TURISMO LOCAL LOCAL TOURISM
One day I decided to take a trip in Buenos Aires (the city where I live). After giving notice to relatives and friends that I was leaving town, I packed some things and left. For about a month, I slept in different hotels every day, touring through the city as if I had never been there. I visited cathedrals, parks, iconic sites and monuments. I travelled by bus and taxi, I walked. I used a guide, a map, I asked where a street was, tried the typical food, bought souvenirs, called my parents to let them know I was fine, learned the names of trees, took many photos, and penned down everything I saw so as not to forget a thing. All the places that had always been there seemed to appear for the first time, but as the memory of something.
Local Tourism It’s a video based in the trips I took around Buenos Aires, the images are from the interiors of the hotels where I stayed, and the texts are extracted from the journal I kept during the trip.
. Local Tourism
. Digital video
. 9' 16''
. 2004-2007
. C-Photographs
. variable sizes
. 2004-2007
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POSTCARDS
During the trip I kept a diary where I took notes and made inventories of found objects, trees and conversations with unknown people, following the narrative pattern of a cinematographic script which I later edited as a postcard and mailed to acquaintances, friends and family from the hotels where I was staying describing my own city, as if it were from a very distant place.
646 Talcahuano st. ZC (1011), Capital Federal, Buenos Aires.
Indoors. Night. Orleans Hotel.
From the Lobby, overview of the TV room where Héctor and Néstor watch the football game.
The music stops.
From the room next door an a.m. radio is barely heard, tuning to the same game.
It smells as if they had been smoking from early on.
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174 Libertador AV. (1001 ABO), Buenos Aires.
Indoors. Daytime. Hotel Central Argentino.
The manager and a woman seem to be quarrelling.
Screaming is heard and the sound of the lit TV.
She waits to come down, quietly lays her bag so as avoid being heard and stands aside the ladder rest.
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121 libertad st. ZC (1012), Capital Federal, Buenos Aires.
Indoors. Daytime. Lobby of the Majestic Hotel.
Two men are just arrived. They await over the counter with their tired bodies for the manager to assign them a room. The blue bag of one of the men seems almost empty and on the brink of falling over.
Close up of the bag.
Hasty steps are heard from the stairway. The manager stutter to be on his way down and apologizes for his delay.
One of the men points his hand to his wristwatch without saying a word.
The plastic flowers under the mirror.
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