Commercial short film, 2014. 13’38’’. Color. 16 mm
By María Sosa & Mau Morgó
The briefing that Mau Morgó and María Sosa were given asked them to imagine a tribute to the logo that Joan Miró created for Turespaña, the last work done by the artist, to be part of the exhibition Joan Miró. La forza della materia for the Museum of Cultures in Milan (MUDEC). This is the homage they devised.
The story about the logo that Joan Miró created for Turespaña hasn’t changed in thirty-five years and it’s easy to find out the how and why of its existence. For that reason, when trying to come up with this piece we wanted to do something different and give less importance to dates and surnames: we wanted to focus on more human and tangible concepts that talk about this work by Miró, what it means and why does it represent a country.
“Diversity under the Sun”, “Spain under the Sun”, “Miró’s Sun”, “The Sun in Spain”… It was clear that the Sun had to me the main protagonist. But we wanted the Sun to be not only the guide of our discourse, but also the creator of such discourse. In order to accomplish this, we had a very clear conceptual reference: James Turrell.Like him, we have wanted to focus on the moment and the place to create something as ephimeral as the position of the Earth. Turrell calls it “astronomical time,” those events related to the cosmos that only happen once a day, once a month… or once in a lifetime.
place: 41°41’27.0″N 2°49’26.1″E
date: 01/03/2016
time: 13:01h
position of the Sun: 41º
This was our astronomical moment.
In order to be able to work on it, we had to freeze time and recreate that instant for a week. That’s why we turned the Sun into an artificial lamp placed at the exact degrees (41º) in which it would be place during the day of the shooting. From then on, we built the pieces that would eclipse the Sun and would create the logotype on the sand, taking into account the deformation created by shadows.
Five solar moments
(1) Uri had already shot a Sunrise and that’s why he’s very good with compasses. Still, it took us three Sunrises to get it right. The Sun came up that day at degree 187 and since we couldn’t afford to make any mistakes, we traced a line with a rope from the centre of the tripod to be able to follow it with our camera to the horizon.
(2) We couldn’t risk shooting without having done a test before. But the test had to be the closest to the day of the shooting possible in order to check if it was going to work. So we went there two days before, but the Sun wasn’t on our side. So we trusted our calculations and decided to play all our cards on the day of the shooting.
(3) The Moon scene is real! It wasn’t planned, but while we were waiting for the Sun to rise, Uri tilted the camera and… it was amazing! We were shooting with a 400 lens with double duplicator.
(4) The inclination of the beach was a surprise that became a handicap. We had to dig a 2 x 2 x 0,75m hole to bury the base of the sculpture so that its shadow was at 41º from the Sun.
(5) During the shooting, we discovered that people went to that idyllic beach on Lloret de Mar to do cruising. 😉
