Rodrigo Azaola
Impunity Landscapes III, Tremor
2022
Single-channel HD video with sound. 3’20’’.
Tremor looks at horses as vehicle for financial exploitation. The video is part of the “Impunity Landscapes” series, which aims to analyze legal and illegal money flows that undermine state sovereignty. In addition to being a symbol of prestige and social standing, owning horses has a high potential for infringing jurisdictions.
Unlike banks or other financial institutions, the equine industry is not required to have strong anti-money laundering compliance regulations. A horse's value is highly subjective and readily adjusted in order to launder and hide dirty money or extreme wealth from drug cartels, aristocrats, oligarchs, and investment funds.
Tremor is a sort of digital tapestry, created after several months of filming pure-bred and race horses. Breeding, trading, racing, gambling, tax evasion, and other equine-related matters are muttered, emulating autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) recordings, in order to stress the intimate linkage between the animals' sensuousness and wealth.
The fulfillment of desires, as well as their concealment beneath sophisticated financial methods of ownership and tax evasion, becomes a delicate way for capital to perpetuate and conceal itself behind exploited living beings.
This work was exhibited at Video Art Miden, July 6-9, 2023, Kalamata, Greece; Systèmes de circulation, August 23, 2023, La Chaufferie, Montréal, Canada.