Intimate: Garbage and Tension. A gender analysis seen from creation during the Franco period of the Fifties
The Fifties of the Spanish Franco period were marked by a iron control of women and a style of masculinity that was dominated by rigid conventionalities, the power of the Catholic Church and even an aesthetics that was subjected to strict frames. With this perspective, “Intimate: Garbage and Tension” explores, in performed video-creation, the impact of violence exerted on women and its repercussion in their mental health and the limits imposed on their lives. The work attempts to narrate the state of terror of the moment in which fear overcomes the controls of the brain and cannot think rationally. As a consequence of this state the “I” avoids thinking about reality, both external and psychic. The characters that “Intimate: Garbage and Tension” portrays articulate symbolically from this appreciation: their lives, their acts would be a reflection of this state of social terror.
For the production of the work generation has been done of animated painting and diverse performances created by the artista Toxic Lesbian as well as extracts of the film “Calle Mayor” (Juan Antonio Bardem 1956) and an interpretation of the work “La Mujer Perro” (Paula Rego, 1994).
Ferocious intimate: A video-creation performance that de mystifies the mother-daughter
“Ferocious IntimaTe” is a performed video creation that recreates the symbolic, oppressive and cruel atmosphere of real events that this work is inspired by. The work is based on several literary and cinematographic productions that tell, among others the circumstances that surrounded the brutal and ruthless murder of the Spanish feminist of the Thirties, Hildegart Rodriguez by her mother Aurora.
This work is the continuation of the process works elaborated in 2017 and 2018. As in those, this proposal goes in depth in the relations between women, their emotions and testimony. However, this current production, “Ferocious Intimate”, demystifies the mother-daughter link in order to penetrate in the dynamic that would give rise to the intense and implacable scene of the murder carried out by Aurora Rodriguez of her daughter Hildegart. The work investigates the symbolic causes of this violence, connecting it with other forms of expression of patriarchial aggressiveness.
The true events that “Ferocious Intimate” reproduces caused a commotion in public opinion during the years of the Spanish Republic. The enormous popularity of the murdered young autor, as well as her brilliant political career, kept a society expectant with incredulity with this news. The fact that her mother, Aurora Rodriguez, was interned in a psychiatric asylum of Carabanchel after a polemic hearing in 1934, introduces the approach of mental health in this project, promoting a debate from a gender perspective of the conditions for psychiatric internment of women.
Intimate: A lesbian story tale about intimacy
Intimate is an animation short film made by visual artist Elena Tóxica based on two real characters, Dita and Patricia, and their relationship as a couple. The script contains fragments of intimate conversations that describe their love give-and-take. The piece has a fictional setting: it shows a conversation overheard by a mysterious peeping tom who records these sequences in the wild. Intimate: Dita and Patricia session moves between reality and imagination, enhanced by the animated drawings technique used on the landscape surrounding the main characters: a magnificent forest that serves as a metaphor for society. The feature’s aim is to take us close to the main characters through this lesbian story tale.
For the title sequence, an urban action event took place in Lavapiés, symbolic center of the lesbian community of Madrid. Music is by transfeminist and queer singer, Viruta.
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With the support of Madrid Council, Madrid World Pride 2017.Pride 2017.
