Independence Square is not what it seems

Jorge Gutiérrez

Before talking about the outcome of Contexto in Tucumán, we should first agree that the outcomes of artistic experiences may be a constantly developing continuum, where production and context values break down.
Moreover, if this kind of experience is marked by clear political guidelines and a suitable me-thodological approach, it is impossible to get round the concept expressed above. This is, then, what happened with Dutch artist Ger-maine Kruip and her work entitled Punto de Vista, in which La Baulera group was invited to participate.
Although this theatre group had some time before undertaken to study in depth the notions of presentation and representation, Germain’s arrival provided final confirmation of the crisis involved in such values as were at stake during the execution of the action within the framework of a new problem-re-lated issue: the one involving context.
We thus became concerned with the search for the tension that surfaces between reality and fiction, a so often questioned relationship, particularly during the last works based on artistic action that the group had been undertaking.
The scope of the proposal, added to intense working hours with the artist and the contributions made by philosopher Jorge Lovisolo, threw us into passionate discussions about the democratization of the look, among other problems. We started to ask ourselves what audiences look at, and what we want them to look at. Thus, there arose new concepts, such as adrift and psychogeography (in the sense they were used by the situationalist movement), as well as the figure of Benjamin’s flâneur, toge-ther with some other ideas.
As we searched for a suitable scenario to deve-lop Punta de Vista, we visited various areas of the city: parks, squares, and other public places. Discussions about the best choice included the fact that we also wanted to focus on Germaine’s work proposal, which changed gradually as we persuaded ourselves that the city’s main square was the best place to stage the action.
Having reached this decision, it was necessary to re-think our work, for Independence Square, far from being a public promenade, as visitors to the province might well think, is a space of convergence for the various social manifestations that reflect the province’s socioeconomic and cultural situation. The said manifestations (whether celebrations or complaints) are the very image of popular feeling, and are linked to the location of the most representative buildings in the life of our province: the Govern-ment House, the Cathedral, the former Plaza Cinema -now turned into an Evangelic Church-, the Economic Federation, the Provincial Popu-lar Savings Bank, the former Provincial Bank, the Jockey Club, the Tourism Government Agency, and other institutions lodged in histo-rical buildings.
The crisis affecting the country is reflected in all these places to a highly theatrical extent, for many popular manifestations resort to creative devices in order to achieve public denunciation of their problems. By way of example, during all the time we spent at the square in the course of our work, we shared the space with a demonstration staged by Town Hall employees, who were chained to one another and, in this guise, walked round and round the square. A statue by Lola Mora, Liberty, the square’s main emblematic symbol, was sorrounded by a fence and covered with scaffolding that had been installed for restoration works. This could go perfectly unnoticed in any other city in the world, but in the historical context of the moment it took on high symbolic significance.
Once we had made up our mind that this was the place we should choose, everything was seen in a different light. The context started fighting its relentless theatrical battle. How could we compete with such a performative degree as social protest brought on the scene? Punto de Vista proposed to generate a break, a tension that exceeded the idea of a public space being used as a stage in the search and design of action. Thus, the performance appeared and conquered the whole of the territory, the territory was the great perfor-mance, and the performers were a tiny hint at fiction, items of information to look at things from a different standpoint. The audience, in a constant exchange of roles, was not able to stay away from this game. We all looked to be looked at.