Books published by RVB Books

ORDER covers a body of work carried out between 2014 and 2019 in different megacities around the world. This project pursues a subjective hypothesis about the reflection of advertising images in human appearances and behaviour in urban life. Following the classic methodology of street photography (straight photography of a real scene without any manipulation), Óscar Monzón goes further by extracting moments and spaces which - due to their scenography - related and gestural precision- enter into direct dialogue with the images of the adverts that are ubiquitous in these locations, showing to us the opposite message or an interpretation of the consequences. These adverts, at first set aside from the narrative of the project, appear in the sequence as animated elements, as real and alive as the scenes that are documented in the project.

The work Two Donkeys in a War Zone finds its source in a video of the U. S. Army available on Youtube. A drone follows an attack against an Isis camp. Between two explosions, the infrared camera briefly highlights two donkeys. This intrusion of two animals unintentionally witnessing human violence had me look for drone strike videos produced by the U. S. , Afghan or British army with moments or details that do not belong to the combat but are instead a part of ' normal life ', the off- camera's of an asymmetrical war. These photographs of operative videos, supporting military propaganda, show the conflict through the drone's eye. The operator is only looking for his target, but life carries on next to the explosion. These movements, instants of existence, signify humanity. Two donkeys in a war zone is a search, by cropping and subverting operative images, for traces of life inside pictures of death.