Daniela Antelo: Intersections and Interactions on Language

Daniela Antelo

Intersections and Interactions on Language Feb 9 – Mar 25, 2018

“Daniela Antelo: Intersections and Interactions on Language” Georganne Boardman Nervousness and awkwardness turn into exasperation, frustration, and confusion, then are overtaken by excitement, then-finally--a breakthrough! Imagine yourself, for a moment, in a situation where you are trying to communicate with someone who does not share a common language.

How do you even start? Do you gesture, raise your voice, attempt speaking in their language? Do you laugh uncomfortably, freeze or start crying in fear? Artist Daniela Antelo explores this common interaction, not shying away from the uncomfortable. Instead, she dives deep, exploring the absence of translation, all documented in her performancebased video installation, Intersections and Interactions on Language, resurfacing with the knowledge that--though difficult-through open engagement, breakthroughs in communication can be made that enrich in unexpected ways.

Born and raised in Venezuela and having lived much of her life as an American ESL (English as a Second Language) speaker, Antelo believes we are most genuine in our native tongues. She is driven by a curiosity of what is lost in translation. Speaking outside of one’s first language leads to diminished individual authenticity, or at least the decreased ability to express that authenticity. Someone of another language largely misses the subtle nuances of language, idioms, inflections, and tone.

In a cosmopolitan city like Houston, where many speak English as a second language, this interaction is being played out a millions times over.

Intersections and Interactions on Language explores how communication walls are torn down through gesture, movement, speech, and vocalization, giving way to the eventual creation of a new “language” with nine different people, all with different native languages. The resulting exhibition presents these interactions in ten video 2

installations that run simultaneously, creating a commotion of sound and a mix of videography that showcases Antelo as the main connecting thread. The videos were shot over five months in which the artist met with each participant three times in one-on-one sessions culminating in a final group dinner where all came together with the artist for a dinner party.

Notice that the disorienting cacophony is intentional. The videos are shot in varying degrees of angles and ranges.

Close up shots highlight hand gestures or facial expressions and are contrasted with wider angles that frame each pairs’ body language, giving context to their surroundings. Alternating camera angles, quick cuts, and background noise unsettles and creates multi-layered distractions that force the viewer to concentrate, similar to the laser focus needed when trying to understand someone in the absence of a lingua franca.

How does one choose what to focus on in such circumstances? Antelo uses four constants that, besides providing aesthetic continuity, ground the unpredictable, experiential interactions in the videos: 1) Antelo, 2) participants wearing the same attire, 3) colorful Post-It notes, and 4) the city of Houston. Using the same attire roots the conversationalists, giving them stability and comfort. Post-It notes act as a secondary common denominator alongside Antelo’s grounding recurrent role. The small colorful squares of paper become cohesive lifelines, precious tools of communication, ice picks that help to break through to new levels of understanding. The locations for each interaction change but Antelo makes a point to pick well-known Houston landmarks and locales, making Houston a passive third party in all interactions. While language, or lack thereof, is the obvious emphasis of this project, Antelo is equally invested in what arises out of necessity.

These unchanging controls provide stable visual touchpoints, giving the viewer and interlocutors something to focus on.

Intersections and Interactions on Language visually maps out the formation of new “languages” between two people.

Each screen chronologically plays the three interactions of each pairing. As the interactions progress, so do the relationships and so do the participants, using the lack of language as the main choreographic driver. Antelo’s simple but strict structure of barring any use of a common language and sharing the common goal towards communication allows the participants to play and explore their interactions. They are given freedom within these parameters, liberating them from the worry of what can or cannot be done or where the interaction is going.

Antelo has already made those decisions for them, gifting the participants the ease to focus solely on the objective of communication.

Generally, by the second meeting, the interactions become more relaxed. Often the sharing of knowledge, where one participant teaches the other how to do or create something is the breakthrough to further understanding. Antelo and her participants start as complete strangers but the resulting relationships are difficult to define. Not strangers, they leave not quite as friends, but as two people who have strived to understand one another. That striving gives them a meaningful shared experience above the banality of day-today experience. They learned something from each other.

This project reflects Antelo’s desire to collaborate and communicate through movement. It is no coincidence that throughout the interactions, the participants use social cues, smiling, laughter, movements, gestures, and body language in order to convey acceptance, safety, and compassion. Observe that this is made easier by the face-to-face interactions and parameters of the conversations. While each participant brings a different, unique challenge to the interactions, it is Antelo who is the conduit through which the participants can

perform, arriving at new places of openness and connectedness.

That being said, Intersections and Interactions on Language reflects Antelo’s pull toward maximalism, pushing herself, the participants, and the audience to the bounds of comfort. Her choice to display all ten videos simultaneously forces the viewer to experience the chaotic, mentally taxing, and sometimes overwhelming feeling one would experience facing a similar interaction. She pushes the viewer and, in doing so, forces us to be both thoughtful and hopeful.

In our digital age of social media, where everything is reduced by character counts and sound bytes, Antelo exposes what is lost. She shows how human body language in intimate face-to-face interactions allows for mutual compassion, even amidst the shared disadvantage of not speaking the same language. In a digital world, these cues are lost. In fact, they are not even looked for.

The exhibition is, at its core, a manifestation of Antelo’s experience as a Houstonian and immigrant-turned-citizen who may no longer identify as a native anywhere. The exhibition’s real beauty is the ability to translate Antelo’s experience cross-culturally to all Houstonians. The participants in Intersections and Interactions on Language straddle two worlds, yet each actively chooses to engage, communicate, learn, and share. It is this voluntary engagement of strangers that makes Antelo’s piece so compelling. Those who have chosen to make Houston their home understand this. We may miss the feeling of authentically speaking in our native tongue, but, by actively participating in the community and opening ourselves up to understanding, learning and sharing with each other, we gain even more.

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Daniela Antelo Intersections and Interactions on Language Exhibition Checklist

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01. En donde es mas fuerte el upepo, 2017

Video, duration 14:12 02. Bravo! Colores. Geschwister., 2017

Video, duration 13:48 03. Polako, polako, suave suavecito, 2017

Video, duration 15:52 04. El pequeĂąo tori que hace pio pio pio, 2017

Video, duration 15:14 05. Entre madrasa y chogol, 2017

Video, duration 11:56 06. No se si es balo o baje pero ok, 2017

Video, duration 15:30 07. Pier voraz haciendo charikes, 2017

Video, duration 15:41 08. Chu nhat no es domingo, 2017

Video, duration 14:45 09. Soy una rica zanahoria de kvitu, 2017

Video, duration 15:14 10. Somos las 5, 2017

Video, duration 43:00 4

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Daniela Antelo Intersections and Interactions on Language, 2018 Video installation

Daniela Antelo is a multi-disciplinary artist working in Houston, TX. She received her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston in 2015. Her works involve performance and audience participation through time-based installations. She is interested in process more than final product. Her inspiration often comes from the potential of the random and collaboration is a major part of her work.

She has performed and shown work at institutions such as Diverse Works, Alabama Song, University of Houston’s Blaffer Gallery, The Barn, Asia Society, The Wortham Theater and Hope Stone Center.

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Georganne Boardman left the world of visual merchandising and retail display design to earn a BA in Anthropology at the University of Houston in 2013.

After interning at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in American Painting and Sculpting she combined her love of art history and human behavior by earning her MA in Art History from UH in 2017, studying American scholarship of Yves Klein’s Anthropometrie series. As a former fine arts student of blown glass, painting and drawing, Georganne is currently assisting artists with their writing needs as she pursues her own freelance writing projects.

Acknowledgements A special thanks to Brenda Cruz-Wolf, Monica Kennedy and Matthew Barrett for following me around with their cameras (in the hot Houston summer) and their keen eyes.

A shout out to Rafael Pardo for his unmatched scheduling/planning skills.

Thanks to Makiko, Ariane, Eepi, Wambui, Balushka, Ana, Khalil, Ivana and Nha for participating so openly in this experiment and Michael Bhichitkul for his install expertise.

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Documentation image courtesy of the artist

Major support for Lawndale Art Center programming is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation, Houston Endowment, the John P. McGovern Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and The Wortham Foundation, Inc.

4912 Main Street Houston, Texas 77002

www.lawndaleartcenter.org