Luis Mendez Gonzalez

What started out as a self-taught hobby in middle school with a busted hand-me-down Canon has blossomed into a lifelong passion for multidisciplinary artist Luis Mendez. Pushing what it means to be a contemporary artist in the digital age, Luis utilizes outdated technology to create forward-thinking artwork. Luis works primarily with photography, video production, and music, favoring analogue film, Hi8 and DV, and cheap vintage synths to build imperfectly perfect worlds that explore emotional, psychological, and spiritual subject matter.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Eternal Beings is an experimental short film who’s true meaning is entirely up to the viewer’s own interpretation, experiences, and beliefs. The short film uses free-form, non-narrative ambiguity to create an immersive, abstract experience that is its own living entity. My ideas and personal meanings towards the project don’t matter; its meaning will be different for each viewer. In a way, I want the short film to be like a mirror, revealing a little bit about the viewer’s own identity and humanity according to what they take out of it.

Within the short film, a nameless character follows a mysterious apparition which guides them through different mental spaces that are not quite physical yet not quite imaginary. Like a circle, the story has no defined starting point or ending point, looping into itself endlessly. The short film is accompanied by an original soundtrack that I produced and a series of photographs that add to its collective story.

I used different experimental approaches when creating the story to ensure the final product would allow the viewer to make their own meaning. Inspired by the seven chakras of Hinduism and Buddhism, I formed seven different narratives each connected with its own color motif, which was then cut and mixed during editing to form a non-linear jumble of contrasting images. I also made use of costuming, location, and lighting to all play its own part in the overall puzzle of the short film.

Description of Work

Video – AVCCAM video
Photography – 35mm color film