Señales de vídeo: aspectos de la videocreación española de los últimos años

This creative media has undergone a relative growth -not without difficulties- since the early eighties with the first forays into video technology. Lacking stable structures in terms of work production and financing and because of certain ambiguities when planning the presentation, video art attracts artists because of the inherent freedom in the format while at the same time presenting new challenges.

Of the artists who made up the 1987 exhibition six of them will be seen again in this one: Antoni Muntadas, Francesc Torres, Julián Álvarez, Javier Codesal, Ignacio Pardo and Antón Reixa. They are joined by twenty-eight new creators in an exhibition which includes a wide variety of subjects and is structured into nine sections. The first is Imagined spaces referring to the possibility of recreating new scenarios through the manipulation of images which electronic video technology and information technology allows. Gathered in this space are: Jordi Teixidó, El Grupo 3TT, Pedro Ballesteros, Íñigo Salaberría, Jaime Vallaure and the couple formed by Olga Mesa and Ricardo de Rezende.

The second section is Imaginative journeys and is dedicated both to travels around the world that involve contact with other cultures as well as domestic travels. Toni Serra, Maite Ninou and Xavier Manubens, Isabel Herguera, Jacobo Sucari and Pedro Ortuño exhibit their productions here.

The right to replicate is the title of the third section where images and messages received through various channels are subject to appropriation and reinterpretation by Joan Leandre, Xurxo Estévez and Antoni Muntadas.

Conversely, Autovideographies, portraits, family videos is the name given to various ways of practicing introspection and self-reflection in formats such as videowritings, videoportraits or videomemories from: Carlos Gil-Roig, Jaime Vallaure, Joan Pueyo, Juan Crego and Francisco Ruíz de Infante.

The name chosen for the sixth section is Memories, remembrances, wounds. Collective or private memory is the predominant theme for artists such as: Manuel Sáez, Enrique Fontanilles, Juan Crego, Marcelo Expósito and Esther Mera.

Under the heading Geography and history (with nightmares) a collection of critical perspectives, full of questions to the past and present of our societies are gathered. Jaime Subiana and Gringos, Jose Antonio Hergueta and Marcelo Expósito and Francesc Torres deal with asking the right questions and seeking answers in this section.

What has been called black Spain, referring to a tradition clinging onto the past and full of eschatology is the protagonist of Long live death, the section that exhibits work by Antonio Perumanes, Francisco Ruíz de Infante, Ignacio Pardo and Javier Codesal.

Finally, the exhibition includes pieces related to reflections on the body from its most biological and poetic to its relationship with life, artificial intelligence and bioengineering, these are themes by: Joan Pueyo, Ignacio Pardo, Rosa Silva, Elio Quiroga and Julian Álvarez.

A total of forty works taking the first steps towards the command of a medium full of possibilities and towards which Spanish artists in the exhibition have turned their research as demonstrated by the course between the 1987 La Imagen Sublime and the current Señales de vídeo.