Dystopian Futurology

AUTM of Bartolomé Payeras-Salom is an exhibition dominated by small details and at the same time misleading, because the “naked eye“ is so explicit that the extraction of further readings becomes an exercise of visual archaeology.

But they are there and are very consistent, both of composing nature, with film elements and subcultural references as well as literature or cyberpunk manga. Through reiterated close-ups and rectangular frames from an obvious cinematographic nature, PS composes a triple portrait. On one hand an emotional one, with uprooted protagonists with empty glances, waiting in decontextualized scenarios. On the other side a technological one, where the coastal landscape collides with the gear of the characters, halfway between military and futuristic uniforms. And lastly, social, where the impossibility of place in time, what, and who, is as worrying as the visual effect, present in all images, an out of focus that torments, despite the clear and obvious quietness.

AUTM is a personal Dystopia on the cyberpunk tradition of William Gibson. Any of the portrayed characters could be Berry Rydell from “Virtual Light“ or the pilot Abilene from the Richard Kelly`s movie: “Southland tales“, a tortured war veteran who defended the beaches of Los Angeles from their own miseries. All of them in extreme situations, abandoned by the society that build them, and like the digital images of BPS could hardly reach the respite for which they so much long.

Bill jiménez