Tránsitos (Furió)

Dolores Furió


A character inside a television set tries to get out, but can’t. Her body interacts with the screen, trying desperately to communicate with the outside, with the spectator, who watches the woman’s attempts to get out of the television.

As usual in Furió’s work, different lines of thought unfold: there is on the one hand the debate between reality and fiction in late capitalist societies. A lot has been said about the ways in which the virtual is replacing everyday life and how the classic notion of reality is hiding behing this media layer.

The subject comes up much more strongly when we realise that the television monitor is nothing more than an ephemeral, recorded image. This emphaises the contrast between the object (the physical presence of the real set) and this reflection, an image which is trapping within it a character with which the viewer identifies. The piece can thus be read as a vision or a nightmare for the spectator, who draws a parallelism between what she sees and her own struggle to break free of these ties.

Of interest is also the way that the piece quotes performance practices of the 1970s, revising and updating works like those by Ana Mendieta, Joan Jonas, Shigeko Kubota, and Vito Acconci, who worked on the relationship between carnality and the television set.

This is a piece of a peculiar sensuality, based on the contrasts between the body and its reflection, materiality and immateriality. Paradoxically, the video (immaterial, temporal, ephemeral...) becomes the perfect medium with which to speak of the body and from which to articulate strategies for the distancing from and deconstruction of identity.

Technical datasheet

  • Title: Tránsitos (Furió)
  • Direction: Dolores Furió
  • Production: Dolores Furió. 1999.
  • Team:

    Music: Leopoldo Amigo

  • Duration: 00:03:10
  • Original format: Betacam SP
  • Formats: Betacam Digital - DVD
  • TV systems: PAL
  • License: Copyright