Currently in Medellin, Colombia, we find a stream of women leaders in the field of real-time video creation and visual experiences, and even in the creation of devices for the creative field. Below we present each of these artists, their contributions and their most relevant participations:
Carol X
Carol is a digital animator, VJ from Medellín and one of the co-founders of the Aleph Experimental collective of the public experimentation workshop at Parque Explora, one of the most important art, science and technology centers in the country. Carol’s beginnings with real-time video date back to 2013 when she started in the branches of digital animation. This beginning influences her visuals that quickly took place in different scenarios, museums and theaters in the city.
The themes she works in depth from research and creation are usually related to the universe and outer space, physics, biology, and audiovisual performance, inspired for example in referents such as Carls Sagan, Hugh Everett, Borges, among others to address issues related to the theory of parallel worlds, quantum physics and the poetics of the nature of light. These interests are translated into images through optical games with digital animations and analog videos made with resins, prisms and mirrors, which are later digitized to serve as raw material for projections and video mapping of the structures he builds in his personal works, as well as with the different creation collectives in which he has participated.
These scientific interests have given a futuristic style to Carol’s visuals, which blend seamlessly with the BPM and hypnotize the audience with their acid colors, 3D figurative images and spatial textures, forming a unique visual character and essence that shines and blends perfectly in techno and electronic clubs, without losing at the same time the flexibility to adapt to all kinds of projects and scenarios with bands, plays, museums and festivals.
Nowadays his formal researches are still at the forefront of the futuristic essence, transforming his videos with artificial intelligence techniques. In addition, he conducts workshops and academic activities around digital art and video mapping in different spaces of the country.
Some of the most outstanding scenarios and recognitions of the artist are stimuli for the art and culture of Medellin, participations in the International Image Festival Manizales, the Experimental Video Festival Vartex 8, Festival Fotosíntesis Exploratorio, Museo Del Agua, Museo de Arte de Pereira, Museo de Arte Moderno Medellin, Altavoz International Festival, Ritvales, Freedom, Radikal Style Festival Bogota, Lovers Festival among others.
Camila Valencia
Camila Valencia is a visual artist from the University of Antioquia and fashion designer, whose visual work has been directed towards the exploration of old devices such as microscopes and scientific devices that dispense with digital sources, video cassette cameras, cathode ray televisions, VHS, and analog technologies in general with which she manages to build poetic narratives about the nature of light and electromagnetic waves, which she uses in her visual presentations in real time.
Camila is interested in preserving the link between the public and physical objects, having the possibility to touch and experience interfaces such as old cathode ray television screens. Camila has a sensitivity to the poetic meanings that can emerge from these interfaces on their way to being considered “obsolete” and instead, the artist reminds us of the value of the re-signification of these machines in artistic environments and the amazing construction of images through the waves that travel through space to our screens.
“To bring a hand close to the screen and perceive the magnetism radiated by electrons traveling inside a vacuum space, as if the image could touch us and literally make our hair stand on end.”
Her mixed media techniques include the exploration of video art, sculpture, collage, installations with organic materials and electronic interventions, derived from technological factors related to mutations and alterations in nature. These visual strategies Camila uses during the creation of video in real time, which has given her work a personal style through vibrant colors resulting from the media she uses, in combination with her characteristic interests related to nature, insects, geometries, and archival material.
The use of televisions and analog instruments in the formal strategies of the visual arts in real time, speak to us of a recognition and actualization of the beginnings of digital art, and the beginnings of our now inseparable western relationship with screens, in recognition of the origin of this medium over the first approaches to visual exploration, which will continue to evolve into the holograms and abstract virtualizations of the next generation of the future.
Her work has been exhibited in different cultural environments in the country, in institutions such as the Museum of Antioquia, the Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, art galleries such as La Balsa, Avant Arte (Bogota) and Casa Debut (Bogota) and in local music festivals such as Festival Freedom and Festival Altavoz. Internationally Camila has shown her work in Argentina at the Mar Museum (Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires) – AV audiovisual cycle and in Chile with the Collective – Super Amiga Riot.
Sara Luna Ruiz
Sara Luna is an artist, experience designer, art curator and VJ from Medellin, whose interests lie in the fields of art, science and technology. Her work is interdisciplinary, and are found around media such as digital art, real-time video and mapping, resulting in interactive installations, digital illustrations, and experimental videos, fields in which she has been highlighted as Best VJ at national level in 2018 awarded by the International Independent Film Fair Bogotá.
Sara Luna is recognized for the way she deals with current social and philosophical issues, but with poetic and suggestive strategies using visual and symbolic metaphors. Her works generate a mystical style, with transcendental messages about the relationship between the individual and the collective, the micro and the macro, the perception of reality, change, evolution and the transformation of life and death, where textures and organic elements are intertwined with patterns present in nature and the human being both visually and conceptually. She usually employs a meticulous and reduced color palette, using complementary and analogous colors, and adding delicate lighting details that generate a distinctive unity and elegance in her compositions. Sara Luna also employs the use of cameras and sensors, with which she creates live content to control image parameters in real time, creating an immersive and stimulating experience for the audience.
The artist stands out in areas of innovation for the exploration, construction and design of her own tools, using technology as a way to expand the expressive and conceptual possibilities of her work. Her most recent instrument, called TOT, was one of the winning projects in the audiovisual innovation laboratory of the Explora Park in Medellin in 2021. This device is a wireless MIDI controller designed with the purpose of expanding the possibilities of audiovisual creation in real time. In addition, thanks to its future modular functions, the instrument is expected to become a tool that facilitates collaboration and multidisciplinary creation among artists.
“The themes that I usually address from digital art and experience design seek to question the paradigms and individual perceptions of the subject that impact the models of economy and political organization, questions the morality and the western value system focused on competition, and appeals to reasons, means, and strategies that manage to evidence the greatest benefit when thinking, creating and perceiving from the collective.”
Sara Luna has found a way to merge her social interest with visual art and experience design, developing cultural events that provoke co-creation, interactive installations that connect with the public, machines that expand the field of audiovisual experimentation in real time and even community-centered web experiences, with which she was one of the winners of the 2016 Innovation Seminar at Ruta N, the most important technological and business development center in Medellin.
With her works and workshops Sara Luna has been invited to participate in exhibitions and group shows at the Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, the Comfama Theater, the Colombo Americano, the International Image Festival of Manizales, the Art Museum of Pereira, the Planetarium and the Explora Park. She has also been invited to several of the most important national and international festivals, such as the Draaimolen Festival in Holland, the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom, SinCensura in Mexico, Freedom Medellin, Estéreo Picnic, Baum Park, Altavoz Fest, la Solar, Boiler Room with the NOTT collective, among many others.
