SODA WORKS 2018

Alejandro Karasik
oy is the risk
I think much of the final meaning of the work I do emerges not so much from the goal I set for
myself initially but from all the small choices, negotiations, transitions, limitations that the work
requires to reach the final product. Each of these small instances asks me again what I want to
say, how I want to do it, and makes me see where the work is finslly going and how I can help it to
go there.
In my processes I wait for the moment of combustion. In this catalytic moment the initial ideas of
the work mutate into something else that was potentially already there, but had not yet arrived or
perceived. And all the previous ideas stay behind and I just continue working with this unexpected
but desirable new one. I can spot works in which the artist bringd his first idea without modification
to the end of the process, and the piece is a linear product of it, hence, no ‘combustion’ takes
place. I don’t empathise with this way of conceiving the artistic processes. I crave these moments
of combustion.
I have addressed in my work diverse issues like obstetric violence, perception, family dynamics,
stage darkness, theatre apparatus and computer devices. A relevant aspect of my poetics is the
presence of references to different genres thats go from sci-fi/fantasy or grotesque to dogma 95
film aesthetics. I usually create very physical performances full of images, inviting the audience to
experience a physical interaction which is playful and associative. A playfulness which sometimes,
through exaggeration, overflows into humour or satire of the problematic it addresses. The
images I evoke point in the direction of issues that concern complex problematics, but do not
confront them directly with an antagonistic stance. Instead, the pieces work at the level of “What
if…”, supposing things work this way, as alternative ways of thinking.