VACAciones o COWorld

International Art Action Festival. Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil.
Curated by Elvira Santamaría, 2008.

In the Ordeñanzas (milking / ordering) of life, there needs to be new way of ordering the production factors and resources to be less explosive. The plural of the word “vaca” (cow) in English sounds like “caos” (chaos) in Spanish: in this performance piece, we see the Nuevo Cows Mundial (New World Cows / Chaos). We are witness to the cowtico and the unusual, we return to the era of the cow, from the skinny ones to the mad ones that take VACAciones (vacations). The milk or “greatest possible benefit” will be a disputed worldview that will be sold the next day. A delicious cream cheese will be made from what has been milked or “ordeñado” which will become part of the current esquesofrénesis: the cheese (queso) that no one eats is the que sobra (left over), que someto (submit to) and que sobamos (we knead) as a new viral crisis of structured Newconomy.

Ordeñanza: This makes reference to the phrase Life’s Teachings. The word teachings in Spanish —enseñanzas— is phonetically similar to ordeñanza, a combination of enseñanza and ordeñar, the act of milking a cow.

VACAciones: This is a reference to the mad cow disease (vacas locas) and the skinny or lean cows (vacas flacas) and the word vacaciones, which lends itself to a play on words of a mad cow going on a vacación*.
Milked-taught or enseñado/ordeñado.

The word queso (cheese) is played with by separating the word and linking it to the next word as in “el que sobra”, “el que someto”, “el que sobamos”. The queso as in qué es eso. A play on words phonetically and in meaning.