Text by Rafael Cippolini

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A Lifeguard Out of Control

 

The Chaskielberg-System as a meta-journey. Why meta-trip? Because if I had to choose a single axis to advance in an analysis-survey of the Chaskielberg System, I would undoubtedly opt for the subtle and revealing forcefulness of the flash, that is: because of the distance, both technical and conceptual, that intertwines and confronts the use of a light source with a brief or intense flash - used in photography when the light is insufficient or to attenuate shadows - with Hallucination and surprise that takes as its inspiration the figure of the sudden euphoria produced by the ingestion of stimulants. The flash then, in its two limits, is posed in this exhibition as a powerful reactive of the potential figure of the journey within the journey.

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From one flash to another? Exactly, although it doesn't matter too much which comes first and which comes next. In this phase of the Chaskielberg-System the concepts of flash and travel also intermingle. Although it is true that, as Zen cultists seek, each of their images calls for satori or illumination (an irradiation not always necessarily mystical), what interests me is that this phenomenon occurs in broad daylight, with the help of a small electronic device (the flash) and in the middle of a trip to the beaches and the sea. An internal movement carried by another exterior. Now, is it a trip that only affects the eyes or do you want to start right there?

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What is the Chaskielberg-System? An operational form, that is, a complex of operations that articulates in the manner of a conspiracy (remember that etymologically conspiracy means "to breathe together") the implementation of various resources -and photography, video, editing, montage- that increase in the multiplicative game of the various instances of flash and travel.

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And the lifeguard? That is actually a quote, a misplaced caption. Mark Dery transcribes in one of his books:

WARNING: IN CASE OF MYSTICAL RAPTURE THIS CAR WILL BE UNCONTROLLED
(Sticker on the car of a Christian fundamentalist)

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Looking at the images of the Chaskielberg-System, the first thing that came to mind was a question, what would happen if any of these people, especially the beach attendant, deepened their flash firing in an endless mystical ecstasy? From this involuntary premise I realized that, in its placidity or urgency, each one of the faces that Ale Chaskielberg captured for this expo could perfectly be part of a Batailleano catalog of ecstatic rictus. A state of the world that, I confess, never ceases to disturb me.

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