Under Pinochet's rule Chile was in the iron grip of a cruelly vicious military dictatorship. A dictatorship in which torture and arbitrary interrogation on political preferences was the business of the day for those in power and all their followers. In the first part of this trilogy, 'Communion', we are confronted with the scar-riddled back of a man. While texts by Cifuentes appear on screen, the tattered back vanishes into old television clips showing how a man can be stabbed to death. We hear a sobbing woman talk about revenge and we hear the 'hired killer' asking for forgiveness on television, after the fact. As the images slowly fade out we hear his plea "forgive me, please forgive me" echo on for a moment. 'First Lesson' opens with a woman being interrogated. We hear fear in her voice and a moment later can see it on her photos which (annoyingly) appear on screen moving. The woman refuses to answer certain questions and they are repeated without stop again and again and again… Just as in Cifuentes' other videos, here also the monotonous music offers no possibility of distraction from the screen. The feeling of claustrophobia this evokes is probably nothing compared to the fear the Chileans must have felt for years. 'Falling Bridge' opens with a blank screen, with the sound of a crowd chanting "liberty, liberty…", followed by the words 'blind' and 'deaf-mute' projected on a man dressed in black who in turn is clearing the way for the screaming crowd on the street. Zoom ins and slow motion shots are used to bring the otherwise unrecognizable crowd into view. The texts running through the piece make it clear that 'before' might well be over, but that fear still lives on.
– Morene Dekker
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Photography: Marielo Montecino, Archive material: Informe Especial/Emmision of Television Nacional de Chile, Technician: Art Media Studies, Syracuse University, Thanks to: Alejandra Egaña
Guillermo Cifuentes ° 1968, Santiago (Chile)
Lives and works in Santiago (Chile)
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