Expect People to be Exhausted
Expect People to be Exhausted is an attempt to understand if there is a way to trace a line that makes sense of the relation between migratory human and more than human routes, architectural infrastructure, religious beliefs, war tactics, seven and fourteen segment displays, indigenous thought, fire, alchemy, magic, and gunpowder.
After the sanguinary conquest of Tenochtitlán in the XVI century, explorer and conqueror Hernan Cortez empties his provisions of gunpowder. After a survey in the surrounding landscape of the Mexica Valley he will extract sulfuric acid from an active and venerated volcano, the Popocatepetl, and potassium nitrate from the salpetre present in the four great lakes that surrounded Tenochtitlán. Mixing these elements with coal found in the mythical Mexica landscape, the front lead by Cortez will be able to conquer the rest of Mesoamerica.
Five hundred years later, in the same valley, Tultepec’s Pyro technicians still gather these resources to erect Castillos: thirty-five-meter-tall firework ephemeral structures that act as communication displays during festivities. Gathering not only local population but people that has migrated from these localities to the United States looking for a better life.
As spring approaches nesting season begins, migratory birds try to find a high place to nest and communication towers are one of the preferred structures to nest. This proclivity of birds towards the intricate architecture of these towers makes it almost impossible for the personnel to maintain this type of infrastructure, sometimes making them inoperable. In a poetic sense, it could also be seen as a quiet revenge over the more than 200 million birds that die due to collisions with such structures every year only in the United States.
Castillo is an artistic research exercise that superimposes information between systems that have no apparent or physical manifestation of interdependence but are capable of connecting despite borders. The research revolves around the movement of human and more than human bodies and their relations with ephemeral structures and displays of communication as well as how ideas and technologies travel and relate to them.