A Possible World

A project by Priscila Gómez.

Feb 12  – Apr 06 2014

For the project A Possible World, displayed on Lado V’s La Vitrina, a space was created to show an alternative way of obtaining or capturing the news. The superficiality with which sometimes information is transmitted to us is the starting point of this project.

Media is one of the most powerful systems that operate in a country: it releases great amounts of data and news that, little by little, are inserted into the visual field.

The media exerts its greatest power when it decides what will and will not be published. The density of that power lies on the fact that this information travels on a direct route towards a part of the memory. All of that information is then registered and generates our possible world, a homogenous world that defines our way of thinking, creating and questioning.

During the electoral season, printed media present information by inserting ideas, ideologies, criteria and opinions that, when not questioned, become absolute truths.

There are rarely windows from which you can express different points of view or counterpoints regarding one specific subject. The exercise of making news is then limited to what the printed media decides to show or not show, making it part of our visual culture.

With this project, the walls and the vitrine in Lado V TEOR/éTica take center stage by becoming a journalistic wall. Genaro Cerdas, a traditional sign maker from the San José area, was commissioned to interpret and paint newspaper headlines related to electoral issues and current political campaigns. Through the drawings and hand written typographies, it is possible to visualize how the environment we decide to pay attention to modifies our social imaginary.

The objective of this project is to show that, despite the power exerted by the media onto the recipient, there is a critical attitude that advocates for information to not be unilateral, and instead allow the questioning of information and open dialogue between parties.

Priscila Gómez Arce