So.
Here we where.
I always think back at the places I have lived or passed. I remember them and think about what type of experience I had there. What skills they gave me. The type of marks they leave on you. How they shape us a little or a lot. What they taught me and, how they allowed me to continue my life's journey.
This might not be of much importance to you. But, to me it was important to leave this one page journal for others to see and understand who I am, especially my son.
And, now here we are.
La Cápsula. We had an office here. A web design studio mixed with cultural center. Made two of my best friends here. Martin, Oscar, Víctor. Bomba Estereo started here. The owner of a corner store was the first person about we getting pregnant.
Bogotá - Early 2000s
I was about 12. A tabac, is like a corner store. You can buy the press and magazines. Candy and other snacks. Ice cream in the summer and of course, cigarettes. I was fascinated by a mosaic of different packs cigs, covering the wall behind the cashier. All the different brands, the designs and the colors.
Genève - Mid 1970s
KCO asked me to be their roomates. We wanted to be art superstars. We had 3 cats. We used to turn the place into an art gallery. It was the punk years of art. Anybody could do it and anybody could open a gallery. We all knew each other from the Art Institute. A lot of life happened here. A lot of people crossing paths here.
San Francisco - Mid to end 80s
My wife and I started our life here. Right in the heart of downtown. An urban jungle full of life and danger. It had a inner court with a fountain. The place was old and one could here how the upstair neighbors would walk from one room the other. Thi drove here crazy. We moved when we learned that we were pregnant.
Bogotá - Early 2000s
I left for Germany for a 2 week stay. I ended up staying for a little less than 2 years. These were times of lots of fun fueled by a sense of leaving the days as they came, without any plan whatsoever. But, this also meant having very little money, making it very difficult to get by. I lived here at the end of my german adventure. This apartment belonged to a commercial photographer that did very well allowing to stay there for free.
Düsseldorf - Early 1990s
I was told, you can stay here in NYC or come with me to the Canary Islands. I chose to go to Spain. I still think that it was one of the worse decisions that I have made in my life. The whole stay was miserable emotionally and financially. Here in Tenerife I started a web design shop, I guess that's the only positive achievement of the whole ordeal. I had recently started working with the Internet and created Vento, idear programar. It was now clear that I had found what I wanted to do in life.
Tenerife - Early mid 1990s
The first time I saw a dead person. I was up the hill, 6 or 7 blocks away from the traffic accident. The word spread fast. A woman had died. Hit by a car. On the Septima. I remember how we all ran down the hill. Gigantic steps. Fuck, we were going to see a dead person. We were boys. We ran so fast. We got there. The intersection was almost all closed. A lot of bystanders, like us, just looking at a body covered by a white cloth.
Bogotá - Late 1960s
I wanted to get a master’s in fine arts. I had self-shipped wrecked in Germany. A period of transition, seduced by computers and technology. I applied to the KHM -Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln with a project about a hypertext storytelling project that used HyperCard as its engine. Probably my first email address was from this place. I discovered the first iterations of Illustrator and Photoshop. Chating via Telnet. BBS groups. And the first browser.
Köln - Early mid 1990s
This place was so fucked up. Totally fucked up youth; no future what’s so ever. My high school was right next to this low-income housing complex. Most of my friends lived here. The memories I have from this place are brutal. I prefer to hide them somewhere dark inside my mind. But, at the same, the images I keep from that time, helped me understand human nature. How fun, beautiful, and crazy it can be. But, also how dangerous and destructive it can turn.
Genéve - Late 1970s
This was the place that added the cherry on the top defining who I am today. A place that allowed me to be who I already was and frame it all under the lens of art. I ended up staying in the city for more than 10 years. Here I made the fundamental connections between art and technology and was seduced by new media and culture. But most importantly, I discovered what diversity meant and expanded my overall psyche. What an amazing time.
San Francisco - Mid 1980s
I used to read Corto Maltese a lot. These graphic novels, by Hugo Pratt, transported me to a place of magic, history, and adventure. I really connected with Corto’s independence and free nature. I lived in Switzerland at the time. I remembered one day waking up with the strongest feeling of wanting to radically change my life. 3 months later I enrolled here in order to become an officer of the Colombian Army.
Bogotá - Early 1980s
I had just returned to the US after living close to 2 years in Germany. I had no money, no nothing. I looked up an old boss. I worked the night shift at a small hotel he owned in the middle of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. He offered me my old job back, this time during the day shift. He also lent me an appartement half a block away. What a dangerous but beautiful place this cross street was.It took almost a year to get back on my feet.
San Francisco - Mid 1990s
One day I showed up at my friend's front door. She knew I was coming. She had a great little rent control in the middle of Soho. It’s in this apartment that I designed my first website. I must confess that, once in a while I think about these times. The excitement of being part of a new medium, with very few people doing it. What would have happened if I had stayed? Would I have had the chance to ride the dotcom boom that happened 1 year after leaving NYC to go live in the Canary Islands?
New York City - Mid 1990s
Right across the middle school I attended, was one of the only shopping centers in town. A tunnel connected our school with the mall. The mall was like the internet: hangout with friends while walking around stores. At the time the tunnel had no graffiti. But one, day after presenting a school project on the NYC graffiti culture this tunnel would forever change.
Geneva - Late 1970s