Spanish street art duo Dourone have always turned their gaze towards the future. Since Elodieloll joined in 2012 to form their team, the two have explored this tense not only in their subject matter, but also through their commitment to innovation. Their body of work highlights a transformative progression, the latest of which is marked by “Esther 00: 00,02”, a new mural they completed in Huesca, Spain for Festival Asalto.
Dourone’s recent work “is the first mural of the ‘Space-time H’ series,” a press release states, explaining the series’s efforts to “reflect two conceptually opposite phenomena that advance simultaneously: Consolidation and Fragmentation.” In utilizing the juxtaposition created by these opposite forces, this series aims to “reflect on the concept of time and speed of the 21st century, the instantaneous journey in which we live, where over-information is modifying our reading, communication and information habits.”
Viewers can assume that the woman depicted in this mural is Esther herself, as alluded to by the title. Here, the artists paint Esther’s portrait in a highly saturated, semi-realistic pop-esque fashion. Her portrait is shown through an arrangement of fragmented pixels, some joining together to form a cohesive image of her visage, while others appear to glitch, depicting an extra eye, cheekbone and nose over top the right side of her face. This creates the effect of an inefficiently buffering video struggling to load on a computer whose network has not been updated to accommodate the latest high-speed technology. The futuristic nature of this stylistic choice stands in opposition to the natural foliage surrounding her.
As these disparate pieces come together to form the mural as a whole, the balance posed by these natural elements only highlights the pixellated malfunction. Herein lie the questions of time and speed, will our human minds be able to accommodate increasingly fast communications? At what point will the endless, rapid-fire bits of information finally overwhelm our synapses, causing them to glitch as well? Furthermore, the arrangement of the image appears to suggest the notion that in learning to synthesize so much information at such a quick pace, humans might begin resembling computers themselves. Perhaps we already do.
Though unique, the ‘Space-time H’ series builds upon visual themes found in Dourone’s previous work. The two began with portraits completed predominantly in black and white, heavily lined and somewhat resembling comics. From there, they began adding color, until their work took a softer shape exhibited by murals like CONFIANCE in Madrid, Spain. OPIA in Belgium exemplifies their next move into relying on blocks of color to create images, which the duo has continued elaborating on since. With its timely inclusion of computer effects, their evolution culminates with “Esther 00: 00,02”, proving their most ambitious work yet.
Asalto translates to “assault” in English. For this year’s event, Festival Asalto took over the Oliver neighborhood of Zaragoza, “assaulting” it with artistic interventions from a variety of artists. This international urban art festival has taken place annually since 2005, its website states that it “has acquired a notorious weight in the cultural program of Zaragoza, being one of the few proposals that prevails over time. Assault is the oldest urban art festival of Spain.” The festival focuses on the participatory nature of street art, as it “understands urban art as a game in which pedestrian is invited to participate in some way. From this point of view, anything goes: graffiti, intervention, performance, digital crafts, photography, murals, stencils, stickers, sculpture, architecture, design.” Regardless of what may happen in the future, this propensity for art and play render us ultimately human nonetheless.
Images by @marcoscebrian
Dourone: website | facebook | instagram
Festival Asalto: website | facebook | instagram
