 So I thought I was going to be a little quirky in my presentation because that's how I am in real life. So this is my full name. I'm Paula Reca Morales Vargas Maenke. I actually decided to go for practical reasons by Paula Morales. This is me. I was born in Guatemala in 1983. And this is a photo of me in 1985. This is at my maternal grandparents' terrace. Not much has really changed since then. This is how I saw the world at that time and how I chose to depict it. So on the left, you can see my mother. I mean, Maria. And on the right, you can see my dad, Lionel. So fast forwarding a little bit of time. This is my aunt, Rebeca. Rebeca Onise Vargas Brajirolik. She was my mom's sister. She was disappeared during the Guatemalan War. So I decided to pursue photography because of that and continue in the realm of visual art as I started when I was three years old. So she was disappeared. And this specific image was an image that was in my grandparents' house at all times. So me and my cousin, being the older ones of the family, were starting to ask questions of, who is this image? Like, who is this person? And my grandfather was always taking photos. And so then that led me to want to become a documentary photographer. So I grabbed a camera. And essentially, I wanted to capture every story possible and depict it the best way possible, to be able to tell as many stories and create spaces of dialogue. Because coming from Guatemala and Latin America where silence prevails, you are really not supposed to talk. So I started covering different marches. Like you can see on the right, there's a march of Ijos, which is the daughters and sons of the disappeared. It's an organization. And on the left is my grandmother. It was a documentary thing that I did based on losing her older daughter. So I was also working with Red Cross International. I was working with several magazines. And I was trying to figure something out. And these are other documentary photography that I was doing at the time. So when I was doing all of these things, I was like, well, it seems like I'm really, really interested in photography. So how about I actually pursue it as an actual thing instead of just doing it as a job? So that's when I formally moved to San Francisco. And when I moved to San Francisco, I realized that if I'm going to learn photography, I kind of need to leave my purest ways aside. Because I believe that everything had to be done in camera, and you couldn't crop, and you couldn't use Photoshop, and you couldn't do any of that. And I'm like, well, if I don't do these things, the industry is going to leave me behind. And I'm going to pretty much not get a job. So then I'm like, I need to learn Photoshop. So the next thing you'll notice is that I started creating these crazy things. And I was no longer taking photographs, but I was creating these whimsical places and these stages of, you know, based on mostly on my dreams. So I was using tin types, which are a turn of the century photographs that were made on tin. And I was scanning them and trying to see how to make them a little different. So I started creating these huge, like, so these are Photoshop layers of layers of layers of layers. And it was great because then I'm like, oh my gosh, I can actually use my imagination here. And I don't have to essentially just use photographs that I take, right? So as soon as this happened, you can see the color palette here is like super dark, right? So then I was like, whoa, but then that means that I could get crazy over here. And I'm like, color. So I started using color. And I started mixing the medium, you know, and mixing using, like, always, like, different things, like older. So this is still a tin type. This is called, like, Carrie Sadness, like, a bird on my shoulder. And then I started using also old, found, anatomical book stuff, right? But then I'm like searching for something this whole time, you know, and driven by that exploration of specifically, in this case, social aspects. Again, still in that sense. I'm still exploring textures. And this is a series called Women in Society, you know? So these are a whole bunch of paper cutout dolls that have all their guts just being poured out. So I'm trying to decipher and decode my surroundings at this point, you know, and figure out, like, trying to understand my past and my place and my body, right? So I continue this journey. And I'm like, well, I did study photography. So how about I bring those elements back and bring them into the photographic stage again, right? So in this time, bringing all of those elements that I was like mixing digitally, I'm bringing them to life. And I'm actually creating these props. And I start realizing that certain common threads are emerging, right? So evidently, I am interested in color and in texture. And I attribute this to all the mercados and piñatas and all the vegetables. And we piles, you know, growing up, because it's like so rich full of color everywhere. So I'm like, OK, that's where my interest in color and the texture comes from, right? So slowly, I started deciding to peel back these layers of things that I literally was layering on top of each other and trying to see what was really in there, right? You know, what was in there that I was trying to explore. So essentially, I started doing these color studies. I had a really bad color photography teacher. So I started exploring color on my own. And slowly, but surely, my horror vacuum, like that fear of emptiness, started going away. And I started exploring these a little bit more empty spaces, right? So I was evidently also interested in time, you know, in space. And so then I started realizing that I was really interested in using several tools. And specifically, I was interested in the digital realm and the analog, right? Because growing up in the 80s, you know, it's cool growing up with like video games and pixel art and just like all of these things that were surrounding me. So I decided to continue exploring that, right? And I realized that there was like a deeper meaning to that, that the exploration of the analog actually was like an exploration of mortality, right? Being able to explore things that are actually evident and tangible in a while. I was exploring the digital realm. I'm exploring things that are intangible and that they're based on binary sequences, right? So I began to question the orders and the aesthetics. And I decided, well, what happens then if I break these, right? So I started working with on the left, you can see a digital patch of a synthesizer on a program called Max MSP. And on the right, you can see these video synthesizers from the 80s that these guys in Florida rebuilt. And so I was like, well, you know, it'd be cool. Not cool necessarily, but it's really interesting to try to see also what error means and how it is portrayed aesthetically and visually and how you can't really repeat the results you are getting, you know? So I essentially commenced this adventure in the world of error. And so here on the left, you can see me using these patches. And the reason there's all these TVs is because I'm emulating the same image on several TVs at once. And because some are digital and some are CRT TVs, you get different effects. And here, this is a video feedback loop on the right. So I was still kind of working just with static stuff. So I decided, well, what happens if I work with error and I manage to make error into a loop? So I started creating these loops and these gifts, exploring then repetition, color, and then also movement. And that whole journey brought me to where I am today. And it basically took me to this place of me, like instead of just showing my work and saying, this is the work I made, look at it, I'm like, what happens if I grab all of those elements that I've been exploring? And if I let the viewer actually step in and do something too, right? So by stepping back and seeing the big picture, I was then interested in then creating these stages to be able to create experiences, right? So there were these experiences still based on all of these things trying to find traces of life and let life itself step in these stages. So still, I used photo-based media to create these environments. So this is a project as a conclusion of my residency at Recology at the Dump. So it was a four-month residency where I was able to scavenge through people's trash to create art. And I decided to create the stage. So there's the monitors with feedback, not feedback, with video that goes for like 12 and 1 half minutes. And there's different headphones on the different posts so people can interact and see. And then last but not least, this one, which actually like it totally removes my hand in the sense of deciding what to show. But it leaves it all in the hands of the viewer because this becomes a feedback loop by itself. So that camera is actually pointing to the viewer and those TVs become the recipients of that feedback that is happening. So you can see yourself in the TV and nothing is being recorded, right? So people are invited to be able to express and reflect and embody this space. And this one specifically actually wraps up all of my yearning and self-discovery to this point because I was kind of bringing also the aesthetic that I had been working on for a while into actual tangible physical space. So I guess that's the conclusion. So here I am trying to disidentify with the impost and trying to inhabit my brown body by continuously performing error. Thank you very much.