detritus

Generative digital image projection. This work is one of the distinct outcomes developed through detritus, a long-term investigation into media representations of violence in Mexico.
15,585 intervened digital images, database, colour, Python code, microcomputer.
Dimensions: variable.
Duration: variable.

detritus is a research-based transmedia, transdisciplinary and multiform artwork: database of 15,585 digital images, digital projection, large-format screen prints, and website. Here, the artist depicts the wave of images of violence introduced by Mexican media into the public consciousness while identifying and describing its normalization process. Sánchez surveyed two national Mexican newspapers, “Milenio” and “Jornada,” available online from December 11, 2006 when Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced a declaration of war against “drug cartels,” to November 30, 2012, when he left office. The information gathered (15,585 entries) includes news texts with accompanying photographs. The archive the artist created also contains data on photographs. The processed images of violence became the visual foundation for the resulting work. In the projection, they are all presented randomly in two-second intervals. They depict Mexico’s political and human landscape. They speak of the defeat suffered by the Mexican state and the society the state has abandoned. Many of the most important aspects of the life of Mexican society began to take place, as a result of this failure, in the absence of the state.

The database contains the full record for each image-based news item: coded entry number, headline, caption, newspaper source, credit line, publication date, URL, image description, and the corresponding image file. The public can search the material through its online interface by day and month across the period from December 2006 to November 2012.

Online artwork: https://www.detritus.mx/

Database of 15,585 images. Generative run of digital images.
Duration: 5:28 minutes.
URL: https://youtu.be/vRPzjHzJgwo

Video documentation. In the Absence of the State, 24 May–7 July 2024, Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań, Poland.
Duration: 47 seconds.
URL: https://youtu.be/R_s_fegKX30