"Along Metro Manila flows EDSA, the concrete river which ponctuates the life of all.
No one escapes from its grip, EDSA regulates the time, devours the youth and accelerates downfalls.
No one escapes from its grip, EDSA regulates the time, devours the youth and accelerates downfalls.
It is a hated river, the receptacle of all the pains and the kingdom of resignations.
A modern Styx which transports every day a flow of miserables in the thunder of engines.
A modern Styx which transports every day a flow of miserables in the thunder of engines.
Faces are gaunt, paralyzed of fatigue. Bodies are piled up in metal cages, saturated by the condensation of the exhausted breathings.
The crowd walks against the current along the mechanical hell.
It looks for its stop, it looks for its starting point."
It looks for its stop, it looks for its starting point."
STYX is a metaphor, an attempt to bridge our world and the Greek mythology, with for final ambition the creation of a new place. The starting point is EDSA, this main highway which crosses Metro Manila, this urban nightmare, which prints its rhythm in the entire city. EDSA can be perceived as a pure violence, and, from this perspective, it is possible to build a piece of work.
STYX uses the myth of the Greek river which forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. The river is the passage imposed between both worlds and transports the souls of the newly deads. Human beings circulate and are not completely alive but not still completely dead. The river STYX is the border we cross, just like this EDSA which it is impossible to by-pass and which people are resigned to face daily.
Human beings are shown in their passing state. Neither completely human, nor dead. Urban and natural elements such as windows of buses, neon lights of the city, the vehicles which run, the condensation of the breaths, the concrete of the constructions play a powerful role in the visual construction of this passing and intermediary state. People wander, they float and are carried and moved by the objects of this urban hell.
STYX uses the myth of the Greek river which forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. The river is the passage imposed between both worlds and transports the souls of the newly deads. Human beings circulate and are not completely alive but not still completely dead. The river STYX is the border we cross, just like this EDSA which it is impossible to by-pass and which people are resigned to face daily.
Human beings are shown in their passing state. Neither completely human, nor dead. Urban and natural elements such as windows of buses, neon lights of the city, the vehicles which run, the condensation of the breaths, the concrete of the constructions play a powerful role in the visual construction of this passing and intermediary state. People wander, they float and are carried and moved by the objects of this urban hell.
Religion is everywhere and presented as a solution to bear the journey from a world to the other one. It is the drug which calms by providing a divine cause to the question of why. By removing all sense of human responsibility, it deprives them any grip on their fate and helps them to accept a fate which they do not control and impose upon them.
STYX also bridges religion and advertising along EDSA. The excessive consumption pattern is another religion which acts as a palliative of the endured sufferings. Pray or consume are both hopes which accompany People in this infernal journey.
All these themes are visible in the photographic piece of work. The video piece of work aims to exalt this sum by adding a new dimension. By mixing photos, videos and sound recordings along EDSA, the video synthesizes the creation of this third place produced by the merging between EDSA and mythology. Designed as an awake nightmare, the video STYX plunges the spectator at the heart of the subject. The immersion is rough and violent. It has been designed to be an experiment of pure violence just like EDSA. Frames, shots, sequences of movements and sound atmospheres manhandle the spectator, forcing him to go out of his zone of comfort and to plunge into a total experience halfway between reality and fiction.
