PENELOPE IS WAITING

PENELOPE IS WAITING

(2015, Spain, 7min) video installation

We imagine an empty space in the end of the world, which is here. Inside everyone. A long wait full of love where everything is an affirmation of life. (Maybe this is why Ulysses by James Joyce ends: “yes I said I want yes”)

SYNOPSIS “Penelope is Waiting is a contemporary portrait of the classic myth. A woman in love expecting Ulysses return is locked up in an imaginary island. She is seen looking through a balcony, sleeping under a table, floating around columns, and making coffee.” I IMDb

CAST Paloma Zavala CREW Director/producer: Pedro Valiente I DP: Daniel Rodríguez del Pozo I Coordinating producer/assistant director: Alfredo Miralles I Coordinating producer/editor: Irene Gómez I Music: Juan José Talavera I Photography: Juan Manuel Núñez I Visual art: Javier Chavarría I Webite Sara Conde TECH INFO Running time: 7min I Format: four HD videos, black/white I Country: Spain I A production by Crossing Stages UC3M I © 2015 Crossing Stages UC3M I Flying Fish Work

ITALY 2015 June I Centro Artistico il Grattacielo, Livorno, Tuscany I SPAIN 2015 August I ARTSevilla International Contemporary Art Encounter, Sevilla 2016 December I La Neomudéjar Museum, Madrid

Madrid Press I UK Press

UK 2017 May I Plymouth Art Weekender Festival I 2017 October I Arts University Plymouth JORDAN 2018 June 27-November 3 I In the Margin Festival by Factory at The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman I Photo: Exhibitions in the UK in Plymouth Art Weekender Festival and Arts University Plymouth

TEAM Penelope is Waiting is a work by Pedro Valiente coordinated by artist/producer Alfredo Miralles and actress/producer Irene Gómez. The performance by Paloma Zavala, Odin Teatret collaborator, is the project’s center piece. The sound design, emotional and subtle, creates a distinctive storytelling blend with music by contemporary composer Juan José Talavera, and cinematography by Daniel Rodríguez del Pozo, filmmaker. Photography by Juan Manuel Núñez, art by Javier Chavarría, and site by Sara Conde. Also, essays by Luz Neira, adjunct vice-dean of Culture and Communication UC3M, and Javier Gorostiza, artist, director of Robotics Department at UC3M. I Crossing Stages European Project: Sonsoles Herreros Laviña general manager/director Aula de las Artes, UC3M. Sergio Blanco artistic director/theater writer, director. Pedro Valiente communication director/filmmaker.

Penelope is Waiting is an interdisciplinary project that blends film, photo, design, visual art, music, writing, and performance as well as digital work including sites and social media. The three works of Multiple Portraits can be screened in a wide range of forms and spaces including one by one and altogether; independently and simultaneously; in screening rooms, art centers and/or online. It’s a trilogy of visual portraits: cinematic, in motion, multiple, and simultaneous. I ARTSevilla

Penelope is Waiting is part of a transmedia project connected with other productions and online platforms. It came out filming one of the seven stories of You Are Mythical, documentary feature film produced by the same creative team. Both works are part of Crossing Stages European arts project. Crossing Stages team produced a wide range of contents under the umbrella of transmedia storytelling including the following. (Pedro Valiente worked as director of all work except for the book, site, and selected videos).

You Are Mythical (2018, 80:00) film I Penelope is Waiting (2015, 7m:00) video installation I Crossing Europe (2015, 30:00) film I Crossing Stages (2015) book with media card I Crossing Stages (2013-2015) web series 29 video, 72 interviews I Crossing Stages (2013-2015) websites. I Photo: Posters: You Are Mythical, Penelope is Waiting, Crossing Europe, Crossing Stages web series

“Penelope is Waiting is more than a portrait of a myth. It´s more than a moment to capture. It connects our silent inner life with the terrible sensation of solitude in modern or antique times: immutable for the human being through the existence. It speaks about that intense feeling waiting for loved ones. That anxiety which may expand towards creativity.

Paloma Zavala performing Penelope sparks creativity through the lens. She may project sadness, but makes me feel spiritual. Contemplating Penelope’s isolation has a lot of meaning as a state of mind attained in the complete absence of others. Just the two of us and the camera. The long absence was there before. She has her own inner Odyssey: loyalty, long chastity, and solitude. She’s still waiting. That is what I captured.” —Juan Manuel Núñez I © Photo: JM Núñez

PHOTO

“Juan Manuel Núñez is an airline captain who decided to change the course of his life. He studied Visual Arts and became an artist. He works on painting, sculpture, photography, and video. So, his aesthetical point of view is aerial. He looks at life from a distance that comes from the experience of life in full. His art work represents what he is. A man rooted in the earth: powerful. And an independent soul that is up in the sky: spiritual. From a calculated point of view, the architecture of his photos are subtle in composition and deep in evocative tones. To his eyes, Penelope has arrived to her destiny of love.” —PV

“The music is created after two elements which are the video installation Penelope is Waiting and the song La lucha by Son de Madera, band from Veracruz, Mexico. These elements shape the tonal construction and its texture density as well as the tonal harmonic aspect. The installation, projected on four screens, generates a contrasted tonal treatment in each screen: winds (two clarinets, accordion), strings (violin, viola, violoncello), and drums (two marimbas). In the fourth screen, the only musical part is the song performed by a female singer.

The four screens create an exchange of subtle and changing counterpoints provoking in the audience an interesting game of sound stimulation linked to the space where the music happens. The modal nature of the song La Lucha, typical in popular music, is colored by instruments with different levels of harmonic tension to extract unexpected sound glitter and flare. There are two atmospheres clearly distinguished until the song appears, it is very static; after the song, the music is intense and progressively rhythmical toward a cathartic and release ending.” —Juan José Talavera

JUAN JOSÉ TALAVERA composition and musical direction | DESISLAVA KARAMFILOVA violin | PETYA NIKOLOVA KAVALOVA viola | MARTA RAMOS CRIADO cello | MÓNICA CAMPILLO clarinet | ISRAEL MATESANZ bass clarinet | DAVID GORDO accordion | MIGUEL ÁNGEL PÉREZ, VERA GARRIDO marimbas | EDUARDO BURGOS sound mix I © Music: JJ Talavera

MUSIC

PERFORMANCE

“Paloma performs Penelope. The symbol of love and fidelity embodies a young woman in Europe today. She is the queen of an empty house –steering the sky from a balcony, hiding bellow a table to dreams of a song, dissolving from herself through columns, and making coffee.

Like Penelope, she is fragile and transparent. And, like Penelope, she is a powerful woman. Making films means to me working with people. No matter how abstract is the idea or the approach to visual arts, I tend to go close to the human side of life. This forms a poetic style and inhabits the body of the story. 

Paloma was a breaking point shooting the feature film You Are Mythical which is a bridge between young Europeans and classic myths. After her, we all wanted to spend our lonely times building ships in a never ending wait for Ulysses. After her, we also felt mythical. As everybody knows, it´s a feeling that only heroes can inspire in humans.” —PV

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MULTIPLE PORTRAITS

Installations