Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Archive for May, 2007

El Rito Apasionado, 50,000 Beds commission

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In a hotel room in Connecticut, three Guevarrian Neo-Marxist Latino Terror Revolutionaries seek to help establish a balance toward justice for the crimes committed by the United States of America toward small and poor nation states, cultures and peoples.

The video El Ritual Apasionado was commissioned for the exhibition 50,000 Beds organized by Chris Doyle. Chris Doyle a friend and incredible artist has spent much of the last two years in hotel rooms due to a couple large commissions, so much so that the hotel room became his studio. When three Connecticut art institutions publicized a call for curatorial proposals, Chris responded with the question – what would artists do with the opportunity to produce a video during one night in a hotel room. His proposal received approval and he contacted 45 artists and artist groups to spend a night at participating hotels in order to make a video. The exhibition will present a wide array of approaches to the task of creating a video entirely shot in a hotel room from relational and situational work, to fictive narrative, to animation and private performance…

El Rito Apasionado has been inspired by the rhetoric and tactics revolving around immigration used by Southern conservative officials capitalizing upon Homeland Security and the national fear mechanism to recieve funding toward militarizing the border. The claim that impoverished undocumented immigrants represent a terrorist threat is insincere and opportunist.

I believe that we must regain control of our dangerously porous borders, and we must cut off the employment magnet that drives illegal immigration… I am steadfastly opposed to any form of amnesty…that would provide a path to citizenship to illegal aliens, or any expansion of guest worker programs.
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado)

No immigration reform, no amnesty, no guest worker programs… such legislative perspectives are retrograde and ignorant of the world we live in and perhaps most importantly are not realistic.

View a 6min 30sec excerpt from the video, the full length is 23 minutes and will be on view at the exhibition 50,000 Beds, opening July 20th, 2007 at the Aldrich Conremporary Art Museum, ART SPACE and REAL ART WAYS.

Written by ricardo

May 5th, 2007 at 4:29 pm