By Pol Gutiérrez and Espar
Long takes fill the screen of the short film, those that make us appreciate the subtlety with which it transmits an explosion of visual details, in fact, this is the grace, paradoxically, the need to see. All the information that is transmitted to us by this organ, the sight. Sight that Hitomi's mother is missing, pupil, she has, but they no longer do their function. She sees white, the last glance of that screen once the projection is over.
That cinema is not dead yet, at least not until Hitomi leaves, then there will no longer be eyes that will be able to catch the one that does show, perhaps only for the man who stays there.
Photograph of the art installation "Hitomi" by Victoria Ioudina.
For me, what Hitomi transmits to us, apart from the ocular metaphor that connects with her mother, is a sample of the decadence of culture. That space once full of visual art now no longer has any use, as society has let pervert and die a space that spilled over from such a powerful medium to transmit discourse. What would happen if we let culture die? First of all, is this possible? And secondly, to die or to ignore? Culture, like art, as a form of cultural expression, cannot die, it can simply be ignored, made invisible. That space will continue to exist, people have simply ignored it, it is no longer a place where people go to enjoy visual discourses. This shows us something very important, if art has nothing to say to people, it is worthless, art is expression, but it wants to transmit something, if it does not transmit, then what happens?
Here we can elucidate two possible options: Either the art that does not transmit anything or does not impact society is worthless, or it may happen that in the specific historical moment it is not "understood" and, therefore, ignored or invalidated. If this happens, what do we do? Do we wait to dictate a supposed future where those speeches will be listened to by the conscience of the people or then the transmitted message has not been able to achieve its objective? Certainly, everything will depend on the artist's intention, or is it necessary the spectator for its culmination?
What would happen if we let culture die? First of all, is this possible? And secondly, to die or to ignore? Culture, like art, as a form of cultural expression, cannot die, it can simply be ignored, made invisible.
By Pol Gutiérrez and Espar
I believe that we cannot fall into a solipsistic and aprioristic art, an art in itself, independent of any externalization, since the creation of an art, even by oneself, already implies the unfolding of the same subject and the object of his own work, he always has someone to whom to address. Perhaps the greatest work of art is that which does not require this, but then no one can create it, it has to be ignored by everyone, in order to culminate in its maximum unexpressed expression.
Perhaps this is what could happen in Hitomi's cinema, perhaps it will only come to pass when no one is watching, when everyone is blind, which is what will end up happening in the words of his mother, blinded by the ignorance of not appreciating it. But clearly this is just confabulations, since this was not the ultimate goal.
White is not the absence of anything, in fact it is the opposite, it is the potentiality of infinite possible manifestations. Black is absence, the ultimate abstraction, and even in the end all the credits are shown to us on the white screen. White is also the main stage of a painting, and from it all the things that human understanding allows can emerge. In the same way that this writing has started as a blank page and at the end it embodies speech written in digital characters.
These are the reflections and sensations that have arisen in me at the moment of contemplating Hitomi, each one will have his understanding, this is mine.