ASTURIAS, NATURAL PARADISE
You might never have heard this line before, but it has an autobiographical significance for me as the tourist slogan for the region where I was born.
Having to read it almost everywhere: bus stops, road signs, 3D magnets on the fridge, I gradually stopped seeing it, I stopped paying attention, so it became part of the landscape, almost invisible to my eyes.
It took some time to discover that the slogan “Asturias, Natural Paradise” was not actually addressed to tourists but to the very locals that put the signs up.
Perhaps under the influence of advertising campaigns such as this one, Asturians are extremely proud of landscapes. You might call it sparks of nationalism, hallucination derived from overdose.
Because of my congenital illness, I try to combat any possible residue of nostalgia with new landscapes, apparently Foucault called other places, heteropias*, you can take that one for the academic writing.
Perceptions, thoughts or impulses are hugely derived from other coordinates, so I started a series of trials for breaking into the tradition of scenery.
Let's face it, the beauty of a paradisiac land could never be experienced without breaking a little bit into it, I have a stake in natural forces, moving images, sound interferences, or colour games, a love for Brian Eno's undefined surrender, Jonas Mekas' “brief glimpses of beauty”, and many other land breakers.
Go on.
* Real sites, although places that are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about.