Life is a dream

 

A Cartesian coordinate system consists of two perpendicular lines intersecting at a single point, defining an origin. The uniqueness of certain places lies precisely in this attribute. For an unknown reason, the individual emerges within a specific setting to embody survival drama. This narrative inaugurates a journey governed by countless influences, yet one in which each person remains the architect of their destiny.

Pablo Rodes delves into the tension between determinism and sovereignty through this video installation, featuring four interrelated projections that recreate an urban landscape. In harmony with Gilles Deleuze’s ideas, this work is a network of multiple connections in which the beginning not only marks boundaries but also initiates continuous processes of becoming. Thus, the character’s position articulates a dialectic between rootedness and transience, permanence and transformation. At the same time, it celebrates the primal moment of awareness (when the subject recognizes their place in the world before plunging into the ceaseless tide of stimuli, demands, and movements shaping their path).

Alluding to Spanish Baroque theater, Rodes envisions existence as a choreography balancing the given and the chosen, the stable and the mutable. His proposal delineates an origin that unfolds into a spectrum of possibilities far beyond its threshold. Freedom is then forged as a dynamic force, perpetually evolving and capable of sculpting our fate. This way, the author challenges certainties and unsettles perceptions, providing a brilliant reflection on the human condition and its relentless quest for meaning.

I dream that I am here
of these imprisonments charged,
and I dreamed that in another state
happier I saw myself.
What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
A shadow, a fiction,
And the greatest profit is small;
For all of life is a dream,
And dreams are nothing but dreams.

(Calderón de la Barca)