Comemos la tierra / La tierra nos come - 2016

Through choreography and monologue, “We Eat the Earth / The Earth Eats Us” explores webs of deceit in a quarry and landfill site outside Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl.

“Six characters…tell of their fantasies, obsessions, and no-strings-attached sex that is all-consuming, yet utterly devoid of intimacy. The [film] presents different communication technologies which are readily available, but which fail to establish real interpersonal connection: physical contact which remains superficial or the feeding of a hungry ego in a world which resembles a building excavation: raw and fallow.” -Sandra Reinhardt (Videonale)

– edited and associate produced by Isidore Bethel / directed by Lucy Pawlak / produced by Joaquín del Paso

– 17 minutes

– Bonn Videonale (Germany), Athens Digital Arts Festival (Greece), ArtVilnius Contemporary Art Fair (Lithuania), Espectro Electromagnético (Mexico), Villa Merkel – Galerien der Stadt Esslingen (Germany), Digital Ecologies and the Anthropocene Symposium at Bath Spa University (UK), Art+Design Borderline Art Space (Romania)

PRESS:
– This is Tomorrow: “Six isolated ‘characters’…dance, writhe or sit, semi-naked, set against a backdrop of stony, cavernous rubble in sweltering heat. The lives of these individuals are loosely, superficially interrelated: a ‘writer’ worships a ‘stripper’ while escaping his marriage through constant online sexual encounters, the ‘wife’ reflects on his infidelity from a position of seeming disinterest. The stories, each told through voiceover and introduced with character title pages that render them archetypal, weave together erotic fantasies and surreal narratives. Although solely driven by sexual urges, the monologues are devoid of intimacy, delivered with a dreamlike detachment, as though recanting and examining the remnants of hallucinations. Pawlak’s film presents a combination of fervent gratification, urgent consumption and detachment. It parallels communication technologies which are readily available, but which fail to establish real interpersonal contact. The result is a heady, lucid excess of ego and anxiety, with no space for it to capitulate.”