The aesthetics and the beauty of a mushroom cloud, a visual culture icon. Attractive for the implicit idea of destruction, for the respect that fear causes. The hedonism of excessive and powerful entities, the same feeling that can produce the contemplation of a storm or a tornado from afar, if you know you are safe. The difference this time is that the control of something so powerful lies in humans, and this produces a greater suspicion and instability. The eternal feeling of humanity, the fear of Middle Ages to final judgment, changes along history but always remains in the essence, the suspicion of unknown, of the cessation of life. The explosion in Hiroshima sets off a sequence of actions camouflaged in the series of pieces that Nacho Martín Silva presents. This devastation contrasts with a smaller one, perhaps unintended, which represents the post of a devastating action that causes unrecognizable fragments or indelible marks, tattoos on fake bodies, artificiality above artificiality. 

A feeling of strangeness in front of an existence where natural and simulated are so melted that are nearly impossible to distinguish. Accustomed to visual deception, manipulated information and disrupted truth, we are no longer able to distinguish the perception of discomfort, of something that happened, is happening now or is going to happen. What is not framed, the omitted, can be more disturbing than what is focused. A general view of two realities, the same or several, leaks the image of an interior. The environment where everything takes place is familiar, close, which carries a higher risk.“Salas con papeles soplados, desenganchados en los rincones más húmedos, con muebles, con jarrones, con cajones apilados por tierra. Allí dentro había vivido gente. De la vanidad, del odio, de las migas del amor, quedaba el polvo y un triste espectáculo de esplendor y olvido1”. 

The Town Survival comes into play, diluted with American reality of the Cold War, not very different and even more alienating than life in this false city. The lack of identity of characters in the scene leads a connection, because they could be anyone, even us. Blank stares, residents absorbed by details, fragments found in other pieces that help decipher a little more the context but also make it more unique and uncomfortable: modern relics, pieces of an unreal reality where artificial camouflages and even replaces the real world. 

María Lucía Marcote García 

1 Rodoreda,Mercè. Mirall trencat. Club Editor Jove. Barcelona. 2010. (Pág. 388).