Videos
Bliss, Devotion, and the Cosmic Mestiza Vignette
This hybridized video performance piece explores the concept of “mestizaje,” the Spanish term used to describe the race mixture of Spanish and indigenous blood as a result of colonialism, from a perspective informed by history, contemporary culture and racial formation and creative, spiritual speculation about the future. Otalvaro-Hormillosa weaves video, sound and performance to illustrate the contradictory aspects of “mestizaje” in which the genocide and rape of one race led to the painful creation of a new race. By redefining mestizaje to incorporate mixed race and queer identities which take on countless forms as in the case of multicultural San Francisco, Otalvaro-Hormillosa paints a picture of the revolutionary potential for such subversive, yet fluid identities to dismantle the binaries created by colonial constructs relating to race and gender. Theories of contact between ancient civilizations and extraterrestrials influence Otalvaro’s artistic vision of a cosmic “mestizaje” in which the impending transformation of the world as we know it may lead to possibilities for the creation of a new existence and way of being. Collaborating artists include Lorraine Bautista, Chris Hill, Stuart Port, Heather Cox, Bill Sievert, May Ling Su, S. Trotter, Allyn Nobles, e-mael, Veronica Majano, Carmen Reginato, and Leticia Hernandez.
This project is funded by a San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Grant, the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize (a program administered by New Langton
Arts) and the Zellerbach Family Fund.
Sound design by Melissa Dougherty.
Photo credit: Lou DeMatteis and Noah Otalvaro (grey backdrop images).
Videographer credit: Chip Lord
Live sound on video clips of performance in glass case: Guillermo Galindo