Abstract
La Mirada Bizca is a performative conference developed between 2017 and 2019 in Bogotá, within the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Theater and Live Arts at the National University of Colombia. Structured as a multi-focal device, the piece unfolds across three simultaneous action spaces that continually displace attention. The performer-lecturer’s address interweaves the proposal through translation, superimposition, repetition, and stuttering. A semiotic-installative device of dual screens projects heterogeneous images that included Renaissance paintings, news reports, film stills alongside live-recorded actions of two performers. Finally, a “scene outside the scene,” occupied by performers Alejo Díaz and Nicolás Ruiz, becomes visible only through a shade-cloth curtain that alternately reveals and conceals. The dynamic interplay between these spaces generates critical inflections in each diversion and overflow, layering new meanings upon images and opening a field where body, gaze, and perception overlap.
“La Mirada Bizca” is a performative conference developed between 2017 and 2019 in Bogotá, within the context of the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Theater and Live Arts (UNAL) at the National University of Colombia. It is structured as a multi-focal device composed of three action spaces that interact simultaneously, diverting the gaze. The first space is formed by the performer who takes on the role of lecturer, whose address serves as a thread, intertwining the different layers of the proposal through strategies of translation, superimposition, repetition, or stuttering. The second is a semiotic-installative device composed of two screens. On one, a series of images are projected including an eclectic set of Renaissance paintings, news reports, or film stills, among others, which the lecturer comments on. On the second screen, actions carried out live by two performers are projected, recorded through a closed-circuit camera. Finally, the third space is occupied by performers Alejo Díaz and Nicolás Ruiz, who follow the lecturer’s instructions, illustrating the images projected on the first screen. This space operates as a scene outside the scene obscene which the spectator can only see through a shade-cloth curtain that, depending on the light, reveals or conceals. The conference unfolds through the dynamic relationship among the three spaces, finding points of connection between the images and their performativities, generating critical inflections in each diversion, each overflow, and each layer added over an image.
Citation
Sztutman, André. 'La Mirada Bizca [The Cross-Eyed Gaze]'. Dispossessions in the Americas. https://staging.dia.upenn.edu/en/art/AMEX016/

