Hysteresis is the phenomenon in which a system’s reaction to change is contingent upon its past experience. It arises because the system can exist in more than one state–the system can exist in all places, all times. Here we can borrow a phrase from philosopher Gilles Deleuze: the any-space-whatever. “Any-space-whatever is not an abstract universal, in all times, in all places. It is a perfectly singular space, which has merely lost its homogeneity, that is, the principle of its metric relations or the connection of its own parts, so that the linkages can be made in an infinite number of ways.” The any-space-whatever is a realm that represents “a locus of the possible.”

The work of William Cordova exists in a similar locus of possibility. There are no rules or limits, only a loosening of narratives and boundaries, where connections are made that bleed the geographical, the spatial, and the temporal. Cordova unearths events that are overlooked in the dominant telling of history. He collapses science fiction, migration, music, and colonialism, among other things, with visual ephemera and historical documents to tell a larger possible narrative of social change. For the artist these seemingly disparate subjects are not discrete entities but react in relation to one another.

In smoke signals: viviendo pa’ la ciudad, Cordova looks to the lens as a framework. Here the lens is a portal, a window, an entry point; something that is informed, constructed, and activated by our own personal experiences. We often use the lens as an immobile way of looking (through the lens of…) comforted by the fact that we each view and enter the world through our own lens, but Cordova seeks to unsettle these comforts by juxtaposing known images sounds, and situations with foreign ones. Like the double groove vinyl record–a method of pressing records in which one side contains two separate grooves, allowing two different albums to be placed or “hidden in plain view on one single side-Cordova’s work places cultural codes as “hidden tracks” that engage the process of creating and connecting to common struggles in glossed-over versions of history. Cordova’s proposals of alternative perspectives make us rethink our own narratives of the complacent known–both the physical and the psychological-urging us to reconsider our futures and how we enact them. Perhaps best said by Cordova himself, “Social change only happens when we change our outlook.”

Julio César Morales, Curator