Picture Post #66 What a Can Can Do

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be

neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

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Posted by Tessa den Uyl

Malaga, Spain  2021

Unlike randomly dropped trash, this Coca Cola can seems to have been placed in cardinal Ángel Herrera Oria's hand very carefully. Tiny gestures, what thoughts do they provoke? The photo seems to conjure up three phases in time:

• Materially, the alloy metal of the bronze statue and the aluminium can link together. The originally clay molded figure reveals striped structures on the cloak of the statue—and somehow striped movements are very human gestures indeed. These connect to the stripes of the bar code on the industrial can.  

• The deformed horizontally placed can offers more dynamism to the inclined direction of the Cardinal’s hand. The sky, a stone church in the background, the bronze statue, the can and the bar code together offer a kind of idea about a tangible timeline. So far, we can follow it.

• But lately, when thinking of algorithms, or something like crypto currencies, digital data creates ‘new images’ which are mostly only comprehensible to programmers, and for a vast majority of people remain invisible. No tiny tangible innocent gestures can interfere there, and perhaps we’ve come to the time in which: what a can, cannot do…