Ambientes hostiles [Hostile Atmospheres] AP (2005)
Video screening
7’30’’
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2005.112.1
Ambientes Hostiles [Hostile Atmospheres] is a 3D work where Txuspo Poyo combines technology with the tradition of the avant-garde and the psychology of animation. The outcome is a strange hybrid of behaviour, a mechanism in the sense that the cultural component conditions the formation of matter. A landscape of systematic repetitions created by a hammer as a parent and its nails as sayings: ideas enter like nails, grasping at a burning nail, a nail pulls out another nail…
In this 3D video, Txuspo Poyo recreates an atmosphere that is clearly hostile, as the title suggests, and similar to the ones in many video games. The film references, as well as to the field of animation, structure the work, in its shots, in the use of elements such as zooming, tracking shots, etc., which gives the video the feel of science fiction cartoons or comics. On the other hand, the author includes some humorous nods to that film industry, such as the 21st Century Bilbao logo at the start.
The artist constructs a totally alienating landscape with very few known references, although the resulting spatial construction is familiarly reminiscent of the spaces created in science fiction films, and populated by characters who limit themselves to nails and hammers. Nails and hammers that, in turn, become powerful symbols that evoke the industrial age and that march as if they were armies. The feeling of being enclosed, of a constrained and invariable reality, is heightened by the percussion rhythms of the txalaparta, which make up the soundtrack; fragments are added that evoke violent scenes not to be found in the image, but familiar to the viewer. The image and sound of this video, moving away from narrative patterns, manage to build a suffocating and relentless abstract scenario for the viewer. (Text taken from Txuspo Poyo’s web portfolio).
Txuspo Poyo (Alsasua, 1963). Since 1990s, Txuspo Poyo has followed a certain procedural methodology, with a very strong sense of mounting, to lay out juxtaposed stories based on researching certain events in hybrid crosses, generating plots where inconclusive and historical traces converge, as they are taken from history, the world of films, architecture and science-fiction literature. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at institutions such as the BBVA Foundation (Madrid), the Artium Museum (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and the La Panera Art Centre (Lleida).