Circuitry Cities

 

Alejandro Franco Finds a Mind-Blowing “Urban Resemblance”

 

By definition, they’re nouns. But even on paper they swagger like verbs and mouth off like adjectives. They are equal to nothing, and the measure of everything; the sum of all parts and then some. They may mimic, but they’ll never mime; when they mirror, it’s in light of the divine; and to behold their truth is to reveal what’s self-evident. They are what Aldous Huxley found after kicking down William Blake’s doors of perception, what Lewis Carroll encountered after smashing through Alice’s looking glass, the “crack in everything” that let’s in the light Leonard Cohen gave voice to with “Anthem“. They are fractals, and they will blow your mind.

 

Just ask Alejandro Franco. Better yet, let him show you how he tells it instead. Because questions require answers, and answers imply words, and words would have to fold in on themselves and reveal the words within their own infinity before they could even begin to explain the wow and wonder Franco’s found in fractals.

 

No matter. In Franco we have a guide who opens our eyes to a horizon beyond language, a vista consisting of visions which insist on speaking for themselves. It is a promise land of plenty that need not answer to anyone or anything at anytime whatsoever, because one look at what he has sighted is all it takes to discover that there is no question -- fractals are a certainty, as certain as that city you call home.

 

And it’s clearly as certain as the secret cities Franco has uncovered in “Urban Resemblance”. Culled from a field of debris consisting of nothing but once essential circuitry, this collection of cityscapes is the urbanite equivalent of striking gold or discovering oil or finding water at the end of a divining rod. It’s reaching down below the surface of what’s seen and coming up with a natural resource which will change the way the world turns. That this natural resource of his was previously unknown, only makes it all the more bountiful. Franco also proves there is value to be had even from things seen to have outlived their usefulness, if only one has the mind to mine it.

 

At once conjurer and explorer, architect and visionary, guide, trickster and creator, Franco seems to take his cue from the very fractals which have taken him to such great heights -- and even greater depths. Or maybe it’s the fractals of “Urban Resemblance” which have aligned with Franco. Considering both contain proverbial multitudes, we may never need to have an answer to that question either.

 

John Hood

Miami/2013