Cristóbal León, Niles Atallah and Joaquín Cociña

13 December 2010 - 16 January 2011 in the Adam Gallery

Two chapters of an eerie story are whispered; a series of frames offer snatched glimpses of darkened interior space; rapidly sketched pencil figures and forms appear on the walls, are animated, and erased. To share the cinema with this work by artist group Cristóbal León (film-maker), Niles Attalah (art director) and Joaquín Cociña (artist) is to be held captive by a private, beautifully crafted, and deeply unnerving performance.

Lucía and Luis are the two protagonists, and it is their voices that share with us the predicament (fable, fabricated delusion, fairytale or lies?). In a conspirational stage whisper Lucía recalls the summer she fell in love with Luis. The furniture within her bedroom setting is shaken and destroyed throughout her story, and the charcoal Lucía materialises on the walls and then vanishes. Meanwhile Luis is waiting for Lucía in the forest. He appears and disappears in charcoal on the walls of a room filled with broken objects that continually shift around. The tone is covert, its relationship to the audience ambiguous: do they speak directly to us? Or are we listening in on their thoughts?

The stop motion technique employed is fundamental to the film, which uses a sequence of digital still photographs, combining animation with charcoal drawings, puppets and a diverse range of props. Everything in the underground interior setting undergoes constant change, self-constructing, mutating, hiding, burning and re-appearing of its own accord, creating an unsettling atmosphere of constant transformation. The picture is constantly changing; exquisite drawings are abruptly displaced by material eruptions, and it is these precarious and changing forms which seem to lead the narrative. Subsequent to this film, León, Attalah and Cociña went on to make a feature length film, La Casa Lobo using a similar process.

Luis contains language which may offend. Discretion is advised.

Niles Atallah
Niles Atallah is an audiovisual art director, and lives and works in Santiago, Chile. He graduated in Arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 2007 he created Diluvio Gallery, with Joaquin Cociña and Cristobal Leon, an audiovisual gallery dedicated to the production of short and feature films. He has been exhibited in various film video art festivals and exhibitions with the short film series Lucia, Luis, and the Wolf. Awards include: First Prize, Best International Film in Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Baden, Switzerland; Grand Prix ‘Wooden Wolf’ Award, Dreams Animated, Animation Film Festival, Tallinn, Estonia; Grand Jury Prize for Best Short at FIBABC in Madrid, Spain, 2009; Special Mention of the Jury 16 º Festival Internacional de Cine de Valdivia, Valdivia, Chile, 2009; Literaturwerkstatt Berlin Prize at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, 2008 and second place in the Fairplay Film and Video Festival, Lugano, Switzerland, 2008. He is currently working on a feature film entitled Rey.

Joaquín Cociña
Joaquín Cociña was born in Concepción, Chile in 1980; he currently lives and works in Santiago, Chile. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Art from the Universidad Católica de Chile and he is working on a Master's Degree in Literature from the Universidad de Chile. He has exhibited his work in Chile as well as internationally. He has worked as an art critic, academic, writer, illustrator and stage designer for theatre. He has published short stories, comics and criticism in printed as well as digital form. His exhibitions include Lãs muertes leves de Benjamín, Galería AFA, Santiago, Chile, 2010; Grita e Escuta, VII Bienal do MERCOSUL, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2010; Absurdo, 798 Beijing Biennale 2009, Beijing, China, 2009; Magatzems Wall & Vídeo, Valencia, Spain, 2008; Estéticas del Desastre, Kunsthalle Berlin-Lichtenberg, Berlin, Germany, 2008; Political Landscape, Bei Gao Gallery, Beijing. China, 2007; IN/OUT, 2007, among others. He has participated in international festivals including EMAF (European Media Arts Festival) in Osnabrueck, Germany, 2009; FIBABC (1st Iberoamerican Festival of ABC), Madrid, Spain, 2009; Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba, 2008; DLA Film Festival, in London, England, 2008, among others. In 2010 he received the ASIFA Austria Award, International Competition Animation Avantgarde, Vienna Independent Shorts International Film Festival, Vienna, Austria.

Cristóbal León
Cristobal Leon is an animation film-maker who lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was born in 1980. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Design from the Universidad Católica de Chile. In 2007 he was granted a scholarship by DAAD and moved to Berlin for a one year programme at UDK (University of Arts of Berlin). His work as an animator includes short films, video installations, music videos and advertisements. He is currently completing a two year residency program at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and has been recently granted the FONDART grant by the Chilean government. Recent exhibitions include Upstream Cinema, Upstream Galley, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2010, among others.