María Silvia Esteve — CORTEX

Exploring the connection between memory and trauma, CORTEX is an immersive video installation by María Silvia Esteve which conjures a labyrinthine forest immersed in a soundscape populated by living organisms.

The starting point for María Silvia Esteve’s forthcoming feature-length hybrid documentary MAILIN—based on the story of Mailin Gobbo, who was sexually abused for fifteen years by the priest at her school—the short film CORTEX evokes the atmosphere of a dreamlike forest, as in the telling of a fairy tale, driven by the quest to recover the memory of a forgotten past.

Imagined as a metaphorical vision of an individual’s subconscious, the installation is conceived as a sacred place where memory is transformed into an active organ that is in constant reflection. The different strata of our subconscious are evoked by a play of light and shadow that generates multiple densities and textures. As the forest is gradually engulfed by a dense red mass, the video installation brings about an ambiguous space which emerges from the contrast between light and darkness.
Through the diffuse presence of image and sound, María Silvia Esteve reproduces a metaphor for our own existential questions, generating a strange, hypnotic feeling that confronts visitors with their own existence. Set in a circular space with no spatial or temporal markers, the installation is conceived as a place without boundaries, highlighted by the use of transparent panels that interrupt the linearity of the location. In this way, the public becomes involved in a sensory space, becoming immersed in the director’s dreamlike, reflective universe.

Image from CORTEX, 2024 © María Silvia Esteve

María Silvia Esteve

Argentinian director and producer María Silvia Esteve develops experimental visual imagery focusing on stories of women led by women. Founder and president of the audiovisual collective HANA Films, she has also been honored by the Spanish Association of Cinematographic Authors AEC.

Her first feature documentary SILVIA was presented at IDFA 2018 and her film CRIATURA, won the Pardino d’oro for best auteur short at the Locarno Film Festival 2021. In 2022 her short THE SPIRAL screened at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and was selected at New Directors/New Films MoMA, as well as at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and IDFA.