La ciudad y su sombra: El escenario urbano de Juan Muñoz

Abstract

Assuming Lévinas’ idea that reality always bears its own shadow alongside of its being an essential double, its image, non-being–, some of the most representative installations of the artist Juan Muñoz allow crossing an urban allegory that projects its resemblance to the most disturbing side of the contemporary city. Inhabitants’ and rooms’ anonymity and depersonalization rules an atmosphere that turns hard to read and contradictory all which in traditional city made sense. Profuse interstices recall Marc Augé’s description of so called non-places, in their rejection of common history readability or human relations field, leaving a final feeling of impossible communication full of emotional intensity. Besides, muñozean city also spreads into intimate spaces. Radio medium/broadcasting came to be a discovery for the artist, enabling him to explore the possibilities of an encounter between an inattentive listener and artistic creations camouflaged as conventional radio programs broadcasted in the intimate evening time. The lack of a close message that loads the ouvre with an extreme polisemy, poses not a problem for this creative proposal to reflect some of the most actual questions about the city: the idea of reality in an ambiguous region between physical and virtual, the citizen depersonalization produced by its homogenous environments or the just apparent commu­nication of media.