Frozen Moments from Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

For Those Who Wait.

Here are some pieces by rising video artist Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, whose work revolves around Millennial time capsules, time crunches, time warps and generations, using the medium of projected video sculpture (Thanks to -B. All images and videos are © G. Barcia-Colombo from his Website); they are presented here solely for the purpose of discussion and review.

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo's work focuses on memorialization and, more specifically, the act of leaving one's imprint for the next generation. While formally implemented by natural history museums and collections (which find their roots in Renaissance era "cabinets of curiosity"), this process has grown more pointed and pervasive in the modern-day obsession with personal digital archiving and the corresponding growth of social media culture. His video sculptures play upon this exigency in our culture to chronicle, preserve and wax nostalgic, an idea which Barcia-Colombo renders visually by “collecting” human beings (alongside cultural archetypes) as scientific specimens.

The piece, For Those Who Wait, features interactive and self-destructive video clocks: "'For Those Who Wait' is an interactive video sculpture about the physicality of time. 10 video projected clocks hang motionless in a room. As the viewer winds up a crank the clocks come to life, their hands spinning out of control until they self destruct in a variety of animations."


For Those Who Wait from Gabriel Barcia-Colombo on Vimeo.
In A Point Just Passed, manipulation of the sculpture forces a captured video hologram of a person to age: "A time card punch clock with a video person projected into a dome on top. As the viewer punches the time cards, the person gets older based on time punch increments. At the last punch the dome goes dark and is not to be reset until the next day. Viewers virtually erase the youth of the person through the passage of time. With each punch the memory of one's childhood is further erased from the dome. It is possible that some viewers may never experience the full length of the piece."

A Point Just Passed from Gabriel Barcia-Colombo on Vimeo.
Black Thursday combines memes from 19th century science and the 20th century economy, allowing viewers to peer through a microscope at trapped bankers who are presented like butterflies: "In 'Black Thursday,' the viewer peers through a microscope to find six miniature businessmen pinned down like butterfly specimens—six traditionally masculine “suits” rendered fragile and paralyzed. This work involves embedding actual video screens into objects in the tradition of video artist Nam June Paik."

Black Thursday from Gabriel Barcia-Colombo on Vimeo.