Pablo Helguera Archive

Unanswered:  Guty Cárdenas (2001)

This early CD-Rom/online project  consisted of an interactive website and a physical installation.

Unanswered:Guty Cardenas tried to blend together the Mexican Maya revival design of the 1920s, digital technology, and the obscure story of Guty Cárdenas (1905- 1932) who is considered one of the most influential Mexican popular musicians of the XXth century.

Cardenas’ treatment of Huapangos, boleros, claves, and other styles of his time helped form popular music  in Mexico and Latin America.  He experienced a very early notoriety and became a super-star of his time —recording in New York,  filming in  Hollywood, and traveling around Mexico.  He was tragically murdered at a ballroom in Mexico City, when he was only 27 years old, for reasons which are still unknown.

The project took the shape of a “poetic database”, created by the artist for interaction by the public either online or at the gallery at a special
Designed desk (a traveling component which can be disassembled)  evocative of the Maya art deco revival movement. The desk, which contains the project in a CD-Rom format, is both a sculptural piece and a representation of a research database on the life of Guty Cárdenas.

Through the selection of a number of available keywords, which correspond to the titles of 22 songs famously recorded by Cárdenas, the participant can construct the narrative comprised of images, song bites, interviews  and texts which on every diferent order projects different points of view on aspects of his life.

See

http://www.lukedohner.com/guty/guty.html