Cinematic Ethics within the Picnoleptic Moment in José Luis Guerín's En construcción.

On the surface, José Luis Guerín's En construcción (2001) presents a biting critique of capitalism and the way in which construction has become a source of economic benefit in present-day Spain. Underlying this criticism, however, is an important commentary on visuality, historical cinematic memory and the relationship between architecture and cinema. This study, while recognizing Guerín's critique of exploitative building practices, postulates that his auto-reflexive approach to filmmaking corresponds to an architectural ethics that desires the return of a symbiotic matrimony between art, industry and social life. From there, the article posits that Guerín's commentary on architecture and urban life is a submerged metaphor for both capitalistic criticism and an ethics of cinema, an ethics implying synchronic conjuration of past tradition and the creation of a desultory, protracted temporality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]