The piece I had the strongest emotional response to was Miguel Angel Rios’s “A Morir (‘til Death).” This was the large three screen video installation featuring spinning and falling tops with booming sound accompanying the four minute long piece. The spinning and dropping tops were on top of a white grid providing a strong contrast with the otherwise black and gray composition.
It reminded me of violence and war as the tops ran out of momentum and knocked against each other causing those hit to fall to the floor. The “violence” of the spinning tops was augmented by the intense volume and size of the screens. The film was beautiful with clear and dramatic lighting making the tops seem like people.
The identical tops made me think of soldiers in uniform on a grid-like battlefield, each top dropping symbolizing a soldier being hit. I also found it interesting that this film created a vivid parallel in my mind yet a friend I went with was reminded of social groups letting people in and out, as almost a tangled web of social hierarchies. The piece could evoke such different reactions in anyone who sees it, something I found almost as interesting as the actual subject.
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