Marcel Márquez and Mauricio Abad are two graduates of San Alejandro that make up the first group of video projection mapping in Cuba. They call it Mapped Island in Group (*. IMG) and are considered a small business or a collective of visual artists. They do not really care much about nomenclature, for now. Suffice it to say that this team of six people has worked, since before the beginning of the group in December 2012 – for the reaffirmation of the technique of projection as autonomous visual language.
While in the rest of the world the video mapping is designed as an advertising tool for the mere entertainment. * IMG tries to legitimize it as a new cinematic language. Mauricio Abad explains that few festivals in the world dedicate their space to it, and since its announcement they project the idea of working beyond the spectacle, of storytelling. “But in the end it is pure show. We work visuals a poetic and symbolic concept, without imposing readings “he says.
In December 2011 Andres Abreu invited the two young people to do the last session of the Atmosphere project, at the Alliance Françoise, for its 60th anniversary. For a year and a half the * IMG boys had begun studying mapping and there was a free software with which they prepared “invent cold water.” So it all started officially.
The first actual reference that exists of a mapping show in Cuba was when one of the world’s most recognized groups in the field of audiovisual visited Havana and made a little 15-minute session in the Plaza Vieja. Its imprint was such that three years ago the mapping began to be inserted in closed shop events organized by foreign companies ( as Habanos ) , * . IMG started presenting as group in festivals and concerts and this year 2013 as a result of three workshops in which * . IMG shared its knowledge with more than 40 people, two or three Cuban artists began working this technique (as the Rezak Project boys in Ciego de Avila). But it was not until last August 31 in Alfonso X concert on the steps of the University of Havana, thousands gathered to pay attention to this art.
What? How?
The video projection mapping, like other contemporary artistic trends, can pull people out of traditional circuits that control the art market offers. If the pictures are exhibited and sold in galleries, concerts are performed in closed spaces where they charge to enter and films are screened in theaters, in which the viewer must follow certain rules of conduct. * IMG uses this projection technique as a way to displace the artist from its usual position.
“We do not like so much that status; we like to be in a more democratic position, where the public play an active role. People can be dancing, talking, walking and standing and can come to watch, or just leave, “Mauricio says.
Even today, the mapping is a “trade secret,” Marcel says. There is nothing like tutorials, courses or making off to explain it. None of the little information that is has all the truth, which leaves the field open to experimentation and creativity. “Each one builds his own technique, because video mapping projection is not a technology, but an audiovisual production technique “.
Hence, the group confronts many obstacles related to the misunderstanding of its creations. IMG has remained working mainly for the entertainment, mapping three-dimensional structures. Everything they project is made by the team; each image is created by them.
But a mapping session is expensive. “You have to be crazy or very sensitive” to the art to bet (and pay) for something that the clients themselves are not clear until the end. Only hiring the equipment that get the intensity of light required costs hundreds of Hail Marys. The artistic directors often do not understand its essence, so never favor within the drama of the show. And last but not least is the bureaucracy to make projections on the street you have to ask permission, to take pictures in certain places, the same. And the payment processes become more complex in an absurd way.
The current copyright laws in Cuba allow parties to register a project as PMM or Havana Show, but does not provide the possibility for a private initiative in the field of art as IMG . “It’s very complicated,” Mauricio says. We could register as an advertising company or brand, but from the legal point of view could not act as such. “Presumably, before the emergence of multiple cultural projects led by individuals in the services sector, the relevant legal framework can also be adjusted.
Dare…
“We will make of your dream whatever we want, but you’ll like it” was the slogan that IMG assumed in its early interventions. The idea alluded to the lack of visual references to explain to customers what they wanted ( and could ) do from an artistic point of view , and especially how those crazy signs and lights could contribute to visual presentation.
Over time, and despite the lack of information, attitudes were changing.
The most recent IGM appearance was in the past concert X Alfonso, which marked a turning point for the group. But before the youngsters had been part of other great and not so promoted projects. The production of the DVD Up to the silence is among those results. The disc was recorded during a concert by Diana Fuentes with the music of British Sue Herrod on poems by Edward Estlin Cummings recited by actor Osvaldo Doimeadiós ; it was awarded in Cubadisco Fair 2013 in the categories of music poetry and of best DVD .
The 2012 group was inserted into the Havana Biennial with one of the initiatives to discuss social imaginary. Also in that year they were hired by the Leo Brouwer Festival of Chamber Music to assume the sets and the projection of its meetings in at least six of the concerts held during the event. They were also presented in the second edition of the Proelectrónica festival, in shows with Ruiz Lopez Nussa, Pablo Menendez, Haila María Mompié , ” the people’s diva ” and, it is said , they have worked with all Havana Djs.
Then on May 18 (International Museum Day), Operation Velvet reflected their experience as young artists with an institution that does not recognize that status. During that mapping session they shot the front of images (real) on the facade of the intact historic building (more real yet).
In an exclusive to OnCuba IMG announced a documentary mapping project, seen as a genre in the art, which will take place in early 2014: “It will surely be one of the facades located on the Malecon. We want to work with the community of that place directly and develop a material that has the experience of what it means to live oceanfront “Mauricio said.
They also commented on their almost certain presence at the inaugural Art Factory project that X Alfonso promotes, scheduled for next December.
Marcel Márquez and Mauricio Abad are two graduates of San Alejandro that make up the first group of video projection mapping in Cuba. They come from a world of nightclubs, VJ, video clip … awesome by definition. Chances are they get to do with our dream what they please, but we’ll sure like it.
