Blanca Viñas and Albert Alcoz: how La noche inventada was invented
Photography and cinema: the origin
Blanca Viñas: Our hobbies have no obvious roots, but it is true that in both cases they have been fed by family artistic curiosity. I am sure the slideshows in the winter evenings have influenced us in some way.
Albert Alcoz: Yes, there is this family bond and similar environment because we are brothers.
How La noche inventada was invented
B.V.: We often went for a walk together, each with his/her camera, we shared the fact of looking at the landscape and using the opportunity to capture it our way. At the same time we used the analogue medium to exchange techniques or formal resources that each has been adapting to his/her language. In this way we have found dualities and parallels that help us to visualize a contrast between still image and moving image.
A.A.: The origin of this collaboration arises from the fact of programming film showings called Cinema Anémic in a study that I rented at the end of 2014 to finish my doctoral thesis. We already went for walks and made trips to take pictures and film, so the idea of simultaneously projecting the results was a logical evolution. Mixing the photochemical processes, the points of view and the approaches to the photographic and film medium arises from the fact of sharing similar looks with respect to the used devices and the filmed spaces.
Music and other references
B.V.: Family is the excuse to find a nexus, considering that I had already used “cohetes naranjas” as an alias. The name of “Esperando un eclipse” comes from Radio Futura’s song “La estatua del jardín botánico”.
A.A.: It is true that the title of the project comes from a musical theme of Family’s album Un soplo en el corazón. In fact music is a subject that interests us especially, although in the projection we try to escape the fact of adding musical themes. Blanca knows many more references of photographic disciplines and I of the film world, although we do have devotion to the work of artists like Stan Brakhage or Gustav Metzger, to mention two that work the abstraction through still and moving celluloid.
Photochemical tone, emotional tone
B.V.: The fact that there exists this subjective-artistic documentary of my photographic practice helps the viewer understand the process of photographic shot, the walk as an essential element of the photographer as well as some of the existing manipulations. Aspects that can be difficult to understand with a single image.
A.A.: The main tone is containment. Perhaps one of the clearest examples to explain this is the fact of choosing silence and the avoidance of using eloquent sounds that impose certain ways of understanding the show of images. The sounds that are heard in the showing – except for a sound collage rather environmental and atmospheric that is added to some of the films – are the sound magnification of the activated devices themselves and their silent intervals. That emotional tone is already assumed by each viewer in his/her own way, depending on the perception of the images and the temporal cadence of the projection.
The future of the night
B.V.: The idea is to keep on walking, finding different formalities and structures that can be applied to both the film and photographic medium.
A.A: It is a work in progress that varies according to the geographical and temporal circumstances in which it is presented. Ultimately, La noche inventada is a pretext to join forces and continue to do what we like that is to explore other ways of understanding the production of images and sounds through analogue media. It is a way of continuing to search for possible relationships between photography and film, incorporating slides, cinema without a camera and other techniques that may violate the codes of the photochemical image.