The Monster Problem
IN PRE DEVELOPMENT
Available For Opportunities
Manuscript, Various Mediums , 202X
1) The manuscript is a series of chapters about a Gallery Director, who returns to his hometown of Guadalajara after a period of diaspora. On the way to a local exhibition opening called The Monster Problem, a vampire bites him. Every chapter onwards recounts dangerous encounters with the underworld that continually frustrate his attempts to visit the exhibition. This plot is humorously framed by the local artist kindly opening their exhibition for the diaspora Director at night, only to be stood up, in every chapter. The literary device of vampirism, with its avatar of immortality, is an opportunity to explore the criminal occurences that make Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
2) The exhibition component actualises The Monster Problem, the show that the Director fails to see in every chapter. The Monster Problem as a speculative installation is comprised of humorous objects that evoke vampirism, an ongoing concept in Ramirez’ practice that looks at difference and extraction. He will progress this enquiry with black wax referencing castle candles and buried/unburied film (degrading the image) that mimics how vampires rise from the grave after burial. His aim is to establish a parasitical relationship between these elements, where one material appears to consume the other, in a vampiric dynamic.
The Conservatives
IN PRE DEVELOPMENT
Available For Opportunities
Video, 202X
This film shows the moment two white cis hetero lovers kiss for the first time, only to discover one of them carries a ‘sonic virus’ that distorts hearing upon the sharing of saliva. Located within the vampire genre, this work trades in the aesthetics of right wing extremism: a white man in his mid 20s, who unbeknown to his date is a white supremacist, touches lips with a white woman of similar age, who is a vampire. This encounter takes place in his apartment, where she slowly discovers objects that suggest the male kisser is a covert extremist. Once infected with the dark gift from the female kisser, he suffers from an extreme form of cognitive distortion, which manifests on the screen as an experimentation with sound and image. In ‘The Conservatives’, the vampire is a fascist ideology and transmission is radicalisation. Thus, the work purposely trades in a couple that epitomises the target of identity politics.
This work is based on Ramírez essay The Monstrous Kiss and Its Perversions, which looks at the history of kissing as a community practice in early Judeo-Christianity, where he discusses media that disrupts this legacy, by turning kissing into an act of division rather than union. The vampire’s bite epitomises this perversion as an osculation that inverts values of social harmony.
Snowflake
IN PRE DEVELOPMENT
Available For Opportunities
Various Medius, 202X
This project is motivated by Ramírez’ prose writing, which often incorporates pathos through a comical lens. Seeking to translate this creative senbility into his arts pratice, he began employing marbles for their ability to simultaneously convey humour and distress. It is also an opportunity to explore the melancholic dimension of his key interests, such as the gothic suffering associated with the vampire. While connecting it with his work in the area of cultural criticism.