Politics of Friendship - by Simão & Meseguer
Book-Performance

at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
16th May 2014.

This work is based on the assumption that if there is no war without its representation, the same can be applied to affection. The project deals with how both states (war and affection) operate as tools of perception, therefore making you recognize the world in a particular way. Affection, as a chemical activator of neuronal processes and senses on the central nervous system “affects” processes of decision, the identification and differentiation on the perception of objects.

Fragments of historical narrative, theoretical, journalistic, literary productions and film references occur as a representation of "affection". They show how they are used to incorporate narratives and fictitious policies held during periods of colonial oppression. From the ideological line linking the Spanish and Portuguese imperial politic projects, Politics of friendship - by Simao & Meseguer, creates a framework of experience seeking to open a wider geo-political reading over this topic and drawing attention to elements of continuity in the present embedded in a general use of a language of acceptance.

In the practice, rather than proposing a comprehensive and well-defined archival device, this experience seeks to generate a number of possibilities for reviewing its content. An "archive of affection " emulator is worked as an advanced mechanism, in which the documentation is valued for its ability to generate new meanings. I.e., indexing , translating, saving or removing, ignoring or capturing are understood as inextricably gestures linked to a logic of manipulation that question the archive as a fixed territory of meaning.

The project will be presented as a life recording session at MNCARS during the seminar Habitar la dispersión - Seminario Internacional Teatralidades Expandidas 2014 / Archives of affections, coordinated by Oscar Cornago and Zara Rodriguez.

Proyecto I+D: Imaginarios sociales II.