Amsterdam Group A Response to Kati's Lecture

Gomez Pena's use of the conception of "risk" as a driving force behind the A Muerte needs to be challenged. Due to the work's mediality, the risk inherit in being confronted with a loaded gun is depreciated on several levels. Firstly, formalized conventions and archetypes at work within mass media, namely the presentation of the gun and the inherit risk for violence, are strikingly familiar and thereby devalued of its shock. Secondly, due to the idea of representativity the spectator questions the verisimilitude behind the gun and whether it is actually loaded or merely an illusion, requiring our suspension of disbelief into a fictitious world. Ultimately, though, regardless of whether the spectator invests fully into the reality of the loaded gun the immediate risk of violence is removed due to their lack of physical co-presence in the same space of Gomez Pena. While the lack of physical co-presence does not reduce the theatricality of the piece it does subdue Gomez Pena’s conception of risk.

These issues appear as secondary modes of inquiry when juxtaposed to Gomez Pena's attention to laying bare the processes of mediality present within A Muerte. That is, rendering the invisible mechanisms of video mediality visible. Through paralleling the pointing, and potential shooting, of the gun at the cameraman to the pointing, and "shooting", of the subject by the video camera Gomez Pena transfers the direction of the gaze.

We find A Muerte especially intriguing in the context of the Gomez Pena’s larger body of work, a taste or which can be sampled at his blog:

http://www.pochanostra.com/dialogues/

Gomez Pena’s exploration/exploitation of physicality through archetypal gestures within A Muerte is reminiscent of his work within The Chica-Iranian Project Orientalism Gone Wrong in Aztlan.

http://www.pochanostra.com/chica-iranian/

Thank you for your presentation, Kati! Hope this finds you all well in the digital sphere.

Jess and David.