SEMPITERNO
Multichannel video
8 - 12 minutes variable
24 x 12 feet / 731 x 366 cm
2017
Sempiterno is a multichannel video installation that offers a powerful commentary on our surveillance culture. The installation features 32 video channels, each projecting a video portrait of human life, creating a sense of a panopticon where everyone is under constant observation. The individuals in the videos are caught in repetitive, fidgeting loops, suggesting the loss of individuality and agency that can occur through conditioning. The use of the sound of a clock as the stimulus to provoke the subjects' automatic and unconscious responses, drawing on the concept of Pavlovian conditioning. The repetitive and seemingly meaningless actions portrayed in Sempiterno allude to the dangers of conditioning and the way it can cause a loss of agency and individuality.
Through Sempiterno, the artists offer a poignant reflection on how surveillance affects our everyday lives, both online and offline. The installation immerses the viewer in a world where privacy is non-existent, and surveillance is ubiquitous. The multiple video channels create a disorienting effect that amplifies the overwhelming feeling of being watched, under constant scrutiny, and having nowhere to hide.
The title of the work, Sempiterno, refers to something that has a beginning but no end, suggesting an eternal loop or cycle. This concept is echoed in the repetitive actions of the individuals in the video installation, who seem to be caught in an endless cycle of behavior. The lack of variation or change in their actions reinforces the idea of a never-ending loop, further emphasizing the title's significance. Moreover, the installation alludes to the idea of societal conditioning, where certain behaviors and norms are passed down through generations without necessarily understanding why they exist or where they came from. These behaviors become ingrained in us and accepted as the norm, leading to a loss of agency and individuality.
EXHIBITIONS
FLORIDA PRIZE IN CONTEMPORARY ART
Curated by Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon and Hansen Mulford
Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
May 31 - August 18, 2019
In Sempiterno, Peñafiel’s characters are going through meaningless motions, repeating menial tasks over and over again, in a Pavlovian way. Although what they are doing is nonsensical, they are follow systematic patterns of behavior performing familiar routine activities, such as vacuuming, spinning on a chair, or walking back and forth. The images gradually blur as people forget what they are doing or why they are doing it. This effect suggests information that is lost over time, “like the hate between two countries,” says Peñafiel, “generations later, people have forgotten why but they still hate.” Through situations that everyone can relate to, he plants the seed of a question and asks people to ponder: “why?”
CONFLICT POINT
Curated by Jonell Logan
McColl Center, Charlotte - NC
May 28 - September 5, 2021
The telling of history is complicated.
The narratives we believe are true are often controlled by a society’s dominant group, leading to social and cultural collisions. There is no greater evidence of this than the prevailing push in contemporary culture to add other voices, recognize missing elements of history, and the movement against single stories because so many experienced the real social and political consequences of being excluded.
Artists-in-residence Jackie Milad, Barbara Schreiber, Edison Peñafiel, Janet Loren Hill, and Sichong Xie question this concept of the narrative, using their work to add and ask questions about humanity’s relationship to the past, the present, each other, and the natural world.
Edison Peñafiel’s work also explores crowd and conflict, displacement, and the human desire to claim land. His multimedia installations focus on those who are often on the underside of the world’s major conflicts: the migrant, the laborer, the surveilled. The disjointed, repetitive and often cyclitic movements in his videos mirror disturbing cycles of human history that result in human catastrophes. These unnerving views break us out of the desensitized lull that ongoing crisis creates.
Excerpt from essay by curator Jonell Logan for Conflict Point exhibition.
This exhibition was presented in partnership with Windgate Foundation.
FLORIDA BIENNIAL
Curated by Laura Marsh & Juried by Sarah Fritchey
Art and Culture Center, Hollywood, FL
September 14 - October 21, 2018
