Eli Cortiñas
07 Mar - 09 Apr 2009
ELI CORTIÑAS
"Dial M for Mother"
March 07 - April 09 2009, Opening: Friday, March 06, 18 h
In the video production Dial M for Mother by Eli Cortiñas (b. 1976 Gran Canaria, Spain) the background noise is dominated by the piercing ring of a phone which leaves neither the film’s protagonists nor the viewers a moment’s peace. The focal point of the picture is actress and American Independent icon Gena Rowlands, who Eli Cortiñas has extracted from three films by the director John Cassavetes and re-mounted into a new eleven-minute long two channel video.
In her final project for the Cologne Academy of Media Arts (2008), Eli Cortiñas Hidalgo presents a breathtaking tour de force through the depths of the human psyche. The unresolved mother-daughter conflict which comes to the surface, reveals itself to be a struggle for identity and autonomy and for a role in life which can be neither won nor lost, but culminates in a “vicious circle”.
Cortiñas works with found footage and material from her own archive, which she expertly separates into acoustic and visual elements and afterwards blends together so that they merge like fuzzy sets into a collage, from which new semantic fields emerge: the only protagonist is presented on both installation screens either mirrored or parallel in close-up or medium shots. The viewer is forced to switch his focus to and fro, ping-pong like, thus heightening the tension. The original duration is altered through time lag or extreme slow-motion in individual sequences, giving the found materials a completely new appearance.
Excerpts from three films in which Gena Rowlands had the lead role were used: “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), “Opening Night” (1979), and “Gloria” (1980). These excerpts are mounted by Eli Cortiñas so that a form of zapping between differing sequences – isolated from the film roles – produces new characters, and a completely new scenario. Apart from found footage Cortiñas uses telephone conversations with her own mother which were recorded over a period of four years, interlinked with the fragments of film. These excerpts are mounted so that through a kind of zapping between various sequences, a new scenario emerges in which her own mother becomes the protagonist’s fictive mother on screen.The interplay between real and imaginary space, documentation and fiction, as well as off-screen and on-screen elements and the various roles serve to make up the complexity of this work.
The collage series CONCEIVING MUST BE FUN is formed from fragments of photographic illustrations and drawings, mounted on a white background, combined with cut-out or large printed typographies. Noticeably often, kitchen utensils, as well as naked female bodies with their legs spread wide apart, their faces disguised, can be seen, which must have been taken from magazines from the 50s or Playboy magazines from the 70s. As the title suggests, the series concentrates on the topic of conception, which results in pregnancy, birth and motherhood and thus the mother concept is brought into the focus. The limiting of women to a reproducing “mother-body” as well as questions about the consequences of starting a family, seem to hang in the air. The inherent passivity of the word conception - becoming pregnant - which requires a body and not an identity, places the question of femininity in the core of the definition. Referring back to the picture material of the 50s and 70s, the title forms a link to the 21st century and a world of consumerism influenced by the fun factor. The picture language is neither educational nor accusing, not to mention suffering. The collages can be regarded more as persiflages, which with a grim sense of humour and a large portion of sarcasm, call the relationships between the sexes into question. Despite “mothering” and “parental leave”, they have lost none of their relevance nor power.
Text: Petra Pechtheyden, 2009
"Dial M for Mother"
March 07 - April 09 2009, Opening: Friday, March 06, 18 h
In the video production Dial M for Mother by Eli Cortiñas (b. 1976 Gran Canaria, Spain) the background noise is dominated by the piercing ring of a phone which leaves neither the film’s protagonists nor the viewers a moment’s peace. The focal point of the picture is actress and American Independent icon Gena Rowlands, who Eli Cortiñas has extracted from three films by the director John Cassavetes and re-mounted into a new eleven-minute long two channel video.
In her final project for the Cologne Academy of Media Arts (2008), Eli Cortiñas Hidalgo presents a breathtaking tour de force through the depths of the human psyche. The unresolved mother-daughter conflict which comes to the surface, reveals itself to be a struggle for identity and autonomy and for a role in life which can be neither won nor lost, but culminates in a “vicious circle”.
Cortiñas works with found footage and material from her own archive, which she expertly separates into acoustic and visual elements and afterwards blends together so that they merge like fuzzy sets into a collage, from which new semantic fields emerge: the only protagonist is presented on both installation screens either mirrored or parallel in close-up or medium shots. The viewer is forced to switch his focus to and fro, ping-pong like, thus heightening the tension. The original duration is altered through time lag or extreme slow-motion in individual sequences, giving the found materials a completely new appearance.
Excerpts from three films in which Gena Rowlands had the lead role were used: “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), “Opening Night” (1979), and “Gloria” (1980). These excerpts are mounted by Eli Cortiñas so that a form of zapping between differing sequences – isolated from the film roles – produces new characters, and a completely new scenario. Apart from found footage Cortiñas uses telephone conversations with her own mother which were recorded over a period of four years, interlinked with the fragments of film. These excerpts are mounted so that through a kind of zapping between various sequences, a new scenario emerges in which her own mother becomes the protagonist’s fictive mother on screen.The interplay between real and imaginary space, documentation and fiction, as well as off-screen and on-screen elements and the various roles serve to make up the complexity of this work.
The collage series CONCEIVING MUST BE FUN is formed from fragments of photographic illustrations and drawings, mounted on a white background, combined with cut-out or large printed typographies. Noticeably often, kitchen utensils, as well as naked female bodies with their legs spread wide apart, their faces disguised, can be seen, which must have been taken from magazines from the 50s or Playboy magazines from the 70s. As the title suggests, the series concentrates on the topic of conception, which results in pregnancy, birth and motherhood and thus the mother concept is brought into the focus. The limiting of women to a reproducing “mother-body” as well as questions about the consequences of starting a family, seem to hang in the air. The inherent passivity of the word conception - becoming pregnant - which requires a body and not an identity, places the question of femininity in the core of the definition. Referring back to the picture material of the 50s and 70s, the title forms a link to the 21st century and a world of consumerism influenced by the fun factor. The picture language is neither educational nor accusing, not to mention suffering. The collages can be regarded more as persiflages, which with a grim sense of humour and a large portion of sarcasm, call the relationships between the sexes into question. Despite “mothering” and “parental leave”, they have lost none of their relevance nor power.
Text: Petra Pechtheyden, 2009