Untitled by Juan Fernando Herran
Juan Fernando Herran rethinks the Landscape genre in this short video, in which visually is replaced with actual experience of the place through the involvement of the body. The camera frames the face then focuses on the mouth, the locus for many biological process – from the sexual to the scatological – and also the site for language. It is precisely the shift form basic body functions to the utterance of the word that marks the entrance of the individual into society. The landscape genre is rethought by Herran, replacing visuality with the actual experience of place through the involvement of the body. Herran shuns rationality and regresses to the animal in order to relativize humankind, placing it on the same level with other lining beings. Sculptural processes transform raw matter into art through the involvement of mind and body. In Herran’s personal ritual, nature goes through the body, as it were, in order to become sculptural form and thus a sign of culture.