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SEED

To understand how 'Playing to be present' arises, it is necessary to go through my first audiovisual projects, since they are the origin of my deepest intuitions and, above all, the reason why I am developing my degree project.

It all started with the project 'Trazos de luz' in 2018, when I was just in the 5th semester of the visual arts career, and I was meeting for the first time with one of the greatest and treasured discoveries of my career, the ability to merge drawing with the audiovisual medium.

traces of light

Angel Hurtado (2018)

Trazos de luz

synopsis and analysis

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'Trazos de luz' is an expanded animation project in which pencil drawings come to life and occupy real spaces in the city through live projection.

 

'The city as an infinite canvas' - That was the premise that inspired me to draw about the city as if it were paper.


Both swings, birds and park chairs inhabit different places in the south of Bogotá, and as people interact with those drawings, new ephemeral spaces are created that only exist for the duration of the projection.

 

The idea of ​​placing living and ephemeral images on the public space made me realize the potential of drawing outside of paper, exposing it to others triggers a series of bodily relationships with the projected image, the drawing itself begins to speak from their own language, to appeal to the memory and memory of each one.

After this initial exploration and through different circumstances I came into contact with the teacher of a school with which I had been involved before as she had made a documentary with some girls who were studying there.

 

The school is called ESCUELA NACIONAL DE COMERCIO, and it is there from where all the development of the project will take place during the following years.

 

One day I called the teacher, her name is Rosaura, and I asked her if she could go visit her children and propose a drawing activity, she agreed.

 

The room was covered with children's drawings, from small cutouts pasted around the board, to banners pasted on some windows, everything reminded us of the presence of the children, including themselves who made themselves known with their effusive welcome.

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They greeted me at the doorway even though they didn't know me and had never seen me. The teacher Rosaura smiles at me, her group is approximately 30 children, they are between 5 and 6 years old, they are in the first grade.

 

As I am the guest, Professor Rosaura introduces me, and even though I have only been in the room for 10 minutes, and they call me 'teacher', I am Professor Angel. This marked me.

 

After giving each one a blank sheet of paper, I gave them only one instruction: “I want you to draw what you like the most”, and that is how each one threw themselves onto the paper to draw, although they also threw themselves at me, to ask me for colors, pencils, erasers, additional sheets, everything.

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The experience of listening to all of them at once, surrounding me, asking me, asking me, was incredible and overwhelming at the same time. I loved listening to them, but I also faced the need to give them clear instructions, to establish some rules of the game, to get into my role as 'The teacher' and guide them.

 

An hour later, the results were incredible, I was exhausted, but it was worth it. Very 'crazy' images emerged as I tell you, not with a pejorative intention but quite the opposite, the reality captured from their eyes was so rich and interesting, images of witches, taxis, giraffes, rockets, suns, animals, limos, appeared, soccer fields, among many others.

 

At the end, I collected a series of approximately 35 drawings, in which each child drew what they liked and / or remembered the most. Their drawings reveal a sincerity and a frankness that is very pleasant to find at their age, especially since they tend to be absent as they 'mature'.

 

Once those drawings had been collected, I sat down to observe them carefully, thinking how to continue and perpetuate their power? How to do them justice? How to appropriate them so that that initial seed would bear fruit?

 

I decided to appropriate its aesthetics, its stains, its line, its erratic and fierce line, its bright colors, its staggered shapes, its limitless imagination.

 

Despite reaching that decision, as obvious as it seemed, it was not easy, since, somehow, to draw like them I had to be like them, I had to go into a kind of trance to be able to embody their feelings, I had to forget about the world to be able to detach myself from my own perfectionist standards. It was necessary to forget everything I know about how to color, forget about composition, contrast, geometry, etc. In essence it was an exercise in forgetting myself and the immense amount of concepts I learned during my professional career. For the first time I had to dream madly about the shapes that I could create with my pencil, because that was the only way to be faithful to the spirit present of the children in those drawings.

 

This is how I got to know that school with long corridors and incessant sounds. The image of a classroom environment where teaching happens from the chaos and vitality of the children stayed with me.

 

The result of this beautiful process of chaos of drawings and creatures is the project below: 'PLAYFUL LINES'.

synopsis and analysis

playful lines

Angel Hurtado (2019)

Trazo Travieso

Imagination is the purest creative resource that exists, the images that arise during childhood carry hidden powers. This animation project collected the drawings of a group of children from the city of Bogotá and turned them into animated images.

 

Children's drawings embody the very essence of life seen through their eyes, therefore, the purpose of this animation was to give them back their drawings, but reinvented as living lines. Bringing children's drawings "to life" was my way of thanking them for teaching me anew to see the world in a whole new way.

 

"I was the witcher, making magic potions, it took a pinch of madness, three sticks of crayon, a lot of crumpled paper and a puff of frost, and so that collective universe was created over the months on my drawing board . "

 

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The project was phenomenal, it was possible to create a precedent with the school, with the children, with the parents and with the teacher Rosaura, somehow it had been demonstrated through that initial exploration that the recognition of the value of the creations and drawings of Children are essential, as they have immense potential that is often overlooked.

 

However, the objective of the project was to generate a dialogue with the children, which is why the following project is the immediate continuation of the previous animation, and it is also the first official approach to the audiovisual development of my thesis / degree project proposal .

 

The project resumes just after having shown the finished animation to the children in their classroom, the rehearsal begins when I give them back their cartoons, they go crazy with happiness and so do I. Then I raise the new questions, considerations and thoughts that arise after that meeting in terms of my artistic work around teaching.

vital encounters (audiovisual essay)

Angel Hurtado (2020-1)

Encuentros Vitales (Ensayo)
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synopsis and analysis

The search for an Arts teacher to reunite with his children after the global quarantine will trigger the creation of images and drawings that will go beyond the limits of paper to inhabit the streets of the city of Bogotá.

 

This project was transformed due to the pandemic caused by Covid19, therefore, it develops from the metaphor of an intangible connection with children that occurs from the drawings they made in class with their teacher.

 

The reflection of this audiovisual essay focuses on portraying the direct effects of a historical event that has forced us to find new ways of connecting with the other from a distance and the intangible. It becomes a vital necessity to find a mechanism of re-encounter.

 

Finally, thanks to the fact that at the beginning of the year I had the opportunity to give classes to the children in person, that allowed the change to virtuality to be possible, because if it had not been so, I would approach for such an impersonal time to work with them it wouldn't have made sense. Although getting closer was complicated at first, but fortunately the teacher gave me the endorsement to continue my search with them.

 

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© 2024 by Angel Hurtado.

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