Quagmire, 2011. Single channel video projection, projected onto an 8-feet diameter platform (wood, plaster and paint). Duration: Continuous loop. Mud eruption captured at Námafjall, Iceland.

In 2007, a mini-submarine carrying Artur Chilingarov, a Russian parliamentarian and veteran explorer, descended into the ice-covered sea at the North Pole, extended its robotic arm, and planted a Russian flag on the sea floor. Méndez’s El Norte is a critique on the prevailing ‘15th century colonial attitude’ and in particular, its relation to the current geopolitics of the North Pole.

Recurrence Relation # 2 is a single channel video projection, where the tenuous image of a figure emerges from the distant horizon. The figure walks towards the viewer, even at times looks straight onto the viewer, then continues beyond the viewer. The landscape of the barren high arctic sits still as the figure emerges again, to repeat the same migrating pathway, endlessly. Filmed in Moffen Island, International Territory of Svalbard, an archipelago near the north pole (80°N, 14.5°E), 2010. Duration: 3 minutes, 35 seconds.

Single channel video. Captured in 16mm film throughout Iceland, Svalbard Archipelago, Atacama Desert in Chile, and in White Sands, United States. Sound by composer Ben Frost, Iceland. Duration: 9 mins. 38 secs. Continuous loop. To a large extent, my work explores the concept of the feeling of the sublime. Spending time, in the middle of the Atacama desert, or in the arctic tundra, I am confronted with the realization that nothing out there wants me to live. Being assailed by that which seems to endanger my survival, I have an experience of all limits. Schopenhauer described the fullest feeling of the sublime as an experience of the immensity of the Universe’s extent or duration, while Lyotard argues that the sublime expresses the edge of our conceptual powers and reveals the multiplicity and instability of the post modern world.

At Any Given Moment, Grass 2 with Burnt Wood, 2010. Video art installation consisting of video projection (22 × 19ft), burnt wood, and sound (by Drew Schnurr).

The At Any Given Moment series explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature. In At Any Given Moment, Grass 2, the repetitive rhythm, tight cropping, and large-scale image emphasize the work’s particular organizational logic in time and space.

At Any Given Moment, Fall 1 with Volcanic Rock is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection, sound, and 4 tons of Volcanic Rock. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific. Shown above at ‘Energy’, group exhibition at the Alyce Williamson Gallery. Size: 21ft 8 in x 18 ft. Duration: 9 minutes.

At Any Given Moment, Fall 2 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection, 4 tons of lava rocks, gravel and sand, and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, River 1 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, River 2 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, is one in a series of video art installations filmed in Iceland between 2006 and 2008. The At Any Given Moment series explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature. In At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, the repetitive rhythm, tight cropping, and large-scale image emphasize the work’s particular organizational logic in time and space.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Recurrence Relation # 1 is a video art installation, where the tenuous image of a male figure emerges from a dense fog. He walks towards the viewer, even at times looks straight onto the viewer, then continues beyond the viewer. The landscape of the barren tundra sits still as birds fly by or land. Seconds later, the figure emerges again, to repeat the same pathway, endlessly.

Short film (3 minutes) based on the myth of Orpheus. Shot primarily underwater. Recipient of the RES FEST 1999 award and premiered in Tokyo, NY, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

This is a love letter sent to Adam in 1996 when he was living in Amsterdam and I in California. We communicated via email, yet the disembodied language of e-mail and a double distance, not only physically but most importantly a distance in time, woke a desperate and silent attempt of making the writing machine into a sensual machine…