What are they hiding from us?
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge.
A few years ago I lived near the so-called ‘Ciudad de la Imagen’, on the border between Madrid and the town of Pozuelo de Alarcón. It is an artificial complex that was created in the 90s and where companies dedicated to the world of audiovisual communication were installed: regional, national and international television production companies, film production companies, telecommunications multinationals, film schools, radio stations (of course, representatives of the radio formula: monothematic and repetitive programming, the same songs by the same performers 24 hours a day, which are played over and over again, because ‘you have to like them and if not, you'll end up liking them by “crushing”). The ‘necessary’ leisure space was also created with a cinema (in the hands of its corresponding film distributor), and with the same restaurants as in all the shopping centres. Inside you don't know which one you are in because they are all the same. Marc Augé's concept of ‘Non-place’ is once again present.
All these media (and any of them) are presupposed and considered an open door through which information about what is going on in the world enters. Thanks to these media, we, ordinary citizens, ‘learn’ the truth about the world, however hard it may be: wars, political struggles, social uprisings, military invasions, terrorist attacks, we learn the reasons behind the political decisions that our ‘beloved rulers’ make for our good... Without them we would not know what is going on in the world.
In my daily walks through the ‘City of the Image’ I observed the headquarters of these ‘windows to the world’ and I realised that all of them were in buildings hidden by high walls, hermetic metal doors, hedges with natural or artificial plants that give the buildings opacity, with specular windows that conceal the activity inside. All of them with guards at the entrances and cameras in every corner to watch the outside, control who passes, who looks, who stops to observe... Those who are supposed to be our ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ to the world so that we know what is going on out there, those who demand that everything be open, that there be transparency at all levels, are the first to hide jealously from the citizens they ‘serve’ and shield themselves from the outside. In the age of fake news and post-truth, favoured by the rapid dissemination that the Internet allows nowadays, it should be the media that safeguard the population from this very thing, and yet the opposite effect is produced. Small redoubts in blog format, channels on the YouTube platform, social networks... sometimes (not always) prove to be much more open and revealing than the official media.
While writing these lines I can't help but remember The Who and their wonderful and timeless song ‘Won't get fooled again’ which closes their masterpiece ‘The Who's next’ (1.973 but I recommend looking it up in live performance at Shepperton Studios, 1.978).
The photos presented here were taken during my walks when I lived nearby.
A few years ago I lived near the so-called ‘Ciudad de la Imagen’, on the border between Madrid and the town of Pozuelo de Alarcón. It is an artificial complex that was created in the 90s and where companies dedicated to the world of audiovisual communication were installed: regional, national and international television production companies, film production companies, telecommunications multinationals, film schools, radio stations (of course, representatives of the radio formula: monothematic and repetitive programming, the same songs by the same performers 24 hours a day, which are played over and over again, because ‘you have to like them and if not, you'll end up liking them by “crushing”). The ‘necessary’ leisure space was also created with a cinema (in the hands of its corresponding film distributor), and with the same restaurants as in all the shopping centres. Inside you don't know which one you are in because they are all the same. Marc Augé's concept of ‘Non-place’ is once again present.
All these media (and any of them) are presupposed and considered an open door through which information about what is going on in the world enters. Thanks to these media, we, ordinary citizens, ‘learn’ the truth about the world, however hard it may be: wars, political struggles, social uprisings, military invasions, terrorist attacks, we learn the reasons behind the political decisions that our ‘beloved rulers’ make for our good... Without them we would not know what is going on in the world.
In my daily walks through the ‘City of the Image’ I observed the headquarters of these ‘windows to the world’ and I realised that all of them were in buildings hidden by high walls, hermetic metal doors, hedges with natural or artificial plants that give the buildings opacity, with specular windows that conceal the activity inside. All of them with guards at the entrances and cameras in every corner to watch the outside, control who passes, who looks, who stops to observe... Those who are supposed to be our ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ to the world so that we know what is going on out there, those who demand that everything be open, that there be transparency at all levels, are the first to hide jealously from the citizens they ‘serve’ and shield themselves from the outside. In the age of fake news and post-truth, favoured by the rapid dissemination that the Internet allows nowadays, it should be the media that safeguard the population from this very thing, and yet the opposite effect is produced. Small redoubts in blog format, channels on the YouTube platform, social networks... sometimes (not always) prove to be much more open and revealing than the official media.
While writing these lines I can't help but remember The Who and their wonderful and timeless song ‘Won't get fooled again’ which closes their masterpiece ‘The Who's next’ (1.973 but I recommend looking it up in live performance at Shepperton Studios, 1.978).
The photos presented here were taken during my walks when I lived nearby.
The following photos are a separate annex to the previous ones, taken in the same place and I wanted to include them.
I hope you like them.
All photos are entirely my property (registered in the RAW metadata). Equipment used: Nikon D810, ultraviolet filter "HOYA", Lee ND filter Manfrotto tripod and PHOTOSHOP for the editing of black and white edition.
This text has been translated from my native Spanish with the translator DeepL Translate.