An artist and his collaborator work in the latter’s studio developing different art projects. What seems to be an informal meeting between two friends gradually becomes an intense creative journey. The work takes place on a messy ping-pong table that the artist and his collaborator use as a work table. A computer desktop is also projected there. We can see recordings of rehearsals, materials from other projects at different creative stages, ideas for future works, ideas that come up at that moment and are incorporated, as well as others that were discarded to the computer’s recycle bin. Over the ping-pong table, the artist and his collaborator engage in a constant exchange – a ping-pong – of ideas and theories. The viewer is invited to follow this process in real time from within: how ideas come up; which mechanisms are activated to put them into practice; hypotheses and theories are in turn analysed, observed and confronted. Everything that the viewer sees becomes potential working material. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish what is an actual part of their lives and what belongs to the artistic experience. For a moment, we may enter the artist’s mind and plunge into his ideas through his computer. We see how he writes, deletes, corrects and browses the Internet. We know his files, his way of associating, of sorting, organising, and also cluttering. The computer becomes yet another character. Ideas work the boundaries between reality and fiction. It brings on stage the intimacy of a creative process. This process is similar to that which Federico León (author and director) approached in his works with Julián Tello (actor and collaborator). The ideas could be their ideas, though not necessarily so. They are themselves but at the same time, they make do for themselves.
Cast & crew
Authorship: Federico León | Performers: Federico León, Julián Tello | Video performance: Maitina De Marco, Pablo Gasloli, Alejandro Ini, Bárbara Irisarri, Alejandra Manzo, Ana María Monti, Antonella Querzoli, Patricia Russo, María Laura Santos, José María Seoane, Alfredo Staffolani, Martín Tchira, Emanuel Torres, Gabriel Zayat | Performance in rehearsals: Ignacio Rogers | Costume: Paola Delgado | Set design: Ariel Vaccaro | Lighting design: Alejandro Le Roux | Sound design: Diego Vainer | Realization of objects: David D’orazio | Video editing: Andrés Pepe Estrada | Audiovisual post production: Alejandro Soler | Art Direction: Mariela Rípodas | Direction of photography: Guillermo Nieto | Gaffer: Guillermo Saposnik | Camera: Guillermo Nieto | Music by: Diego Vainer | Design: Alejandro Ros | Photography: Ignacio Iasparra | Casting: María Laura Berch | Technical video advice: Paula Coton, Agustín Genoud | General assistance: Malena Juanatey, Antonella Saldicco, Melisa Santoro Aguirre | Assistant directors: Rocío Gómez Cantero, Rodrigo Pérez | Press: María Laura Lucini Monti | Management: Carlota Guivernau | Production: Rocío Gómez Cantero, Rodrigo Pérez | Directed by: Federico León.
Première
May 2015, Kunstenfestivaldesarts