Introduce Yourself : Artist statement by Juan Carlos Zaldívar (aka Violenta Flores)

My film and visual art projects explore the transformation of physical form --and our perceptions of it. My work is often interactive. I am interested in the relationship between nature and artificiality because it often triggers larger questions about our humanity. I do experiments with light, sound and kinetics, which are what films and videos are made of. I do this because film and video are optical illusions, yet they are widely accepted as veridic or “truthful” in our culture and have become an integral to how we understand and create our reality. My work explores the tension between reality (which may be subjective and often relates to perception) and actuality (which often relates to the effect of actions of a body in existence). I find that a dialogue between these two elements often spins other dialogues regarding identity, history, transculturalism and acceptance at large. I apply these notions to places and bodies as well. I believe that humor is often the best tool to communicate complex ideas and concepts. I like loose narratives. I love Butoh dance and time-lapse animation (both of which deconstruct movement and time, respectively). I respect the defining properties of negative space and the invisible. This includes sound and magnetism, which often create fantastic and bewildering effects. I worked as a sound editor and designer for many years. I often do not use sound in my video installations, but when I do, it is an essential part of the work.