Contrainte / Restraint

An exhibition produced by the Groupe Molior

Rolando Sánchez, Matari 69200 (2005)

The Matari 69200 project focuses on the political violence suffered during the 1980s in Peru. The medium used by the artist for this purpose is a video game and the ATARI 2600, a very popular video game console during the same decade. The number “69200” in the title refers to the number of fatalities during the war. The armed conflict was between the Peruvian government, represented by the Army, and the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla. Thousands of people were murdered and tortured and many others disappeared. The brutality came from a fundamentalist guerrilla and from the police force who carried out an abusive and indiscriminate repression that did not respect any human rights. The same TV screen that showed images of this war was also used for playing Pac Man and Space Invaders. Matari 69200 conflates these two experiences into a video game based on episodes of a real war.

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Rolando Sánchez was born in Lima, in 1974. He graduated from Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes de Lima and from the Electronic Engineer Faculty of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú where he is a regular teacher. His recent group exhibitions include Homo Ludens Ludens at LABoral, Gijón, Spain (2008), Videt 08 International Festival of Vilafranca del Penedés, Barcelona, Spain (2008), V Bienal iberoamericana de Videocreación y Arte Digital Inquieta Imagen at Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de San José, Costa Rica (2007), 3rd Festival of Electronic Art, Rosario, Argentina (2006), VAE10 Festival Internacional de Video/Arte/Electrónica, Lima (2006), 2nd Festival of Electronic Art 404, Rosario (2005), Break 2.3 New Species, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2005), Artware 3 at Centro Cultural de la Universidad Católica, Lima (2005), Softmachine at Galería Artco, Lima (2005). Sánchez was awarded prizes at the “III Exhibition of Digital Art” (Video installation category, Santa Fe, Argentina, 2006) and the First Prize Metropolitan Contest for Young Visual Artists (Lima Municipality, 2006). He lives and works in Lima.