Samuel N. Ortiz-Payero

Context contains the continuously repeated image of a display of suitcases that has been edited to produce a horizontally seamless repetition. Recordings were made inside a suitcase, edited, sequenced, and played through two small suitcases suspended from the gallery walls.

This work references both the abundance of materials/objects elegantly and aesthetically displayed in “stacks”, and the “act” of re-contextualization of objects, its consequences, and the available parallel between re-contextualization of object to the relocation of person into different societal and temporal rhythms. Re-contextualization does not come without errors and disjunction in the attempted assimilation to new rhythms/places; thus, cultural differences can seem to be, at first, blatant errors. One eventually understands and navigates these differences through forced editing and manipulation of one’s Circadian rhythms and natural patterns. In Context, the stacked and repeated symmetrical image represents a constant rhythm, while the sound introduces rhythm as error and disjunction in its unannounced and unnatural repetition, much like a damaged compact disc.

By examining and exposing the act of re-contextualization/relocation, one can link its consequences to the movement and origin of the object/person in relation to the new and present location/context, thus adding meaning and relevance to the concept of jetlag.