As
some of you might know there is an American show on TV called
"Extreme
Makeover", dedicated to restore or rather reconstruct
people and then there is another one which does the same thing,
only with your home: Extreme
Makeover, Home Edition.
In walking past the colonial church that is located one block
away from my home, and noticing how it is being restored, all
sort of thoughts were triggered in my mind. The restoration of
this church has probably as little to do with any past reality
as the reconstruction of the people shown on television. Fortunately
we are in the process of being able to witness how the church
is losing all patina of time, which in many ways represents an
equivalent to the wrinkles on the face of contestants which are
being erased by plastic surgery, the process of aging is deleted
as it would be in a photographers studio using Photoshop on a
digital portrait.
|
© Pedro Meyer, 2006 |
Everything is geared to be rendered as new, young, or as it
were, "seldomly used". But do not think that this
is something that only happens in Mexico, it is the same in the
US were in Los Angeles a hotel renovation is advertised in terms
of plastic surgery and as the billboard suggests: everyone needs
a little bit of that."
|
© Pedro Meyer, 2006 |
Or
in China, for that matter, were the Forbidden city, is now under
an extreme makeover of its own, being closed down for the coming
two years, in preparation for a debut in time for the Olympics
in 2008.
|
© Pedro Meyer, 2006 |
But
getting back to the nearby San Juan Bautista (John the Baptist)
church, not only is the face lift something to ponder about, as
making it look like if it was "born" yesterday might
not be the most promising form of representation for a building
were the passage of time is as much part of its history as it
is it's architectural nature. You can't get away from the fact
that the frontispiece offers us the real dates of it's construction.
There are in fact, two dates making reference to when the church
was built. One is 1582 and the other is 1804. Which brings
up an interesting consideration with regard to digital images
as to what is the date one should apply to a picture when it is
done in several stages over time.
|
© Pedro Meyer, 2006 |
I've
had the custom of dating my pictures just like that, stating the
dates pertaining to the time line of the various stages within
the same image. Thus a photograph might have several dates to
it, just like this church has (Ooops, there goes the decisive
moment!). What seems so strange to me is how difficult it has
been for the photographic community to come to terms with a practice
that has been accepted and commonly used in architecture since
Colonial times.
Pedro Meyer
Coyoacan, January 2006