White Noise
Story by Gabriel Gómez
Tenderness of love and nostalgia for the memories, what only the two involved in the story knew and felt, are emotions encapsulated in the project, White Noise, created by Gabriel Gómez. Gabriel is a photographer who was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently is located in Paris, France. The project reveals what was; it invites the viewer into the hidden — a story that lies in between the occurrences and the impact it left that lasts. The focus is drawn to what usually remains unnoticed, the in-between, as Gabriel puts it, the sound of the wind or the silence that follows an unanswered question. The quest is to fill the void with what cannot be seen but is strongly present, affecting the creator of the project, and defining his life and perception. The desire is to adhere to the memory and ensure that the trail of images, sounds, and smells remains tangible and present when time passes. Gabriel says, “Even if I lose my memory and I'm not the same, or you lose it and you don't remember anymore, I hope you will always be what I always felt you were and you are what you always wanted to be.”
The texture, the softness of the processed color, the editing decisions of including white space, the black and white in combination with washed color images drive to emphasize the ephemeral that which escapes and forces the viewer to fill in the blanks while capturing the essence of the almost fading images. The personal aspect of the story adds sensuality and depth while allowing the viewer to connect on their level to the nostalgia and memories that haunt them, evoking feelings of fleeting sadness and memories of dissolved love. Gabriel provides more details and a suggestion to view the project, “The composition and the elements that play into the story have more than one meaning, depending on the angle you choose.“ This enables the viewers to connect with the artist through personal and global perspectives, the similar and the unalike, the known and what is in between, what remains.
‘Small, like the space I'm always trying to inhabit, very different from the space they suggest I occupy, that they give me? that they let me? that they lend me? I never know.’
White Noise is a concept based on the impatient sound of the wind, the very sound we unconsciously retain when it stops. The same echo we count in the corners of enclosed spaces is the same one that makes the trees move and isolates us. It's what happens after an unanswered question, the sound that cohabits with us without knowing that if it stops, we'll hear it.
Today, I felt small, so I folded a sheet of paper in half and started writing on one side — the right side always works for me. A small sheet, a medium one if need be. Anyway, today I felt small. I'd been thinking about it for a while, maybe a week, not that long. Small for a while, a time when it was difficult for me to know who I am and who I want to be for others. Small, like when I sign, always tiny. Small, like the space I'm always trying to inhabit, very different from the space they suggest I occupy, that they give me? that they let me? that they lend me? I never know. I've been thinking about my detachment, and perhaps I'm wondering why I leave footprints in spaces where I was, just passing through. Maybe I know the answer. But I walk on the edge, or so I think, whereas, for some people, I walk in the middle. I'm looking for the edges, the corners. Today, I asked myself if I wanted to or if I had learned to want, like learning to harm, with deadly side effects for those exposed to it, for those who are exposed. Today, I was given more than I was ready to have. Today, I realized that I am not aware of the space I inhabit. Today, they gave me more than the shore. They gave me the sea, but they bent me. Today, I was the sheet on which I write, write in my head, write on paper, almost without a difference, but my memory fails, and the emotions are blurred; fortunately, there is paper and pencil.
‘I hope I'll remember that phone call in which I told you that you were the sound of the wind, that you were that insistent memory every time I saw the sea or the yellow color because you reminded me of the sun.’
I've realized that I write small. Maybe I think there aren't enough sheets of paper, maybe two have always been enough, or even just one. I occupy a table in the kitchen, small and sufficient. I move to the right to leave a free space in the middle. I don't want to disturb but why do I decide the space people occupy in me? Don't I have control over the space I want to occupy in them? I wonder if I want it or not. I want to love and be loved and, at the same time, come out unscathed, but is that possible? How do you know if you've swum if you haven't put your head underwater?
I don't remember many things in my life, and sometimes I think I'll lose my memory very early, but if that ever happens, I hope I'll remember that phone call in which I told you that you were the sound of the wind, that you were that insistent memory every time I saw the sea or the yellow color because you reminded me of the sun. Even if I lose my memory and I'm not the same, or you lose it and you don't remember anymore, I hope you will always be what I always felt you were and you are what you always wanted to be. In retrospect, I realize that unconsciously, I turned you into everything around me, in everything intangible, but that cohabited with me with a certain harmony. In a point of delirium, I remembered asking you if the idea of being a tree, a bicycle, or a shoe called you in a failed attempt to give you shape, but what madness would be to give shape to the wind? I wondered where the empty gazes were looking, but never empty. In one of them, I decided to convince my body to stop feeling my leg and my left arm or the gravity on my fingers. Today, I wonder if letting go of my weight would help me see myself more present, but I am aware enough to understand that there are feelings that were made to be heard.
‘The photo of the pillow with the sheets and stockings tends to have a lot of emotional value every time I see it again.’
The photo of the pillow with the sheets and stockings tends to have a lot of emotional value every time I see it again. The composition and the elements that play into the story have more than one meaning, depending on the angle you choose. To reveal it, would be to shorten the imagination of the viewer, but if I had to highlight something important, it would be that being a story of two. It touches the intimacy, the complexity of a couple's life, as well as their togetherness. It is presented as an imaginary, a way to give texture to an emotion, a story. What I like the most is that it can be as imaginative as it is real, and the mix ends up being the concept of a relationship: a combination of what is and what you think it is.
‘The narrative itself is approached with subtlety. The colors are mostly more washed out. They don't vibrate as much, or even, at times, there is very little color.’
The retouching was something that came on its own. In general, in my retouching, I don't try to highlight using a lot of contrast; rather, the curiosity of certain elements is what ends up driving the result and the symbology in some details. In this case, it was very important that everything felt connected to the same atmosphere. That's why the lights are nuanced and coexist in the same dimension as the subject. The narrative itself is approached with subtlety. The colors are mostly more washed out. They don't vibrate as much, or even, at times, there is very little color. If color exists, it is because it has a reason, and there is not much debate as to whether or not it helps the flow of the story. At the same time, the story has elements that were not entirely planned, they just appeared as coincidence but, in an emotional state, took a new layer in the narrative in combination with other images. The yellow shirt and the lemon were coincidences; however, the blue boxer and the pillows were more premeditated.
I think the concept was what cost me the most. It wasn't like any other. It's worth saying the story serves as a dedication. Resorting to certain memories and emotions was the only way to relive it while even bordering on idealization in certain aspects. It is a way, almost literally and without conditioning her to what my words limit, to say how she easily became the wind, the sound, the water in the sea, and the sun. Everything that remains in your life is constant but, at the same time, it’s intangible and timeless. She became everything that she has always loved, and to love her was to love everything that surrounded her existence.
The challenge in this concept became how to remain objective and show that which would carry the same weight for me as for those who did not know her but who undoubtedly felt the same or something similar for someone else. So, communicating was a way to gain perspective. Just as time offers you different angles, writing helped me capture more abstract ideas that, in the end, became a diary.
