CONVERSATIONAL MANUAL, ART INSTALLATION, 2012.
It’s a collection of 100 sentences of what it’s called small talk, from our daily life specifically of Madrid, (2012) and that are classified by topics as: daily life, economics, politics, health... It was presented as an art installation, where you could read the Manual and take one for free. You were invited, as well, to write some sentences from your own repertoire and leave it in an voting box.
The edition was produced for the exhibition “¿La sociedad empática como futuro ideal?”, “Empathic society as a wishful future?, curated by Emma Brasó for “Sala de Arte Joven”, a public institution from the City Council of Madrid that promotes young artists, and helps them with exhibitions and scholarships.
Each city has its own archive of popular “truths” that we repeat to engage in a conversation in a superficial way, as an empathic approach to somebody. Many of the things that we use, are not necessary true, but the habit of repeating them year after year makes them almost an established truth. The Manual, presents with irony these sentences, with the aim to be a practical guide in case of need, but also to make us conscious of how language creates our cultural identity and to reflect on that. I was very inspired by the famous sentence of philosopher Wittgestein: the limits of my language are the limits of my world”.