnética de las que pitan cuando pasas por los detectores de seguridad.

Con tan inofensivos y preciosos corazones, convertidos en broches, nos personamos en la referida zona comercial el primer día de las rebajas, con las calles abarrotadas de gente a la caza de ese auténtico chollo, que hasta ese momento no sabíamos que era imprescindible en nuestras vidas.

Llegamos nada más hacerse de noche y empezamos a repartir «inofensivos» corazones entre los estresados compradores, que los aceptaban gustosos después de contarles que era una acción solidaria promovida por los pequeños comerciantes de la zona para concienciar a los compradores sobre el peligro de extinción que corrían las tiendas familiares.

Les advertimos que no debían entrar en las grandes cadenas comerciales por todo lo dicho anteriormente, y muchos nos aseguraban que así lo harían, pero desde luego la mayoría sí que entró, ya que a los 2 minutos de empezar a repartir nuestros obsequios, ya estábamos escuchando el estridente sonido de las alarmas que iban saltando estridentemente, en casi todas las tiendas de la calle Preciados y Gran Vía.

Se generó gran confusión y los guardias de seguridad tuvieron bastante trabajo revisando bolsos y detectando la misteriosa causa de hacía saltaran las alarmas.

Al cabo de un rato la gente con corazones, empezó a entrar y salir de las tiendas libremente, aunque los vigilantes sabían donde estaban las alarmas no podían hacer que la gente se los quitara. Buen momento hubiera sido para haberse llevado ese objeto tan deseado que se nos salía de presupuesto…

Nuestra intervención se llamó Corazones de papel anti franquicia y tuvo lugar el 7 de enero, día en que se inauguraban oficialmente las rebajas en Madrid.

Gracias a Alex y a Diana por ayudarnos con el reparto de corazones, desde luego ellos tenían más gracia que nosotros haciendo de cebo para compradores.

Las fotos que documentan la acción, bastante difícil de conseguir esta vez, son como siempre de Gustavo Sanabria.

Tiempo de montaje: 10 horas.
Daños ocasionados: 0.
Permanencia de la intervención: ¿? .

———————————————————-

The first day of the sales we decided to launch a luminous campaign against the franchises and shopping centers that are crammed into the main streets of Madrid, converting Madrid’s urban landscape into exactly the same as can be found in any capital city in the world, where happy globalization reigns, much to the delight of the tourists who want to travel to the far corners of the world without giving up the opportunity to have a coffee in their favorite establishment.

Along Gran Via, one of the largest commercial areas in the capital, of the 198 commercial premises, 25 of them have the shutters lowered and there are hardly a dozen shops that we grew up with left. The percentage of closed shops has risen from 6% to 12% in a year. The merchants of the central thoroughfare are fleeing because of the high price per square meter and the liberalization of shopping hours, which benefit the larger shops. Entrepreneurs, town planners and architects lament: «Gran Via has lost its personality, it can no longer be differentiated from any other commercial center on the periphery». Among the closed businesses, there are shops that had been open since the mid-twentieth century.

And in that context we decided to intervene, arming ourselves with 250 paper hearts, manufactured by our own hand, following a fantastic origami pattern, perfectly suited to hide our subversive cargo.

And within all of them we put, in addition to our usual lights, this time red and flashing, a magnetic tag of the type that beeps when you pass through the security detectors.

With such harmless and beautiful hearts, converted into brooches, we went out into the referred to shopping area on the first day of the sales, with the streets crowded with people on the hunt for that authentic bargain, that we didn’t know was essential to our lives until now.

We arrived just as night fell and started handing out our «harmless» hearts to the stressed shoppers, who gladly accepted them after being told that it was a solidarity action promoted by the small merchants in the area to raise the awareness of the shoppers on the danger of extinction that family shops are running.

We warned them that they should not enter the large retail chains because of what has been said above, and many assured us that they would not, but of course the majority entered, within 2 minutes of beginning to hand out our gifts, we could hear the shrill sound of the alarms that were stridently going off, in almost all the shops along Calle Preciados and Gran Via.

It generated a lot of confusion and the security guards were kept quite busy checking bags and detecting the mysterious cause of the tripped alarms..

After a while the people wearing the hearts, began to enter and exit the shops freely, although the guards knew what was causing the alarms to go off they could not make people take them off. It would have been a good time to make off with that much desired object so that was beyond the budget …

Our intervention was called Anti-franchise paper hearts and took place on January 7th, the day that the sales officially started in Madrid.

Thanks to Alex and Diana for helping us with the distribution of hearts, of course they had more fun than us attracting shoppers.

The photos which document the action, quite difficult to take this time, are, as always by Gustavo Sanabria.

Time of installation: 10 hours
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: ¿?