portfolio Santiago Rodríguez Gómez
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This project arises from a concern and a fascination around Uncertainty as an intrinsic human condition that allows us to question what we are able to perceive. Our capacity to interpret what we observe it’s also linked to the way in which we communicate, language being the center of its construction. How each individual is able to define and understand four basic principles (Being Born, Grow, Reproduce and Dying), this project questions the social system that every one of the participants belongs to, trying to understand how each one of them constructs their reality and approaches to it. This project then seeks to visualize this information through an editorial space taking into account the information management and the content production as a creation alongside with the reader, understanding it as a significance producer as well. Seeking an emancipated space, free of any instrument that might limit the expression of each individual. This project question itself about the loss of the singularity around the accelerationist theory, developed mainly by Steve Shaviro, in which they question the effects of a political-economical neoliberal theory where the idea of progress and technological development have consumed every aspect of society including culture, for example the use of magalogs that try to create a lifestyle around consumption, impeding cultural production as a collective construction of knowhows, believes and behavior guidelines inside a social group. The strategy to recognize the individual is “Spaces of Uncertainty” a project based on self-editing. A possibility to configure and spread your own discourse according to your own expression.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
ESPACIOS DE INCERTIDUMBRE SPACES OF UNCERTAINTY
grad project
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When I started this project I would often ask myself what is it that drive people to act, that is, the motivations that give us a reason to do something. As a first prototype I developed four association maps each one starting with the words: B I R T H - G R O W T H - R E P R O D U CT I O N - D E AT H ,
as life basic principles and translated (or updated) them to principles more relevant to a contemporary context. After that I would come up with one word for each map and a personal definition to that word. The idea behind the definition was to offer the participants a catalyst that would start the conversation instead of giving them a blank page with the word freedom in it. These “uncertainties� then would be presented to a small number of participantes (2 - 5 people) where they will discussed, without me being involved, the word and the meaning given to that word, and had to come up to a more precise definition to their context, and they also would have to sketch an experience so the other people would understand (feel) how they perceived each definition.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
The precise instructions were the following:
You’ve been given the definition of a word, which doesn’t correspond to the one in the dictionary. Your job is to deter mine how accurate it is according to the experiences you’ve had with that concept. From the discussion you’ll have together, you then will have to create a new definition to the word. And each participants will have to narrate an experience in which you can represent the definition to which you have arrived.
What I tried to achieve was to make each participant to question what the real meaning (for them) of the word was, and also with the experience I wanted that they could translate the definition to someone else in a more emphatic way.
What I tried to achieve was to make each participant to question what the real meaning (for them) of the word was, and also with the experience I wanted that they could translate the definition to someone else in a more emphatic way.
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This is how every concept came to life and the different iterations around it.
This definition would come from the difference between Freedom and Debauchery (Libertad-Libertinaje in Spanish) and also around the idea that we are “Free” from the moment we are born as established by the
1- Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Human Rights, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights..”1 But it is understood that the capacities of each person are limited by their social, political, economical and biological condition, and are those conditions that a persone should ignore (as impossible that it is) to being able to act freely. Then the conversation prototype would took place, and the participants found social interactions as the main problem to being free. They talked about how each
The first visualization was a poster, because
person constricted our actions, but also how everyone
of the intrinsic value of that it has as a
else would recognize and validate our actions, so the
statement, it’s a medium that’s it’s final
existence would come up not as an individual event but as
and it’s out there for everyone to see it.
a collective one.
The poster asks the question of what
To come up with the definition they made a parallel
freedom really means and the word Death
between death and freedom, but death seen as a
its slightly emphasized, this idea of death
symbolic gesture, in which we would have to get rid
is also recurrent with the photograph of the
of all our bonds (die) to being able to act with our own
gun, and a phrase that crosses the poster
conditions.
which reads, “Imaginen que un día todo
Imagine that one day everything its gone, imagine the
ha desaparecido, imaginen la soledad y la solitude and the clarity with which you live now. The
claridad con la que ahora viven, la sensación sensation of having disappeared but without ceasing to
de haber desaparecido sin dejar de existir. exist. The possibility of creating and destroying.
La posibilidad de crear y destruir.” Freedom
The capacity to ignore everything in order to exist.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
PORTAFOLIO / INDEX
This idea of pride came together around the idea of what it meant to become an individual, and the construction of the “I” around the experiences one has in one’s lifetime. Taking one of the concepts that came out during the Freedom conversation, this capacity arises from the validation you can obtain from others. Therefore, Pride is no longer a problem of how the ’I’ is constructed but as a social construction. The relations we have with each person determines our self-esteem level, and how proud we are of what we have done. Pride manifest itself as a engine in the sense that it determines what are we going to do according to what the other people might think of us instead of what we need or want. The conversation brought the concept of Reciprocal Utility, in which each person is a nod that it’s also connected to other people and the tension and longitude of each and one of those was determined by the value or utility that those two nods had.
The concept of the first visualization came around the idea of how being observed changed the way we act, based on what other might think of us. So around this idea I developed a book in which you can see the relation between the whole (what’s external to us) and the detail (what each person is watching). The book is composed as a folded book with different holes in it, showing in some way how observing and being observed modifies what we perceive in a situation.
Pride The capacity to find balance by being accepted.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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This definition arrived from what is taught to us about success. Even if we are extremely proud and happy, we have to learn how to let go of it, to being able to continue succeeding. So, it’s a constant search for a place to go, and as the starting point the things that we need and desire. But not to accumulate achievements, but as a way of achieving what is truly important for each and one of us. During the conversation the concept they came up was the materialization of ideals, which it’s how from all the possibilities of what we wanted to be and would like to be, as each goal is materialized it creates new goals to follow, making a path to follow.
This book was built around the idea of desire, to represent the materialization of ideals. It focused in one of the catholic traditions in which its assumed that by praying one is able to obtain something. A flip book contains a photo sequence of someone praying the rosary.
Success The moment we can forget.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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The relation between fear and dying raised from how death it’s the only certainty in life. And such as it is, it becomes one of the most important engines because it generates a necessity to act, a way to make our existence valuable. In this way Fear often decide over us as a selfpreserving response and it becomes a not wanted action. This is the obstacle within the action but it doesn’t really makes us stop, it just makes us take another path. During the conversation the concept was False Starts, linked to the previous idea of fear, but based on the idea of how we rationalize everything we do out of fear. Thus, are those little catalyzers that doesn’t let us act they way we intended.
This visualization was a book that represented the concept of False Starts in the way the photos were placed. Inside there are short texts that were related to the concept of fear, either fictional or by personal situations in which it had materialized. But in order to being able to read the book you had to get through the image. All of the images were from a forest 300km away from Bogotá, the idea behind that was to represent the feeling of being lost without Showcased in Design and Design
Fear The need to avoid an unknown path.
having an clear point of reference.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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SANTIAGO RODRĂ?GUEZ G.
With the necessity of getting the conversation to more and more people. Four new publications were made that could be modified. This publications were made for each concept, they took the most relevant of each conversation and translated them into an abstract level as well as literal one in order to generate certain ambiguity within the contents, so that the reader would have to make his own sense of what was happening. Many of the contents were displayed in a way so that the Reader would have to intervene the book, by means of open questions and lines as well as other activities and instructions. Each participant was able to create and interpret as he pleased according to what he understood.
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For these series of books white meant possibility, but the concept wasn’t taken literally as for white in its whole would have been overwhelming. What I did was, I used images and text to defeat what Kierkegaard had called the anxiety of possibility. So through ambiguity I’d maintain this idea of possibility in order for the Reader to being able to construct his own voice but without throwing away what other had already developed. Consequently immersing the Reader into the conversation. “Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Between these two moments lies the leap, which no science has explained and which no science can explain. He who becomes guilty in anxiety becomes as ambiguously guilty as it is possible to become […] [Anxiety] is altogether different from fear and similar concepts that refer to something definite, whereas anxiety is freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility.” Kierkegaard, The concept of Anxiety
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
These were the instructions that you’ll find inside the books.
This publication was based on a conversation that a few people had around an specific subject, which already had or will be announced to you in the following or previews pages.
The reason why you have this book right now is uncertain to me. May be you were interested by its content, its pictures, the cover or any other aspect of this publication. Or maybe I gave it to you and now you are making me a huge favor, and for that… Thank You! I honestly could not tell you how to use this publication, I imagine you already know how to read a book, and neither wouldn’t you want someone explaining to you the “correct” way to do it. But I do would like to make a few suggestions in favor of your amusement. How I mentioned before this publication is based on a conversation some people had around a subject, conversation in which you are now a part of, by having this book in your hands. Mi suggestion is, don’t be afraid. In this conversation you may not agree, and sometimes you may not understand what the book is saying. And to me it is important for you to be really critical to what is presented to you.
Hence, with this book you can. Write, Draw, Scratch, Break, Glue, Stick, Cut, Fold, Stain, Stitch, etc. In order to express what you feel, in the most literal or abstract way you can find find to being able to communicate it. E V E R Y T H I N G G O E S . I only ask for a couple of things, keep the integrity of the book and return it to its original owner.
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SANTIAGO RODRĂ?GUEZ G.
F I N D S O M E T H I N G F U N N Y T O S A Y !
This are some of the interventions made on the books, which were given to designers and artists as this disciplines gives them a certain capacity to represent an idea in a more visual sort of way.
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Photography by Oscar Prieto. Taken from the facebook Architecture and Design Faculty page
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
“Volarán“ Exhibition of the best 2013 grad projects, Universidad de los Andes - February 2014
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4-18 is a non-profit organization that presents a model of itinerant headquarters taking into account that all our projects are located in different areas of Colombia. In this regard we propose ourselves as a not defined network in constant expansion that supports community initiatives and promotes critical thinking; this expansion occurs through collaborative processes, interdisciplinary relationships and horizontal languages. We stimulate the juxtaposition between art, environmental , social, political, science and sport dynamics. Our mission is to intermediate through creative tactics and educational activities between the problems that affect a community (environmental, political and economical) and the community itself, seeking to create alternatives to such situations through sustainable economical and environmental artistic proposals, promoting collective mobilization. In other words, our greatest interest lies in visualizing and supporting processes of social cohesion, particularly communities seeking to preserve the environment and traditional knowledge. 4-18 so far has managed to affect communities in Bogotá (Cundinamarca), Medellín (Antioquia), Honda (Tolima), Bucaramanga (Santander), Maní and Pore (Casanare), Barranquilla (Atlántico) and Leticia (Amazonas), Popayán (Cauca).
SANTIAGO RODRĂ?GUEZ G.
4-18 Foundation Non-profit cultural organization
This was the house where the first exhibition took place
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I started working at 4-18 back in 2011, when they comissioned me to do some illustrations for a book. After that I started working with them as a designer until I started curating their image and making most of the visuals for the foundation, until finally becoming their creative director. I’ve developed our identity through social media mainly facebook and instagram posts and updating the website from time to time. When we started all comunications seemed really simple trying to only conveing the message, although this was a naive attempt to appear more professional, later on we realized that wasn’t really how we saw ourselves although professional we really don’t take ourselves that seriously so we try if possible to make fun ourselves in our posts, because finally the idea of 4-18 is to be a platform where we can explore any project as we want and try to always be changing, having such a rigid and serious narrative wouldn’t allow to experiment as much as we wanted. Last year we decided to open our editorial branch of which I’m now director. We have had some interesting projects after we earned a grant from Arts Collaboratory and we are currently in developing a magazine that has already have 8 issues published.
http://www.4-18.org
SANTIAGO RODRĂ?GUEZ G.
Logo design for 4-18 initiatives
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This book is divided in two parts: The guide and the appendix. In the guide we provide information for the reader to identify the different stages in which a bribery develops so that he or she can act accordingly at the time they face the police. We also present several case studies that helps recognize the intention of a police officer to ask for a bribe as well as certain specific terminology y body language used in these situations. In the appendix we offer a list of double sense terms that are common during a bribery and some useful information about the bills used in Colombia (e.g. History and nicknames). At the end you can find thirty testimonies that provide the reader with several situations in context that work as examples of how to use the information of this manual. This book is focused in transit violations and the testimonials occurred mainly in Bogota. However the contents in this book can be easily applied in any other part of the Colombian territory. This book was made over the course of 6 months. We made online and paper surveys, with face to face interviews. In the end, we collected more than 600 on-line surveys, 200 written surveys and 150 interviews. This book was made in collaboration with the artist Yunyu “Ayo� Shih.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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This book was made out of a cyanotype workshop around fishermen and the craft of fishing in the city of Honda in Colombia. the objective of this workshops lead by 4-18 photographer and project manager Pablo Gรณmez was to go beyond the experimation with an specific technic of photography and trascend it into a documentary piece. With this in mind we decided tu use different utensils and tools used in the everyday of the fishermen. Giving a global representation of the fishing trade through some of their traditional techniques and represented by their tools. This workshop was aimed to the wifes of the fishermen in Caracoli the fishers neighorhood in Honda in order to get a colser look into their family and everyday life. The book as well as a memory of this traditional practices also helps visbilize this community often forgotten, and helps us tell their story in bigger cities like Bogota, the idea was to keep the reproductions of the cyanotypes intact and portray them individually for people to use them as they please, the idea to own a part of their tradition to display however the saw fit. Also in the book are included detailed instructions of how to make cyanotypes.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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This magazine begins without the knowledge of any theory regarding the anthropological, psychological, structural, urbanistic, architectonical, sociological or symbolical definition of what is a place, thus we are trying to find different interpretations of what is happening there. On the other hand, we would like to emphasize those sites which are “non-specific”, sites we could consider dead or invisible but not null. It is then that which happens between places, spaces that may be consider as “non-places”, reduced from all apparent significance and waiting to be discovered. Guide to Nowhere is a hybrid between a global photography project and a tourist guide. We want to generate curiosity in the places you visit or where you’re part of and to start to explore them. In the same way as a tourist guide offers you a series of locations to consume, Guide to Nowhere, discovers that which goes further into the experience of the visitor and the resident, of what’s particular and ordinary in each place; reactivating lost spaces in an already inhabited and explored location, in order to show a new panorama from the perspectives of photographers, artists, designers, among others that will allow the revealing of intermediate places. Currently we’re on our 8th issue after showcasing cities like New York, Honda, Paris, and Barcelona.
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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a r t i s t s
This exposition was organized in Medellín, Colombia.
David Vélez
organized by the Plazarte cultural center and 4-18 Foundation and curated by David Vélez. Frecuencias explored the problem of sound contamination as a health issue as well as an creative input for the sound artists. In this exhibition the participants created a machine which would be the physical as well as
Camilo V. Rojas
the conceptual center of the exhibition. And from it, the artists conceived an artistic sound proposal that articulates the position that each one of them had with the sound pollution issue. Text David Vélez, Translation Santiago Rodríguez.
Starting from this definition to the purpose of the
Miguel Isaza & Alejandro Henao
exhibition I developed the concept for the book, in which the idea was to find the sound of each artist around the text that accompanied each art piece. The idea was to sort of visualize the sound, the position and the universe that each artist wanted to transmit regarding sound pollution and sound in general. This
Felipe Rodríguez
book is divided into five essays each differentiated in color and composition. The idea behind the color’s was taking literally to the sound as each frequency changes the pitch of the sound it also changes the hue of the color, also sound has an intensity that would define the composition of the text inside the book. the idea was to being able to hear each of one them into their one space without contaminating the others.
Ana María Roman
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
Alejandro Henao & Miguel Isaza
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SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
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EN PARALELO (EP) is a platform for experimentation and resistance, leading itinerant residences of collaborative management of the food and housing, where the money is not the prime intermediary. Participants from different backgrounds create tasks based on the disposal of their free time and the results rest upon the relationship between the residents, the community, and the space in which they are held. This publication is thought as a place to collect all of the information and knowledge obtained from the laboratories performed by [EP]
editorial
SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
PORTAFOLIO / INDEX
que nosotros, continuarían gozando al producir sus objetos, incluso cuando estos resultaban en extremo silenciosos, inofensivos; el filtro perfecto.Estoy sentado, mirando por la ventana, con entusiasmo y melancolía, de la misma manera que lo hacía él.
El plan al exiliarme, en la medida queinterés había un plan, consistía en abrir un espacio de exposición juntos,tercos en como el cual en marcha loindividuos que habíamos despertaría alguno. No pasaría nada. Alegres, nos rodearíamos de individuos lo suficientemente parafinalmente reconocer una podríamos victoria privadaponer en tan grueso desaciertotodo público, que, al igualhablado durante su corta estancia en mi país. Sería un fracaso total. No
es como si yo creyera en el dios de la prosa
confundido y asustado, dudoso de su lugar;
“Escribir, y en general producir, es un acto de fe, es como si yo creyera en el dios de la prosa; es una práctica inoficiosa y lo sé.
Cada cosa que escribo me permito hacerla como quiero, porque disfruto haciéndolo de esa manera.
hijueputa Pero si empiezas a escribir para los demás las decisiones dejan de ser tuyas, y eventualmente dejarás de disfrutarlo. Yo solo escribo y ruego porque el dios de la prosa mantenga en mí las ganas de hacerlo.
El resto no tiene que interesarme”.
Al parecer acá también les gusta lo moderno.
No digo que sea fácil. Nunca lo ha sido. TESIS NICOLÁS RODRÍGUEZ MELO. // ILUSTRACIONES SEBASTIÁN ARRIAGA. // INTERVENCIÓN SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ G.
Miro unos niños jugar, cosa que siempre hacía él. Decía que le recordaba en todo momento que él seguía siendo un niño, confundido y asustado, dudoso de su lugar; también le recordaba a su hija, de cua
Este espacio se ha intervenido para que usted pueda ¡RAYAR! (responder) a un cartel que se la ha impuesto.
Poster for ‘NRM’ book (Independent)
A City Without Glory (Independent)
SANTIAGO RODRĂ?GUEZ G.
SAIC Waveforms Sound Exhibition
Soparranda - 4-18 Event
Films
(Not yet released)
2015
(Not yet released)
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