Musical Geometry
Project instructions
In the following project I was required to pick a song and create an art work, either 2-D, 3-D, a photo, or a film, based on that song. I decide to pick the song "Valiente" (brave) for this project, which is a song from a Venezuelan artist.
Background Information: What's happening in Venezuela?
Venezuela has been going through a difficult political and economic situation for the last 19 years. The government's inability to properly govern and the politicians hunger for power and money have created a state of anarchy in the country.
The president, Hugo Chavez, was supposed to only govern for four years but he did for 15 years until he died. Normally, in a democracy the vice president would take over, but they decided to put a random guy that has never studied politics, Nicolas Maduro, as the president. Maduro has been governing for four years already, which means Venezuela has been under this corrupt government for 19 years.
The government has ruined Venezuela's economy, reaching one of the highest inflation rates in the world, increased poverty rate and crime rate, in which Venezuela is in the top 3 in the world. Additionally, there's a huge lack of basic products like soap, deodorant, toilet paper, food and many other things. There are no medical supplies either, people with cancer or diabetes can't find their medicines and can't do their medical treatments, pregnant women have to give birth on the floor and babies are put in cardboard boxes. In order to get some of the products in the grocery store, people need to make huge lines of around 6 hours just to get expensive low quality products, if there are any left in the store. In order to ease the problem of the lines, the government created a plan where bags of supplies are taken to some people's house; you can't pick what is on it or how much, some people get one chicken for a whole month, no matter how many members the family has. Besides, since the unemployment and inflation rate has increased the majority of the population can't afford these supplies.
Venezuela’s people are tired of this chaos and as time passed by, more people started realizing the damage that the government has done to the country so people started acting and demanding respect for the Venezuela's democracy, but in the presidential elections the government would always cheat in order to win. In the year 2014 the people of Venezuela decided to start pacific protests in the streets against the corrupt government. A couple of months later the military, sent by the government, started harassing the peaceful protesters. One of the political leaders of the contrary political party, Leopoldo Lopez, started leading these protests and since the government started to realize that he was doing a great job at encouraging people to fight for their country, they started seeing him as a threat. Days later, the government sent an arrest warrant and told Leopoldo that if he didn’t turned in himself then they were going to find him. On February 18, 2014 Leopoldo Lopez turned himself in and was imprisoned by the military.
In the court he was charged by the government with unfair and fake accusations that caused him to be in jail until today, where he has been tortured, starved, beaten, and humiliated. Nonetheless, Leopoldo keeps fighting for Venezuela's freedom the best he can. Leopoldo has not been the only one that has gone through this situation, the government has unfairly imprisioned many other political leaders and many students that were involved in peaceful protests. During these protests, venezuelas military, which are supposed to protect Venezuelans, dragged and beat up students, used weapons and water tanks to harm them, and they took the students with them and captured them. The students were taken to jail were they were tortured, raped, beaten and many other things. As time passed, violence got worse in the protests and now students started getting killed. Since the protests started there have been around 200 people killed in the protests from which around 100 were students. Venezuelan students have been the warriors of this hell, they have been the ones fighting for a free Venezuela. They fight against the corrupt regime 24/7, it doesn’t matter the time of the day, sometimes they don't even eat to be in the protests, they're determined and their only goal is to overthrow this corrupt government and free Venezuela from it.
Neomer Lander
Neomar Lander, a 17 year old Venezuelan student, was one of these warriors but he was also part of that 100 range of students that have passed away, he was the victim number 66 of the corrupt government.
On June 8, 2017 Neomar was hit by a high-speed gas bomb on his chest that fractured his ribs and went through one of his lungs, leading to an internal hemorrhage. Days before the incident, there was a video of Neomar where he said "I am 17 years old, I am not studying right now because I am soon going to leave the country so I can have a good future, but I really don't want to leave venezuela, this is my country, this is where I was born, and I am fighting for it. The battle of few {people} is worth the future of many".
Valiente
This song was written by Miguel Ignacio Mendoza (Nacho). He wrote this song regarding the situation in Venezuela, to give courage and strength to the people. Nacho accomplished touching the Venezuelan people’s heart and souls, giving them hope, specially to the warriors like Neomer Lander. The reason I picked this song is because it talks about Venezuelans' desire to free themselves from the tyranny and that we can't stop fighting for our dream of a free Venezuela. He also talks about this new venezuela where we can happily walk in the streets without the fear of never getting back home, and how it doesn't matter if he (the author) spends the rest of his life in the streets fighting in order to achieve the goal, just like Neomar did.
Lyrics
Ya casi rompo las cadenas Ya casi grito que llegó la libertad (Que llegó la libertad) Siento que mi alma estará llena Y mi corazón también en paz Volveré a poner mis pies sobre la carretera Caminaré a un mejor futuro Ya la espera desespera Desespera ver perder tanto en el daño de una era Yendo hacia atrás con tantas ganas de llevar la delantera Como quisiera ver que se regrese el tiempo Volver a los momentos de magia y de ensueño La suerte que yo tuve cuando pequeño Tengo que ser valiente,valiente La fe nunca la debo perder Tengo que ser más fuerte,más fuerte Subir mi voluntad a otro nivel
De espÃritu rebelde Valiente,para mejorar este presente Y por fin saber lo que se siente Librarse de la tiranÃa De un movimiento en agonÃa De la dura situación de cada dÃa Que vuelva la alegrÃa No pares que ya vamos en la vÃa Seguir luchando es la garantÃa Si es que mis horas se fueran Parado en tierra y guerreando Prefiero eso que estar con la crisis modelándote Un carro,mil joyas Y otro anhela tener comida en la olla Valiente,valiente La fe nunca la debo perder Tengo que ser más fuerte,más fuerte Subir mi voluntad a otro nivel De espÃritu rebelde,valiente Para mejorar este presente Y por fin saber lo que se siente...
Ellos son los fantásticos Todos de Venezuela,al igual que yo. Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal Como ayer,sin temer,cuando llegue la paz (Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal) Mi mejor recuerdo de cuando niño Es que la gente se trataba con cariño (Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal) Ninguno somos más que gente Y una parte de la gente no está usando El corazón ni la mente (Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal) Tiempos que añoro A veces lloro pero casi siempre rÃo De amor por mi Venezuela Por mi patria,por mi madre por mi escuela (Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal ) Mi felicidad,como antes ya lo dije Con Victor Muñoz En la otra canción que también se pegó (Caminar en libertad Ir por las calles asà normal) Tengo que ser valiente,valiente Mi fe nunca la debo perder Tengo que ser más fuerte,más fuerte Subir mi voluntad a otro nivel De espÃritu rebelde Valiente,para mejorar este presente Y por fin saber lo que se siente ser libre, ser libre...
My project
For this project I made a drawing of Neomar Lander's face because there is nothing and no one else that this song describes better than Neomar. In a black sheet of paper I used white charcoal and white color pencils to make the drawing of Neomar. The tears are based on the Venezuelan flag, which is yellow, blue, and red, and they are also based on the music sheet of the song. The whole song has only 12 notes, which are the following:
and the tears follow the pattern of the notes.
Later, I decided to crop the eyes of the drawing and put them in a shirt as a sign of rebellion since the people that support the government also have a shirt with the eyes of the president that started all this chaos.
