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Aitana López Rodrigo

video, Taal, sociaal-maatschappelijk, sculptuur, schrijven, installatie, Gender, fotografie, Experimenteel, Digitale technologie, Conceptueel, collage, beeldhouwen, Autobiografisch, Audiovisueel, Artistiek onderzoek, Archieven

Aitana López Rodrigo studied Fine Arts in Madrid and Paris 8, later earning a master's degree in Lens-Based Media from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. She has worked in education, photography, sculpture, and set design. Her practice spans different mediums, bringing together plastic, rhythmic, and formal interests to establish a dialogue with social and political conflicts. In her most recent work, she explores the concepts of value and labor through artistic interventions within workplace environments. Her work has been showcased at film festivals and art spaces such as the Eye Film Museum (Amsterdam), UBIK gallery (Rotterdam), and the Lacanian Institute of Psychoanalysis (Madrid). She has also participated in residencies and collaborative projects such as CIAN-m Fabero (León), the archival practices collective Archival Consciousness at FRAMER FRAMED (Amsterdam), and the JUGUETORÍA residency at MediaLab Prado (Madrid). She recently took part in the NOSYMMETRIES symposium organized by Idensitat and IMARTE (University of Barcelona) at La Capella, was selected for the OPEN PANORAMIC in Granollers (Barcelona), and participated in the micro-short film program Paisatges Polifònics at L'Alternativa Film Festival. Her latest short film, "A Piece of Paper", is part of the official selection of the D'A Film Festival in Barcelona and will premiere in March 2025.

A piece of paper
A piece of paper - Image: installation of "A piece of paper" in UBIK, as part of the exhibition CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, June 2024. "A piece of paper" is a project that explores a professional dismissal. An 8-minute video and a sculptural approach using paper denounce the violence of neoliberal corporate language.
A piece of paper
A piece of paper - Image: installation of "A piece of paper" in UBIK, as part of the exhibition CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, June 2024. The project is based on audio recordings made in 2019 while I was working for a multinational company, aimed at proving workplace harassment. The transcription and translation of these recordings laid the groundwork for this project.
A piece paper
A piece paper - Image: still from the video "A piece of paper". In the video, three moments trace the before, during, and after of a job dismissal. Through a sensory gaze and a special sensitivity to rhythm and detail, “A piece of paper” unfolds a choreography of voices -both real and AI-generated- to explore the fissures between the bureaucratic and the human. Sensitive in its approach and powerful in its message, the film uses the fewest resources necessary to open a timely and urgent field of discussion: how to counter the hidden violence in corporate languages. “A piece of paper” invites us to question the dynamics of authority and vulnerability and reconsider our relationship with the languages of power.
A piece of paper
A piece of paper - Image: installation of "A piece of paper" in UBIK, as part of the exhibition CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, June 2024. The embossing on paper translates dismissal meeting. On the left, a filled sheet and five blank sheets display my interventions during the meeting of my dismissal; on the right, six filled sheets represent my superior’s interventions.
Ok, una escena moderna.
Okey, vale - Image: sketch for installation. 2025; work in progress; video and light installation; project in collaboration with Miguel Ruz Velasco. "Okey, vale" is a site-specific installation that, through a theatrical form, explores the echoes and resonances of the male gaze and the role of technology in shaping images. Language interacts with visuals, the text and the voice, simultaneously highlighting and deconstructing the different narratives the viewer might imagine. This piece offers a sharp yet playful exploration of the role language plays in meaning-making.
Ok, una escena moderna
Okey, vale - Image: sketch for installation. As a site-specific installation, language and light serve as narrative devices. Breaking away from the linearity of a single storyline, the elements unfold in space, articulated through light, much like in a theater. Light is activated and deactivated in sync with the voice through a coordinated lighting and sound system.
I had a boss and I ate him
I had a boss and I ate him - Image: symposium NOSYMMETRIES 2024, La Capella, Barcelona. "I Had a Boss, and I Ate Him. Artistic Identity in a Neoliberal World" is a body of work that explores the concepts of work and artwork through feminist artistic practices in within capitalist labor environments. This project approaches workplaces as spaces for fostering a consciousness of resistance, articulated and expressed through artistic practice. In this context, artistic work manifests in different forms: in-situ practices (performance, interventions, hacks) or post-factum practices (text, audiovisual work, embossing). Artistic practice is understood through situated knowledge (Haraway) as a strategy for symbolic and political survival, counteracting the precarity and violence inherent in these work environments. At the same time, it arises from the need to challenge the normalization of patriarchal and neoliberal values ​​that shape personal and social dynamics. The project establishes a dialogue between writing, visual art, and audiovisual creation, resulting in three texts: "Work 1: Language Teacher. What Languages ​​to Learn, What Languages ​​to Unlearn," "Work 2: Photo Retoucher. Art Through Rejection," and "Work 3: Sculpture Technician. Making Space." Additionally, it includes a digital intervention, "The Black Pixel," and an audiovisual piece, "A Piece of Paper."
The Black Pixel Project
The Black Pixel Project - 2021-2022, digital intervention. The Black Pixel Project originated and evolved during my work as a photo retoucher in a prestigious photographic studio in Madrid, where I worked for a multinational fast fashion company. I retouched approximately 1,800 photos each month, around 60 per day, which adds up to about 19,000 annually, for a monthly salary of €1,000. As the months passed, I found it increasingly difficult to keep working under such hard a fast work pace, I decided to introduce a small step into the retouching chain. Given that the photos went through two quality control checks, and out of fear of being discovered, I chose to intervene discreetly by adding a Black Pixel, as a gesture of protest.
Vocal letters: An invitation to reading
An invitation to reading - Image: script for the video "An invitation to reading". This video is part of a larger research project called "Vocal Letters," focused on collective knowledge shared through everyday technologies. "An invitation to reading" (2022) is the first letter in this series, inspired by a message from my friend Isa. In this message, she recounts her experience reading a novel with her sister, highlighting the connection she felt between creation and pleasure.
Still of
An invitation to reading - Image: still of the film "An invitation to reading"
A photographic lesson
A photographic lesson - Image: still of the video "A photograpic lesson". 2022, digital video HD, 06'01''. "A photographic lesson" presents a formal flip that explores French photographic magazines from the 1970s and 1980s. At first glance, the images might appear humorous, outdated, or even parodic, but they confront us with the extreme violence and condescension embedded in these modes of representation.
A photographic lesson
A photographic lesson - Image: still of the video "A photograpic lesson". Through an exercise in improvisation, a voice narrates the image on display, trying to deduce the medium that represents it, blurring the boundaries between container and content. The audio comes from voice recordings in corporate contexts while the images are drawn from the archives of the Nederlands Fotomuseum. A call to overcome colonial discourses ingrained in photographic images.

Noranje Open studio

Datum:
Locatie: Oranjeboomstraat 297
In samenwerking met: Lotte de Jong and Steve Kerr

Noranje open studio event showing works by Lotte de Jong, Aitana López Rodrigo and Steve Kerr.

World Premiere - D'A Film Festival

Datum:
Locatie: CCCB Barcelona
In samenwerking met: D'A Film Festival

Three time periods trace the before, during, and after of a job dismissal. Through a sensorial gaze, the film deploys a choreography of voices to explore the fissures between bureaucracy and humanity and to open an urgent and current field of discussion: how to counteract the violence hidden in neoliberal languages.

https://dafilmfestival.com/en/movie/a-piece-of-paper/

Filmdakleaks

Datum:
Locatie: Lange Hilleweg 235
In samenwerking met: Filmdak collective, Rotterdam South Explorer, Rotterdam Art Week

Collective video installation. Basements and attics are places where we hide precious things, old memories, or forgotten objects, but they are also spaces for experimentation and trial. In its first presentation outside the TOT building, FilmDak has descended from the attic to the basement to present FilmDakLeaks, a site-specific work that serves as a collective statement.

https://tot-art.nl/news/filmdakleaks-collective-video-lange-hilleweg-235

OPEN Panoràmic

Datum:
Locatie: La Capella
In samenwerking met: Festival Panoràmic, La Capella

Directed by Joan Fontcuberta, Laia Casanova and Albert Gusi, the festival is born with the vocation of doing critical pedagogy of the image aimed at an audience increasingly immersed in visual environments and therefore with a will to serve. The festival proposes a space of knowledge and reflection between the still image and the moving image.

https://festivalpanoramic.cat/es/2024/07/29/novedad-conoce-los-proyectos-finalistas-del-open-panoramic-2024/

NOSYMMETRIES Symposium

Datum:
Locatie: La Capella
In samenwerking met: Idensitat, IMARTE, La Capella

NOSYMMETRIES is an Idensitat project which, within the Creative Europe Care Ecologies programme, engages in research and the activation of artistic processes which tackle various kinds of social inequality. Based upon a residency, its following exhibition, and a symposium, our intention has been to explore the concepts of ​​critical imagination and social creativity, understanding the relationship between them as a collective process embracing a variety of perspectives. Dissidence, disputes, vio

https://www.idensitat.net/en/current-projects/care-ecologies/1826-nosymmetries-symposium

CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY

Datum:
Locatie: Eendrachtsstraat 10
In samenwerking met: Piet Zwart Institute, WORM, V2_

Master students of the Lens-Based Media program at the Piet Zwart Institute invite you to their graduation show at V2 and WORM, Rotterdam. We are here and we need to tell you something. CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY brings attention to urgent questions through the practice of moving image. Along 14 distinct works, each their own current, we explore personal, political and ecological concerns in the world we live in.
Currently, it has to do with all of us.

https://v2.nl/events/currently-currently-currently-pzi-graduation-show

76x32x32x200x85x360

Datum:
Locatie: Jan Porcellisstraat 9
In samenwerking met: Group show

"Dismissal matrix" (engraved wood; 29x21×0,02 cm.) is a generative wooden plate (matrix) that I use to reproduce embossed paper. In it, I engraved (almost burnt) my interventions during my dismissal meeting on a multinational company.

76x32x32_200x85x360 is de grootste groepstentoonstelling in de kleinste kunstruimte van de stad. Een verzameling kleinschalige, nog nooit eerder vertoonde werken van 76 Rotterdamse kunstenaars.

https://www.rotterdamartweek.nl/programma-overview/vlak

Flying Ideas

Datum:
Locatie: WORM
In samenwerking met: Yalou Groeneweg, Luni Jancoraite, Sam Koopan & Marty, Aitana López Rodrigo, Claudio Tola, Te Petchara and Arabella Turner

Flying Ideas is a collective space for works-in-progress. We recognise that the processes of development in between finished works are where we spend most of our time. Yet, this time is often hidden, or if anything is whispered about; it is rarely brought to the forefront, instead attention is focused on the 'final' outcome.

https://worm.org/production/flying-ideas/

(A) Questionnaire - Eye Research Labs

Datum:
Locatie: Eye Film Museum
In samenwerking met: Piet Zwart Institute, Eye Film Museum

Are we having a conversation? Who or what is God to you? Where can we find healing? Isn’t it always the same quest? The same matter of mankind, of image-making, of image-making mankind? How are you angry? Is there anywhere to hide? And, will we unmake the world? What is the social impact of artificial intelligence on lens-based image culture?

https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/piet-zwart-institute-a-questionnaire/916277
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