CARLOS SANDOVAL

DOCUMENTATION - ARCHIVE

BACK TO RECENT WORK  WORK  MAP 1987-2026  STATEMENT  ABOUT  CV

MONAS AND TENT VISIONS

SONIC AUTOMATA AND DRAWING SERIES, WIP

Electric powered wood action, founded objects, steel, polyurethanes,

polyester,polystyrene, and Nylon. (Automata's head drawings: ink on acrylic)

Ink live-drawings and color pencil improvisations

on Bamboo-fiber, hand-made paper

Both Drawing and Automata series are regarded as self-portraits—autobiographical objects formed through extended periods I spent with my dog in dense forests and ecological reserves. Immersion in these remote, resonant landscapes was experienced as both shelter and contemplation. In such isolated environments, unseen nocturnal presences were sensed and pursued by my dog—an invisible activity that is attempted to be reflected in the drawing series. I want to evoke the world as it flickered through my dog’s hyper perception: a realm of nano-signals and silent turbulences beyond human sight. The visions of my dog are my dreams while camping in a tent in the middle of the forest.

Enlightenment automata aimed for perfection. They demonstrated that living organisms could be understood as machines by surpassing human precision. My automata invert that logic. Through crude mechanics—an off-center weight, and irregular cams—it captures what a perfect mechanism was meant to eliminate: hesitation, vulnerability, the constant tremor of being a living organism. The question isn’t whether the automaton feels—it’s why such simple motion makes us feel seen. What makes us human isn’t perfect complexity, it’s uncertainty, imperfection, the inability to hold perfectly still: The machines have stolen those gestures and made them mechanical, revealing the strange threshold where we recognize ourselves in something that clearly isn’t us.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​