Blanca sobre Negra II, 2008
Multimedia installation
Blanca sobre negra II is a multimedia installation that consists of a projection wall of computer-generated images framed by interlaced esparto grass, a metaphor for the connections between the technology of the present and the past. Handwoven mats lie on the floor to recreate an artisanal environment and to recall craft and trades that have disappeared over time. The computer randomly improvises the path, among a number of possible courses, along which the images and sounds flow.
Blanca sobre negra II tells us little stories of the inhabitants of a quiet little town called Blanca. Using the registers of the documentary, the camera explores the micro-stories of three weavers talking about their jobs and routines, stories of precarious work, of social injustice and of lack of future prospects for their children. A network of lives, shaping, together with other similar lives, a social and production system built at the expense of its participants. Each subject (female worker) relies on a completely external pattern of social behaviour in order to keep the system operative, although economically and humanly unsustainable.
This work is part of the projects by Pedro Ortuño presenting country areas that are becoming impoverished and marginalized by techno-economical and globalizing networks of wealth and power. On the other hand, the social, cultural and labour environment of this small town in Murcia is engaged in a micro-political dynamics of exploitation, deregulation and deprivation.
