After the coup which took place on March 24, 1976, Argentina’s last civic-military dictatorship systematically introduced the persecution, kidnapping, torture, murder and forced disappearance of its citizens for political and ideological reasons. Two years later, Argentina hosted the FIFA World Cup. This popular event was the ideal propaganda tool, both internally and externally, and was basically wielded as such by the military junta to provide an optical illusion masking the state genocide taking place. The hypocrisy was such that the Cup final was held just meters from the ESMA clandestine torture and extermination center.
One of the features of this World Cup was the confetti hurled into the air to mark the Argentine team’s triumph. Optical Disillusions is an interactive work which draws attention to the tension between visibility and concealment, with specific reference to the macabre ’78 World Cup, appropriating the gestures celebrating the event, but literally inverting their meaning. So, instead of the backdrop of civilized order and shared victory projected by the dictators, the pieces of confetti work as mini-screens portraying the faces of the thousands of people who “were disappeared.” Ten years after the start of the trials for crimes of lèse humanité in Rosario, this installation denounces the perverse deception practiced by the military junta and calls upon humanity not to forget
