October 7th - November 19th, 2023
The ethics of digital pet ownership is explored in the novella, ‘The Lifecycle of Software Objects’ by Ted Chiang, as a group of people attempt to sustain their digital pet avatars as they transition through different web and game servers. Informed by the problematic posed by Chiang, in ‘Fortress for Tender Hearts,’ Monica Juarez reflects on the Nintendogs of her youth while continuing her exploration of Latinx diaspora and futurities through small-scale inflatable vinyl structures and ceramic wall works.
Nintendogs become emblematic of Juarez’s nostalgic impulse. Reflecting on youth through a Cute Formalist grief practice, Juarez explores the morality of digital neglect through the dual act of Nintendog memorialization and resurrection via the materiality of clay. Informed by the logics of Mesa-Bains’ ‘ Domesticana ,’ Juarez continues the legacies of alter making while alluding to a working-class latinx sensibility through the nostalgia of second-hand excess accumulated through her grandmother’s house cleaning profession.
The concern for the transience of the pixelated dogs mimics the concern for the life of the excess received from clients’ homes. As Juarez reflects, ”Sometimes their things never made it inside of our home but filled our backyard with trash bags of treasure that someone might need one day. The life of those objects guaranteed to continue living and existing.” Inflatable vinyl structures serve a similar function of memorialization and resurrection. By adopting the inflatable castle as cosmic architecture, as crafted liminal space, Juarez concerns herself with the ironies of a soft fortress. These structures allude to the architectural and natural sites in Jalisco and Michoacan, particularly Los guachimontones , the ornate walls of Pueblo churches, and the bouncy castles of her upbringing in Southern California. Rather than being a site of conquest and conversion, the inflatable becomes a kitsch site of solace and jubilancy.
These are Portal Practices. Amidst the digital rot, what Juarez engages in is the creation of fantastical realms through a nostalgic lens, wedging the immaterial past and digital sentience with the material clay and vinyl, resulting in a vanitas of the pixel. - Agustín Nuño