Yesterday we shot day ten, which means that a third of the project is done. The video presented in the galleries already reveals part of the content of the conversation between the two actors. It is a self-referential dialogue, which describes the functioning, development and implications of the project. In the first shots, the most practical part, that of my travels, is explained. Then it begins to go over all the issues involved specifically in the work: the cinematographic aspects, the narrative aspects, the relationship with time, with standardisation, with speed and anxiety, with capitalism, with the phenomenon of representation, with trains… I am very grateful to Robert and Bill, who magnificently put into voice what is written. And to Juande and Roi, who make sure everything is ready when I arrive in terms of camera and sound.
I’m more tired than I thought I would be, and there’s still a long way to go. It’s mainly the fault of the train delays, which are at least half an hour every day. It seems that this train line is the one that accumulates the most incidents in Spain. Every minute I’m late means a little less sleep. I have a bit more time in Barcelona, but the gallery is far from the station. In Santiago, the time is very tight.
By this time I already have a significant feeling of unreality. I have had so many seatmates in the last few days! I have heard so many crazy and serious conversations, angry arguments and protests! The onboard sales service has passed by me so many times! The components that contribute to the «unreal» are: tiredness, the repetition of scenery, the repetition of the rounds of the conductor, the feeling of exaltation that sometimes comes over me, the feeling of ridicule and decadence, the lack of physical exercise, the long readings, the effort to edit the video on the laptop, the thirteen hours a day of rattling that my body and my head are subjected to…
The experiment is succeeding, for the moment, as I have felt a few emotions that are not in the script, that I didn’t even know could assail me, and whose descriptions I have written down for when they are just a memory.
More another day.
Tomorrow the exhibition opens at the ethall gallery in Barcelona, together with the inauguration of Marc Larré’s show in the main space.