[....] What fascinates you in the absurd and the useless?
The fact that it is precisely through the absurd and the useless that we can really get to understand what us humans are like: we can perform coherent and beautiful actions that still have no purpose. The purpose of our actions, or even better, their ends, somehow always escapes our comprehension, and yet we keep moving and doing things. It is fascinating then to see, as in a distorted mirror in front of us, what we do, but without our presence: just the action repeating itself over and over.
Porristas
What is your relationship with the machines you create? Do you see them as mere objects for galleries or do you develop a more personal relationship with them?
There is something I really like about them: Their design is always the result of very simple mechanical or physical processes, and it is conceived by the mind of an amateur: There is no engineering or high-tech involved. The result is therefore a very personal interpretation of a movement, so it turns to be more an expressive device than a robot or an automatic appliance.
On the other hand there are a couple of pieces that work very well with galleries, but not because they look good in them or because they are commercial. Both the smoking machine (Mademoiselle) and the careless machines (the ones that start making a toast, and end up drunk and unsynchronized) invert the social roles of the actors in an exhibition opening: When the guests drink and smoke while looking at the art pieces, these two art pieces drink and smoke while looking back at their beholders.
Maquina desempolvadora and La desaparicion de las necesidades
How do you develop them? On your own? or do you collaborate with someone else to build up the technical elements?
The whole process of designing and building these objects is rather interesting. I am becoming first of all very comfortable with the fact that they are created in sort of a naive way. I need to understand what is going on in there, and I need the viewer to do so too, so I tend to avoid complex operations or technological novelties that could leave you just amazed and overwhelmed. Nevertheless, I have always had the support of people that obviously know how to do certain things better than me, especially concerning working with metal or other industrial materials that require special instruments. The rest is just small disco ball motors working!
Maquina que intenta amarrar un zapato (Machine that tries to tie shoes)
