Introduction

From Reproduction to Fiction.
Martí Peran

"Without Matrix" is, of course, a deliberately rhetorical expression. In one sense, it aims to highlight the possibility of a printed image which, rather than being conceived within the framework of an already-existing matrix is produced solely by technological means. Whereas traditional printmaking relied on the meticulous design of the print matrix, new printing techniques enable both the process and the final product to be conceived of in radically different ways. From this perspective, the statement "without matrix" would, we hope, also point toward some of the new developments resulting from these new ways of thinking, in particular, the multiple modalities being used to generate concepts of narrative and fiction that displace the traditional categories of representation and reproduction.

It is well known that traditional printmaking, despite the diversity of techniques which may fall within its ambit, emphasises two aspects. Firstly, it presents itself as the creation of a physical object, whose textures are of great importance. Naturally, this characteristic is called into question once the printed image is no longer formed by traces of print upon a plate, but rather through use of a keyboard. Interestingly, although the effect of this mutation on the development of the impression is a loss of material existence there is a concomitant increase in the visual register. This is nothing new: virtual worlds, by their very nature, are conceived through an overconstruction which makes them hyperreal, as if they needed to compensate for their lack of reality. This fact is more than likely related to the other aspect of traditional printmaking which is perturbed by the new methods, for the other principle linked to the conventional idea of printmaking was its prophecy of reproduction. Despite retaining its materiality, the technique of printmaking must, above all, enable the reproduction and the widespread and democratic distribution of the representation, even if doing so entails the invention of paradoxical ideas, such as the multiple original. As we have tried to show, the new technological approaches to printmaking imply a progressive erosion of its conventional principle in favour of a purely narrative element. Naturally, hyperreality and new fiction are two clear examples of the emptyness of reality, or, if one prefers, a demonstration that the matrix of the world lies in ruins.

In order to appreciate the extent of these kinds of changes it is important to highlight the highly technological nature of the intervention, for only this can explain the effectiveness with which the new media are able to impose their specific qualities. This point is of great importance as a corrective to the hasty assertion that contemporary culture is simply fascinated with technique and fails to realise that it is merely a more elaborate tool. But this is not actually the case. The ability to develop a highly technified experience enables the technique itself to become the specific reference point for the experience in question. Thus, all the thought and productive processes developed through the digital world are, in one way or another, obliged to explore and appropriate their own media as their object. This is why the limit imposed upon the development of the new technical image is no longer its potential reproductive efficacy, but rather its ability to create a new representation. Indirectly, with this change of emphasis, its illusion is no longer the simple multiplication of the image, but rather its true realisation and development. Considered strictly within our area of concern here, it could be said that whereas traditional printmaking generates a fixed image capable of being reproduced, digital printing manipulates the image in order to ensure its development in time, its narrative unfolding. In some ways, traditional printmaking is the paradigm of the dream inherent in representation, namely, to reproduce and multiply itself. In contrast, the completely technical image of digital printing is developed in another register; its dream is the creation and edition of the representation itself, of becoming an image-in-time.

Naturally, the ways of developing this image-in-time (an idea borrowed from Deleuze) are the same as those which create narrativity, an expansion which goes beyond the static level on which the traditional image exists. This narrativity can be enabled, making use of the abovementioned technological resources, through a variety of different methods such as projection, animation and interaction. But no matter which one is used the technical image is extended over time like an event; it acquires a time for creation that gives it a degree of factuality capable of standing in for reality. In fact, the real becomes the frame within which infinite fictions are superimposed. This is the double absence of the matrix. Just as there is no longer a plate upon which to trace a representation, neither is there a reality able to exist behind the fiction of the technical image.

Although it is true that the exhibition as a whole includes a variety of different projects, they seem to be ultimately connected through their attention to the body of ideas expressed above. The work of Bernat Cisneros, who uses photogravure to rebuild the family tree of a gypsy community, could be understood as the space in which a traditional technique is still able to produce a real document. The lithographs of R.G. Bianchi emphasise all the rhetorical potential of visibility by converting real data into cut parts which are capable of being put back together in many different ways. In the other works, where the matrices of traditional printmaking are left behind for good, the sovereignty of the technological fiction highlighted above becomes even more explicit. At times this fiction literally bursts forth in the form of virtual narratives; this is the case of the speculative spaces of Ibon Sáenz or the computer game created by Carmen Romero which invites the spectator to produce a fictitious biography. It is worth noting that this work by Carmen Romero also touches on an issue that appears time and again in other projects within the exhibition, namely, the exploration of identity, that place where the charged nature of fictions is at its most penetrating. Indeed, this is what lies behind the work staged by Eufrina Ramis, the profiles and shadows of Jessie Morin, the strictly epidermic nature of Montse Carreño's self-portrait, and even the melancholy and retreat offered by the bed created by Anna Marín. For his part, Joan Morey presents a new collection of the trade mark STP, a genuine model of that contemporary tendency which places the real within a purely rhetorical setting.