Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The videos and video installations by Argentina’s Sebastian Diaz Morales explore the possibilities of narrative and are situated between documentary and representation. His work addresses the connection between image and reality, and as the artist has told VB Channel, it is an “inquiry about the procedures for recording reality in a new way – or how far it extends.” Sebastian Diaz Morales’ pieces in the Videobrasil Collection are about the boundaries of fiction and the questioning of media outlets.

The curator Sophie Goltz, author of a text about Morales for the book Unerasable Memories, notes that the artist dedicates himself to abstraction and to transforming melancholy topics from the 21st century through his analysis of everyday life. Politics, loss of identity, as well as economic and social violence are some of the themes of his art.

In Lucharemos Hasta Anular la Ley (2004), we watch worn-out footage of a demonstration. Barely distinguishable silhouettes attack the imposing doors and windows of a building, voices and noise overlap haphazardly. The subject and the objective are not known to us, and yet the event’s images rekindle memories of forms of political protest and collective organization. Diaz Morales’ goal was to de-virtualize image to a point where it could not be categorized: “my idea was to disconnect the protest from any specific action. The image was treated in such a way as to situate the demonstration in an abstract time which could be in the future or the past.” By separating the protest from the mass media’s biased explanations, the artist gets to the bottom of this political action, which could have been any political action. The artist states that television makes a spectacle out of actions of this type, using them to commercial and political ends. To Diaz Morales, confusion between reality and fiction is inherent to television, which directs its view of reality with partial intentions. “Due to its visibility and its reach, [the television medium] creates a parallel reality,” he concludes.

Sebastian Diaz Morales discusses connections between image and reality

In an interview to PLATFORM:VB, Diaz Morales explains that the video contains footage, taken by his brother, of a protest in front of the Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies. The demonstration was against the passing of a law prohibiting street vendors, transvestites and prostitutes from working in a certain area of the city. Scary at first, violence against property can be interpreted as a response to political violence. In this regard, curator Marcio Harum comments in FF>>Dossier 052: “Diaz Morales artistically yields the power of community against the violence inflicted on citizens and citizenship by the dirty politics of State Law.”

Learn more about the artist:

• Sebastián Diaz Morales on Videobrasil Collection
• Lucharemos hasta anular la ley on Videobrasil Collection