Paula Pellejero

The most transcendent and controversial event since the invention of the seventh art: the disappearance of photographic film. What for many people seems to be simply the result of technological evolution, brings with it paradoxes and contradictions that endanger photographic film heritage and accelerate its deterioration.

As a teenager, I used to take a bus, whose ticket had the inscription "To the Flores Cemetery" as the end of its route. At that time, whenever I saw the ticket, I thought of Charles Baudelaire's "The Flowers of Evil" and of imaginary walks the bus would take me on until I reached the Flores Cemetery. Thirty years later, I found one of those tickets in a box, and it makes me think of finitude and the transient. Film made with Floripondio flowers, Hollyhock and Santa Rita petals, blood, cobwebs, insects found after a storm, mushrooms, onions, and hair on 16mm film.

In a world where technological progress is conceived as an arrow pointing forward, why do some people insist on continuing to work with equipment others refer to as obsolete? Analog Thinking answers that question by documenting the meticulous work of those who choose that path. The screen becomes filled with wonderful objects—optical toys, cameras, projectors, film stock cans, moviolas… And the testimonies from those creators invite us to discover a universe that has a lot to do with both craftsmanship and the collective experience—an instance of thinking with your hands that is only possible with curiosity and patience. And among the words, practices and artifacts, Analog Thinking also saves a place for the images that are born from all of that. And it reminds us that, even in this digital age, they still have a lot to teach us about waiting and making mistakes, surprise and beauty.

In the mid-1950s, Alberto Greco, a permanent and unclassifiable artist, began a wandering journey that took him from Argentina to Brazil and Europe. He traveled through painting, tango, urban action, poetry, and came to generate a manifesto in which he proclaims that the vitality of art is in the street. Around the year 2000, the artist Paula Pellejero became fascinated with Greco's work and decided to start a documentary.

"Phykos" is part of a series of films that explore color and shape in motion from organic elements, focusing on the gaze at minimal fragments of the landscape. This film is crafted using algae, natural dyes, watercolor, and acrylic on 16mm film.

Flowers, seeds, turmeric, blood and watercolor on Super 8 film.

Rose petals, azaleas, clivia, magnolias, geraniums, Japanese quince, rosemary, seeds, blood and acrylic on 16 mm film.