Unanswered Questions

Invisible cities are all around us. This is the point that Italo Calvino emphasizes through his aptly titled Invisible Cities. He makes it clear that every society created, whether fictional or real, is an attempt at the perfect place, a heaven on earth. Waking Life, an entirely different piece, is an animated movie where the main character talks to several people trying to understand our life, the present society, and the nature of things. Though at first they seem to explore different subjects, we soon come to realize that they, in fact, overlap.

Through the course of Waking Life the main character meets a handful of interesting people, all with personal reflections and theories on different aspects of life. One such philosopher is a man in a bar, shown in this picture. Represented in a medium-wide shot that follows the rule of two thirds, the camera is angled at ¾ front and eye level. The composition of this shot helps us do two things: it both identifies us with the man and it makes us pay attention to what he is saying. The background is not distracting, it doesn´t take our attention away from the speaker, and because it is almost like we can look straight into his eyes it does not feel like he is any better than us. If anything, he is merely opening up to us and expressing his every thought.

This particular person has interesting ideas, talking about the advances over time. There are none, he states. This is a clear contradiction with what the large portion of the human race believes, where the improvements and achievements of humans are boasted. Technology and wisdom has largely improved, they claim, and they have taken us from a Stone Age to the way of live we know today. In complete disagreement, this man says we are “at best, super chimpanzee level”, believing that we are deceived in our perception of what is advantage and development. Waking Life also poses such an idea with Continuous City No. 2. Named Trude, it is a city that essentially looks the same as any other, giving the illusion that you have already been here. The truth is, you have. Because although you don´t feel in a place where you´d be eager to return, there is no escaping it. Trude is everywhere, it is every single city in the world. The only thing that changes is its name, applying the same idea of repetition, of stability, of monotony, as the man in Waking Life. Nothing changes, but we all believe it does. It is only another illusion in our daily lives.

A different moment of Waking Life introduces another man, this one in a very particular situation. As seen on the shot to the left, he is burning himself. The shot, portrayed in an extreme wide shot, frontal and high angle camera direction, is interesting mainly because of two things. The first is obvious. A man is burning. The second lies in the two men seen on the left, simply because they are half-heartedly staring at a man who is probably dead by now, a man who committed suicide right before their eyes. And what was their reaction? None at all. They simply watched, not wanting to help out.

This shot is best understood when what happened before it is seen. The man now burning was talking to our main character, angry at the media and the government. Both are allies of the evil in our world, he says, because the government does not let us be free while the media promotes the evil in the world. He is also believes that we all do our share in making the world a hypocritical place. People often speak against the horrors of wars, disasters, of depressions, but they actually give us a sense of pleasure. Sure, we may feel sorrow, he states, but “man wants chaos…he´s gotta have it”. The shot above is then a perfect representation of his ideas: although the two men do not want to help, they can´t take their eyes off the carcass. Invisible Cities introduces a city of the dead called Eusapia. Its inhabitants, though the most inclined to enjoying life and having free will, is most known because it is often copying what the dead do. Each time the dead innovates, so do the living. They are then twin cities, meaning that the city that so ardently loves life closely resembles death. Sound familiar? These explanations show that the human race has deceived itself in other aspects. This time, it´s our sense of compassion, of cooperation, our will to live peacefully. These values do not exist, they are merely another myth created over time.

What is real? Very few things, if you choose to believe Invisible Cities and Waking Life. Most of our realities, whether they are a society, a custom or a habit, they are all fantasies of ours. If most of what we live is a lie, an illusion, invisible, then what do we live? Is there really a purpose to our being here? And what is the role model we need to follow? These pieces are effective in solving mysteries, but they open many more. If anything, they leave the reader or observer in a pensive mode, unsure of the next move. They don´t even know where they stand. It´s no wonder many choose to live in the dark.

Act III-Pygmalion

This act of Pygmalion is the perfect representation of the common phrase "You can take the boy out of the hood but not the hood out of the boy". Despite her improved pronunciation, Liza cannot help but to tell the inappropriate stories of her past, shocking thus the high-society women and diverting the men. It´s impossible to radically change someone, and the past is just one of such untouchable things. No one can deny their roots, their experience, their origins.
This act is also important in that we begin to see just how much Higgins is protecting Liza and losing himself in what he is creating. Much like the sculptor in Pygmalion (after which the play takes its name), he is falling in love with this vision of his, rather the potential of this woman than what she really is. It is a fictitious love, one that will most likely end in disaster.

Chuck Close

The name say is all...Chuck Close. His exposition in Quinta Galleria was an surprising mix between interesting and revolting. The dozens of close-ups, one after another, all showed the several imperfections in the face of many, which both mesmerized and disgusted you. Despite the ugliness, it was quite hard to look away from each picture. The naked pictures, the back and the front paired together in a frame, the image sort of mirror-like, only add to the strange sense that surrounds the images. The second floor of the gallery is something completely different, surreal images and pictures of moments that were not planned. Also, unlike Close´s photographs, they are not close ups of one person, they have more background and a larger visual frame. But despite the fact that they are somewhat disturbing, Close´s photographs are beautiful. They carry about them a sort of mystic air, a sort of romantic tone, and they just don´t let you look away until you have analyzed every line, every crease in the face of the given person. It is different, it is rare, but it is a wonderful exposition.

Democratic Security?

Vendors and Bystanders

The Accessory Store

Street Artist Portable Furniture Our Future

Moving Shoes

Morning Coffee

Peanuts and Minutes

Flower Men

Flashing Coconuts

Expelled From Her Land

Checking Papers

Aromaticas, Anyone?

Avocados

Street vendors flood Bogota´s streets every day. Enduring the extreme climates of the city, either scorching hot, freezing cold and thundering rain, these men and women are never a strange sight. Their methods vary. Some stand in spotlights the entire day, others travel in bikes, some have carts with their products along the sidewalk, and a few have cars, which they park and display their merchandise in their trunk. And whether they are selling something or simply begging for change, their purpose is always the same: to manage somehow to feed themselves and their families.

Where these people come from is no mystery. Most of them used to be small farm owners, producing enough to sustain themselves and their family in a comfortable way. They came to the capital after having been threatened by one of several terrorist groups, forcing them to give up their lands, work for them, or be killed. Scared to death, they come to Bogotá hoping that they will soon find jobs or at least, find help from their government which so solemnly swore to help out any who found themselves in need. Here, they found overpopulation, crowding, few job opportunities, and living conditions that would repulse anyone. Having to compete with others that migrated in the same circumstances or those born already poor in these streets, many of them soon saw that it was a competition short of impossible to win. Thus the streets of northern, richer neighborhoods seemed the best place to look for profit.

Street vendors and beggars have become part of Bogota´s landscape. Some hate them, wanting to see the poor stick to their own neighborhoods, some ignore them, some help out with tips or food, and others rejoice in the cheap, miscellaneous products they offer. Because the truth is that whatever they sell, ranging from flowers to cell phone cases to chontaduros, these products do not pay taxes. This does not seem to bother the vendors, they often make more than what a cashier or house maid earns. But the Colombian government and its high-society leaders do not see it this way. Condemning them as low lives that only disrupt the Colombian society, they want to see them gone and out of the streets.

In 2008, a law known as Law 087 was passed in Congress. Changing the 2002 792 Law, it suggests that no cars can buy products or give charity closer than 200 meters away from a stoplight, bridge, etc. Its final purpose is to stop illegal product selling and encourage these people to get a job. But what it is really doing is making their lives go from difficult to impossible. With no job opportunities out there and prohibited from showing along streets, what are they to do? With no legal options left, the best way to feed their families is stealing or drug dealing. In no way will this law help the situation of our country. More unemployment and a higher crime rate is definitely not a solution. But what is really wrong about this law proposal is that it hinders honest people, people who chose a hard life of street sales instead of the option that most take-drug dealing. They did not give in to the extortions of the armed groups that threatened them and instead decided to say good-bye to their former lives and head out to the big unknown city. These people are heroes, they deserve the respect of each and every one who has never known what real difficulty is. And the only way in which they are repaid is by declaring them illegal? It seems that in this country no right action can get you anywhere. There are no options for those who cannot find a job, they are constantly oppressed and encounter new difficulties every passing day. Unless the Colombian Government and the high society changes its perceptions and attitudes towards people with less luck the country´s deterioration will only continue until it is too late and they, too, are submerged in poverty. Letting these people work is the lesser of two evils, apparently.

Guilliver´s Travels, Part IV (1)