Switch off all devices (2008)
Mixed photography technique
65.5 x 99 cm framed
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2008.141.1
In Switch off all devices, Carlos Irijalba uses artificial lighting devices, commonly used in concerts or stadiums, to create a series of photographs that question the forms in which the staging is depicted.
Light is used in all areas of the show to attract the viewer’s eye. This is the case in cinema, for example, where photography and post-production are of fundamental importance to reconstruct the scenes of a film. In response, the artist decides to reverse this principle using a process that could be described as ‘analogue’: he illuminates areas of a completely dark forest, inevitably channelling our gaze into the natural elements (in this case, a small strip of land), which we would not normally have noticed. Proceeding in this way gives presence and, in doing so, endows the artistic process with the ability to alter reality, to reread a landscape that, unless staged, would have been perceived in a very different way.