In the photographer’s view, the rectangular-shaped white coloured machine with a circular grid in the front reminds us of an eye that looks at a particular place at a given time. In fact, Alvarez Diestro has spent more than three decades travelling around the world and witnessed major conflicts including wars and social revolutions while living in the Middle East and travelling across Asia.
Also, spending time in South America during the economic crisis or the world pandemic while in South Korea or vacationing with his parents in Benidorm, Spain. In a way, the aircon systems become his own eyes.
Buenos Aires. Aircon systems by Manuel Alvarez Diestro.
As in most of his works, Alvarez Diestro omits once again direct human presence in his photos but still expresses full human angst. These invasive devices that grow without control and generate visual chaos still speak about us as they are connected to us behind the wall.
From the isolated aircon machine hanging in a "party wall" in Buenos Aires to the "horror vacui" in Hong Kong or Seoul. In some cases, he depicts buildings destroyed from a war where the aircon system no longer has a purpose and is just part of the debris.
