Dream.Addictive.News

Grand opening of Lui Velazquez 2.0
Saturday March 14th / Sabado 14 Marzo
7-9pm

Featuring the work of:

Susy Bielak
Dream Addictive Lab
Elle Mehrmand
Zac Montanaro
Priscilla Lázaro Rabago

Co-curated by Katherine Sweetman, Micha Cárdenas and Felipe Zuñiga

In contemporary western society, we have developed an intimate relationship with our simulations. Both simulation and reenactment have become part of our daily lives, and we are familiar with their logics. Simulation is so deeply embedded in our thinking, that many of our most important decisions are made based on simulation, such as the dropping of bombs. Yet simple, personal decisions in our daily lives are also made on simulations, such as weather simulations. In our homes at night, we watch the news and see reenactments of crimes. Our political struggles are influenced by the reenactments of the lives of historical figures and moments. Scientists rely on the logic of simulation to inform their decisions and conclusions, making the most sacrosanct act of ‘proof’ in our society, based on a simulation of, for example, biological behaviors. Legal decisions depend on reenactments such as in the assassination of JFK. In Simulacra and Simulation Baudrillard quotes Ecclesiastes saying “the simulacrum is never what hides the truth– It is truth that hides the fact that there is none. the simulacrum is true.” Today this idea still holds great significance as new forms of simulation and reenactment work themselves into our most private moments.

Artists are directly engaging with the logics of simulation and reenactment, using their vernaculars and exploring their dimensions and implications. In this show, we are presenting a number of pieces which deeply engage with simulation and reenactment. In Suzy Bielak’s “Quake/Temblor”, a reenactment of the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, we witness a reenactment of a moment from her personal history, using the technologies of scientific simulation. Elle Mehrmand’s “w3eks..” simulates her memory of 3 weeks of her life, providing an intimate reliving of her experience. Priscilla Lázaro Rabago’s performance and video both contains and recreates a puppet show, creating a nested topology of copies and simulations of humanness. Zac Montanaro’s “Missing Priest Puts Focus on Cluster Ballooning” reenacts a political act of communication through low tech border disturbance gestures. While Dream Addictive’s Untitled_Mood is a simulator of a virtual mirror with a memory, in which the viewers intimtate experience of their own image in the mirror is fractured and doubled through the memory of the mirror itself. These pieces explore multiple trajectories of simulation and evoke its place, embedded in our lives, between us and ourselves.

Lui Velazquez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300
flyer at: http://luivelazquez.com/lui_card1
directions at: http://luivelazquez.com/directions