On Parafiction 

Salomé Lamas has produced over thirty projects, which have been installed and screened internationally, both in cinema auditoriums and contemporary art galleries, and museums. Each of them gives way to a different social reality, usually characterized by its geographical and political inaccessibility. The artist’s interest in impenetrable, politically ambiguous contexts is guided by concerns and the need to problematize reality that otherwise would not be possible. The web of relations making up the socio-political fabric of her projects is made visible through representational strategies, for which she adopted the term parafiction. Rather than complying with a shapeless meaning of parafiction — for which there is no established terminology — she proposes its expansion and resignification.

In her artistic practice, parafiction can be read in the light of its prefix “para-”, in which we encounter various disruptive effects that are vital for its comprehension. Derived from the Latin, “para-” indicates “alongside, adjacent to, beyond or distinct from, but analogous to”; in certain word combinations, it can also mean “wrong, irregular,” pointing towards an “alteration” or “modification”; further, “para-” implies “separate, defective, irregular, disordered, improper, incorrect, perversion or simulation.” In this way, parafiction would be something in which fiction has been perverted, altered, modified, or pushed beyond its point of reference, as opposed to remaining within the boundaries of the category of fiction. It can also be understood as a “simulation” of fiction, pointing to a distortion of the border around what is considered fiction, thus reaching what is on the other side of that border: that is, the world of non-fiction or seeking the “real” world. Thus, instead of fiction being used to blur the border with non-fiction, it is used as a way of expanding and transcending those boundaries.

Salomé Lamas departs from the principle that we do not have access to a stable reality. Instead, we have an excess of meanings, interpretations, explanations, manipulations, (de)constructions, and evaluations that go into narratives and systems that sustain and occupy us. Consequently, the need for appropriating the idea of parafiction stems from the questioning of how human subjectivity is formed, drawing on psychoanalysis, with the aim of clarifying and expanding concepts such as real (something that is out of reach), reality, symbolic, and imaginary. Thus, she is led to operate at the border between fiction and non-fiction, employing representation and hypothesis generation through certain meditative criteria and a deontological code relative to what is plausible, assuming consciously the “task of the translator” —comparable to illusionism — and pushing its boundaries.

In this context, she draws on distinct non-fictional strategies that include ethnographic research, as well as thought experiments, reflexivity, restaging and performativity, among others, to explore the limits of fiction. This is visible in the development of her working methodology, where we find various manifestations of parafiction, such as scenarios where characters and fictional stories intersect with the world as we are experiencing it. The combination of these strategies, to the detriment of other speculative aspects, forms a sort of hypothesis that maintains a level of accuracy with reality but also questions its authority. Through parafiction it is possible to take a convention and deconstruct it, distort it, expose the impossibility of providing evidence for the truth, to the point where doubts are raised about its validity, yet still producing reasons for understanding it as plausible.

Salomé Lamas problematizes both sides of the border between historical and imaginary worlds, and records how they have changed over time, by understanding parafiction as a fundamental translation tool for defining identity, language and culture. Intensifying, exaggerating and speculating on how the world is made sensible, by triggering moments that reveal their fabrication, in a post-truth context heightened by the technological and globalized nature of our times. To reveal this transformation is a continuous and thorough undertaking, but also spiritual, having the ability to relate the individual sphere (private) with the social sphere (public) and so introducing new information and perspectives on our past, present and future. Thus, although conscious of its limits and apparent contradictions, parafiction helps give form to the chaos of life and endow it with significance, in a compromise between reality and its fictionalization.

What is parafiction for Salomé Lamas:

Salomé Lamas’s upheaval with parafiction lies in her ability to create deeply engaging, intellectually challenging, and ethically complex works. She blends reality and fiction in ways that are often indistinguishable and whose limits are observed, explored, critically questioned, or unveiled to the viewer.

She invites viewers to question their assumptions about truth, narrative, and the power dynamics involved in storytelling. Her films are not just about telling stories but using storytelling to frame critical themes, making her part of the evolution of parafiction in cinema/contemporary art.

1. Blurring Documentary and Fiction

• Seamlessly blending documentary material with fictional elements, creating films that are neither entirely true nor entirely false. This approach forces viewers to question the authenticity of the images and stories they are presented with, making them more active participants in interpreting the narrative.

2. Exploring Subjectivity and Memory

• Exploring the idea of subjective memory and how personal and collective histories are constructed, delving into philosophical undertones (such as exchange and communication, putting to the test something that can't be said, can't be experienced, like an affect that can't manage to exist. The lack of lack, that which can never be named, never identified). Parafiction is used to highlight the fluidity of memory and the ways in which stories are shaped by the storyteller’s perspective, as well as by political and social contexts.

3. Ethical Ambiguity and Viewer Responsibility

• Placing viewers often in a position where they must grapple with ethical ambiguities. Mixing fact with fiction challenges the viewer to consider the implications of believing or disbelieving the narrative presented, assisting in reflection and training our minds to confront other kinds of information. This approach questions the ethics of representation and the audience's responsibility to engage with the media.

4. Disrupting Traditional Narrative Structures

• Disrupting traditional narrative structures with parafictional strategies (mix of archive footage, re-enactments, performativity, interviews), creating non-linear, fragmented films, or deliberately withholding key information to mirror the complexity and uncertainty of real-life events, where truth is often elusive.

5. Interrogating Historical Narratives

• Interrogating historical narratives, often revisiting events or figures from the past with a critical lens. By introducing fictional elements into history examination, to question the reliability of historical records and how history is constructed and remembered.

6. Exploration of Marginality and Liminality

• Depicting how global forces like capitalism, colonialism, environmental exploitation, and Western cultures lead to human exploitation and inequality. Themes of alienation, displacement, survival, the complexities of living in a critical zone, migration, and marginal lives in changing societies (nomadic herders, Indigenous communities on the fringes of modernity) are featured in experimental media speculations that often occur in liminal spaces between the physical and psychological.
    These liminal spaces are non-where. In the nowhere-ness, human extremes can sometimes be perceived, and complicated truths about life and the state of the world can sometimes be told.

7. Framing Critical themes

• Framing critical themes that often delve into deeper social, political, ethical, or philosophical concerns.
    These themes often intersect and overlap with allegoric structures, providing complex, multi-layered perspectives on the subject matter. They invite viewers to engage with the work in a way that goes beyond surface-level interpretation, promoting deeper conversations and encouraging critical thinking and analysis.

8. New Information and Perspectives

• Producing new information and perspectives (thought experimentation and speculative models) as an additional module that connects physical and digital spatiotemporal with alternative potential for pasts, presents, and futures.

9. Aesthetics guidelines

• Prioritizing orthopedic imagery in a world saturated by images and information using long, contemplative, and atmospheric sequences, granting slowness, extended temporality, fixed shots that test duration, the fabric of reality that weights down our lives.
    The sound auditory atmosphere often complements the visual austerity with structural symmetries, contrasting dimensions, sharp lines, and geometry.
    Cubist editing, ambient sound, and periods of stark silence are used to create tension and reflection in observational scenes, along with minimal dialogue.
    Cutting or camera turning only occurs when strictly necessary. Other non-cinematic forms and influences foul the cinematic grammar.