Dossier

normalidad relativa Relative Normality

Photoeditor

FRANK KALERO

Me acuerdo del adolescente que cre OjodePez hace diez aos y vagamente an reconozco sus intenciones y simpatizo con sus ideales, pero ese personaje ya no habita en m. Intent agarrarme a su pellejo y el paso del tiempo se lo llev al ritmo de las sinapsis neuronales. Creo en la reencarnacin, pero siempre dentro de un mismo ciclo vital. Ahora me sorprende que me gusten fotos que antes no me interesaban, y entiendo que dentro de unos aos estas van a dejar de llamarme la atencin para dejar espacio a otras. Dudo cuando debo confiar en mis instintos e ideales, ya que dentro de m mismo se desvanecen. Llevo tiempo experimentando, a travs de la fotografa, lo que parece ser la realidad. Las fotos son ms amables que la vida y me ofrecen ms tiempo para contemplarla y asimilarla, hasta el extremo de que sublimo las experiencias pasadas en el presente con tecnologa del futuro. Estas vidas posmodernas son muy veloces, estn saturadas de estmulos y emociones. Afortunadamente, estamos armados con cmaras en los mviles que nos permiten parar el mundo, digitalizarlo y compartirlo con otros subnormales que estn haciendo lo mismo en tiempo real. A da de hoy, la fotografa se ha convertido en un lenguaje ms directo y emocional que el texto escrito. Sobre todo ms democrtico e intenso que la vida misma, dado que muchos se olvidan de su propia vida porque-estn-demasiado-ocupados-fotografiando-lo-quedejan-de-vivir. Con tanta sobreproduccin (alguien ha calculado que cada dos minutos se disparan ms fotos que en todo el siglo xix), la discusin sobre si una foto es buena o mala deja de ser relevante. El lenguaje universal de la foto es el de la foto mediocre. Desconfiamos de las fotos buenas por falta de compromiso con lo real, del mismo modo que desconfiamos de una persona excepcionalmente bella por el simple hecho de serlo. Si despojamos a la fotografa de la funcin esttica y la dotamos de un contenido informativo banal, cul sera el valor actual de las imgenes? Si entendemos la fotografa como un medio, y no como una finalidad, podra funcionar en dos direcciones: como un acto creativo al retratar y como un acto pasivo al contemplar, y ambos simples modos de sublimar nuestra existencia con historias. Y llevamos miles de aos contando la misma historia, tan solo hemos cambiando el soporte del relato. De la piedra al papiro, del palimpsesto al incunable, del libro al televisor y, finalmente, al telfono. El homo videns ha convertido sus cmaras diminutas en las muletas de la memoria y en los vehculos para la entronizacin del yo. Siglos de tradicin espiritual no han conseguido hacer con el amor propio lo que la fotografa ha logrado en los ltimos cinco aos. En cierto modo, el consumo abusivo de esta tecnologa est relegando a un segundo plano la funcin ms emocionante de nuestra especie: experimentar lo que vivimos. A cambio, hemos asumido una nueva funcin, la de contemplar, y hemos dejado la experimentacin plena para el momento en que la accin ha terminado, cuando solo nos queda la reverberacin digital de una imagen en la pantalla del ordenador. Hubo un tiempo en el que la gente se haca dos retratos a lo largo de su vida: el de la boda y el del funeral. Esas imgenes se colgaban en lugares destacados del hogar, creando a su alrededor pequeos altares donde mostrar la devocin y el respeto por aquello que representaban. Cundo fue la ltima vez que sentimos esa veneracin por una imagen entre las miles que consumimos mensualmente? Buenas noticias para los apocalpticos y malas para los integrados: no existe una verdadera democratizacin del medio, y menos an del talento. Tengo la sospecha de que el hombre blanco vive en una manicomio de abstracciones, en el que el mundo real ya ha dejado de ser relevante.

I remember the adolescent who created OjodePez ten years ago and still vaguely remember his intentions and sympathize with his ideals, but that person no longer resides inside me. I tried to hold on to his skin, while the passing years took him away at the speed of neuronal synapses. I believe in reincarnation, but always within the same life cycle. Now I am surprised to find myself liking photos that never used to interest me, and I understand that they will stop appealing to me in a few years, leaving their place to others. I hesitate when I should be trusting my instincts or ideals, because these are fading inside me. Through photography, I have spent a long time experiencing what seems to be reality. Photographs are more pleasant than life and offer me more time to contemplate and assimilate it, to the extent that I sublimate my past experiences in the present using the technology of the future. These post-modern lives are very fast; they are saturated with stimuli and emotions. Luckily, we are armed with cameras in our mobile phones that allow us to stop the world, digitalize it and share it in real time with other nutcases who are doing the same thing. Today photography has become a more direct and emotional language than written text. Above all, it is more democratic and intense than life itself, given that many people neglect their own lives because-they-are-too-busy-capturingwhat-they-are-no-longer-experiencing. With so much overproduction (someone has worked out that more photos are taken in two minutes than in the whole of the 19th century), the debate about whether a photo is good or bad has lost its relevance. The universal language of the photograph is that of the mediocre snapshot. We are suspicious of good photos because of their lack of commitment to real life, in the same way that we are wary of an exceptionally beautiful person simply because he or she is beautiful. If we strip away the aesthetic function of a photograph and give it banal informative content, what would the current value of images be? If we see photography as a means, and not as an end, it could work in two ways: as a creative act when it portrays, and as a passive act when it is contemplated, and both of these as simple ways of sublimating our experience with stories. We have been telling the same story for thousands of years; we have only really changed the support with which we tell it. From stone to papyrus, from scroll to manuscript, from book to television set and, finally, to telephone. Homo videns has turned his tiny cameras into memory crutches and into vehicles for the exaltation of the ego. Centuries of spiritual tradition have failed to do with the notion of self-worth what photography has managed to do in the last five years. In a way, the abusive consumption of this technology is relegating the most exciting function of our speciesexperiencing what our lives bring usto a secondary role. Instead, we have taken on a new function, that of contemplating, and we have left the fullness of the experience for the moment when the action is over, when we are only left with the digital reverberation of an image on a computer screen. There was a time when people had two portraits made of them in their entire lives: one from their wedding and one from their funeral. These images were hung in important places in the home, with the creation of small altars around them, where the devotion and respect for everything they represented could be expressed. When was the last time we felt this veneration for an image among the thousands we have been consuming lately? Here is some good news for the doomsayers and bad news for the optimists: there is no such thing as true democratization of the means, let alone of talent. I have the suspicion that white man lives in an asylum filled with abstractions, in which the real world has already ceased to be relevant.

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frank kalero Photoeditor / OjodePez 33

Licenciado en Comunicacin Audiovisual por la Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona y en Fotografa Documental por el International Center of Photography de Nueva York, Frank Kalero (Cambrils, Espaa, 1973) se ha convertido en una de las personas ms innovadoras y comprometidas de la cultura contempornea a travs de la creacin de proyectos y del desarrollo de plataformas de debate internacionales en las que participan los profesionales de las artes visuales. Kalero ha sido residente en Fabrica de Benetton (Italia), fundador de la revista OjodePez (Espaa) y cofundador de Galerie Invaliden1 en Berln, ciudad en la que tambin fund, en 2009, la revista de arte The World According To.... Junto a Lola McDougall, cre la revista de fotografa panasitica Punctum (la India). Ha dirigido las dos primeras ediciones del OjodePez Photo Meeting Barcelona. Durante los ltimos tres aos, Frank ha sido el comisario del festival GetxoPhoto. En la actualidad, junto con Liza Faktor, Jamie Wellford, Ivan Sigal y Bjarke Myrthu, est desarrollando una plataforma de comunicacin online llamada Screen. Frank es el actual director artstico de la Bienal Photoquai, que se celebra en el Museo Quai Branly (Pars), en el que, adems de hacerse cargo de la direccin artstica, ha sido responsable de las estrategias de comunicacin y de diseo. Forma parte del equipo asesor del premio de fotografa WYNG, que se otorga en Hong Kong, y colabora como comisario en el festival Paraty em Foco (celebrado en Paraty, Brasil). En estos momentos, junto con el Estudio Madalena (So Paulo), Kalero prepara el lanzamiento de la versin de Punctum para Amrica Latina. En la actualidad, Frank vive en So Paulo.

With a Media Communication degree from the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and a degree in Documentary Photography from the International Center of Photography (New York), Frank Kalero (Cambrils, Spain, 1973) has emerged as one of the most innovative and engaged people in contemporary culture, creating projects and developing international platforms of exchange among visual arts professionals. Kalero was a resident at Benettons Fabrica (Italy); he founded OjodePez magazine (Spain), co-founded Invaliden1 Galerie (Berlin), and in 2009 also founded the art magazine The World According To, also in Berlin. Together with Lola McDougall, Frank founded the panAsian photography magazine, Punctum (India). He has directed the first two editions of the Ojodepez Photo Meeting Barcelona. Over the past three years, Frank has been the curator of GetxoPhoto. Presently, Frank is developing an online platform for new media called Screen, together with Liza Faktor, Jamie Wellford and Ivan Sigal. He is the current artistic director of the PhotoQuai biennial, held in Paris at the Museum Quai Branly. Here hes been in charge not just of the curatorial process, but also of all the strategies of communication, design and social media. He is part of the WYNG Photo Award consultant team, in Hong Kong, and he has also been contributing with the festival Paraty em Foco, held in Paraty, Brazil. And Together with Estudio Madalena (So Paulo), Kalero is preparing the launch of the Latin American version of Punctum. Frank resides in So Paulo.

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