ANDRES UGARTECHEA
Valemadrismo s m (popular) (2024)
…is a multimedia artwork that delves into the concept of indifference as both a cause and consequence of social inequality. The title, mimicking a dictionary definition of a Mexican slang word for “indifference”, frames this work as an exploration of Mexican society, specifically concerning its working class and their living conditions. Drawing from personal and collective narratives, this piece is a response to academia’s underappreciation and misunderstanding of the contributions of laborers.
This artwork takes the shape of a four-by-four meter physical installation dissected into five main segments:
Installation
The installation contains multiple elements that aim to represent the Mexican working class as a community with its own culture, structure, and systems of knowledge. The setup consists of different sections:
First, elements that materialize the urban context of public markets, such as the tent hanging a set of texturized tarps and the traffic cones. Moreover, some items serve as visual cues to evoke the concept of labor in the spectator, such as the trolley, the pile of heavy-duty boxes, and the colorful signs indicating the prices. Going into the cultural specificity of the project, the spectator perceives texts in Spanish and transliteration of Spanish in Arabic script, which frames the visuals as Latine and creates a bridge to acknowledge the cosmopolitanism of the working class culture. More elements of Mexicanism and labor appear in the installation: Catholicism, through religious figurines, books, and other items; indigeneity, through handmade toys, candies, and souvenirs; humor, through the texts on the signs that refer to the Mexican pop culture; and many other elements that allude to other sociocultural aspects. Then, the textures on the back side of the tent showcase the posters of the four performances that are played on the CRT TV on the ground, and a second CRT TV on the table serves to show the archive of Valemadrismo s m (popular) in a VR environment. Finally, a projection on the side of the tent presents the animations with the MoCap data and a small radio gives ambient noise to the installation.
Performance
The performance, Más sabe el diablero por viejo (“The porter knows more because he's been around longer”), aims to interpret the working class as a culture. This performance involves my embodiment of a porter's labor, depicting tasks such as stacking boxes onto a hand truck and navigating long distances while encountering obstacles. Purposeful moments of disruption, like dialogues with the cameraman, are included to highlight the distinction between embodying labor and performing labor. I adhere to my practical approach of "depicting labor through labor".
MoCap animations
The MoCap animations were produced with the direction of Professor Sara Niroobakhsh, my mentor in this project. The aim was to document through different tasks how the body understands labor. This process was recorded by the sensors in Rokoko’s Smartsuit Pro II. Subsequently, a series of animations was produced using the MoCap data and projected onto the installation.
VR environment
This is an ongoing archival project that aims to make this artwork accessible to the public outside its exhibition space at NYU Abu Dhabi. It also seeks to become a resource for individuals whose voices are represented in Valemadrismo s m (popular), responding to the paradox of creating a work labeled as anti-academic for an academic audience. This part involved 3D scanning the completed installation and modeling the scans using Blender. The assets were hosted on WondaVR to make them publicly accessible.
Ambient noise
The ambient noise played on the radio is a compilation of sounds recorded and found online of Mexican streets. The track was composed by Diana Donatella, a German-American musician in her second year at NYU Abu Dhabi. It starts with an excerpt of “Abcdefg” by ROSALIA, which alludes to the “clickbait” culture of public markets and makes reference to the title, Valemadrismo s m (popular), that also plays with letters in its composition.