Habana Solo, The Modern Method
Video installation
The films of Juan Carlos Alom sit between documentation and fiction, between realism and surrealism, between photography and film. They tie together self-made sequences of film (black and white, 16 mm-film) with found footage. Memories of the first silent movies comes to mind and Alom?s works brings back the atmosphere of the first moving images. They are recordings of convergences to traditions, rituals, people and places, which Alom at times encounters as local »confidant« (Havanna) at other times as an anonym-ous visitor (USA). In Habana Solo Alom assembles expressive images to accompany musical pieces given to him by a musician he befriended and collaged those with sequences improvised live in Cuba. His expeditions through the public space of »free America«, which he gives an account of in The Modern Method illustrate the contrasts and hurdles which a commuter has to overcome. There he proceeds into a foreign terrain, unknown to him. (Ch.B.)
Juan Carlos Alom - born 1964 in Havanna, lives in Spain
