Los demonios familiares (1992) compiles three videos made in the first half of the 1990s. The general title is based on Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (whose book Los demonios familiares de Franco pays homage to Franco), who had paid attention to the disturbing expression with which General Franco occasionally called the supposed ghosts that haunted the Spanish character: anarchy, individualism, negative criticism, extremism…; and at other times, his traditional historical devils: separatism, freemasonry, communism. He constructs montage exercises that relate fragments of Francoist film footage with other heterogeneous visual and sound materials, provoking both identification and estrangement, dreams halfway between history and myth, searching for spigots through which to decompress the “collective unconscious”. Its author, Marcelo Expósito, is a leading figure in Spanish experimental video who works as an artist, critic, essayist, editor, translator and cultural manager. In his video practice, his work with archival materials, appropriation, research and speculation on the historical discourses of state memory stand out.
The video, like a “from that dust these muds”, will introduce the intervention of Darío Doña, who will present a panoramic view of political movements that are articulating themselves, that are having the courage to organise themselves to propose ways in which to modify the present through organised collective action. The names of Horitzó socialista, GKS, EPS, as well as their interactions with other organisations with a longer history, such as those defending the right to housing, are already beginning to be heard. These groups are moving in a current that, taking part in struggles that have been going on for centuries, is looking for answers, breaking with the tradition of past organisations in order to provide a current and effective response. However, there is a lack of knowledge and discursive, practical and generational distances that do not yet give rise to an informed recognition of what these movements mean in a situation of generalised disaffection and paralysis. As an exercise in bridging generations and proposals, sensitive and critical at the same time, not so much from the defence of any particular one over the others, but from the recognition of the impetus to do, to take responsibility, to overcome the fear of making mistakes, Darío will propose an introduction to these active forces. If the philosopher Gillian Rose warns, in the words of St Silvanus, “keep your spirit in hell, and despair not”, we who live in a false heaven must become familiar with these new demons that threaten the imposed social order.
