She is a model, visual artist and has transformed the facade of her house in Saavedra into an installation of obsolete technology

The facade of Lucas Stoessel’s house is unique in his district of Saavedra and also in the whole capital and the country. Little by little, he was transformed by his plastic surgeon’s hands into a permanent installation, as in museums, of obsolete technology. The wall is lined with devices from the 80s and more stuffed with buttons that are no longer necessary today. Landline buttons, calculators, music equipment with cassette decks, video cameras, walkmans, record players, colorful cell phones with covers and personality, which eventually mutated into gray boxes. The passage Cisne, only 100 meters long, where this time travel exhibition takes place, is frequented by photographers, nostalgic visitors who immortalize thousands of memories.

Lucas called this facility Both. Outdated keyboard objects with buttons or levers.

Lucas is from Saavedra. He has always lived in the area and now they know him more than ever. His long beard is his personal trademark, a “medieval style”, he defines. For many, he is the teacher of painting. But a long time ago, he led a very different life. For starters, he wore a suit and tie. He was an office worker who worked in the sales area of ​​a well-known prepaid company. “I had another life. I had my shirt, my tie, my suit, everything. My life was completely different from now on. He served the public in a Belgrano branch on Juramento Street. He made orders for hospitalization, childbirth, medication, studies. I’ve been working like this for almost 10 years,” he says.

He has always had artistic preoccupations, but never as completely devoted as today, who in addition to giving lessons, develops his work. “And later, the Obopop affair came up, unexpectedly, because I was on another plane, giving painting lessons. I didn’t think of setting up an installation on the sidewalk of my house. But He came and I let him sink”.

How did you leave costume to make a living from art? That was in 2005, in a bumpy way that he now considers one of the best things that has happened to him in life. “There has been a reduction in staff from 500 to 1000 people. And me I fell for this flip. It was a lot of people. And I found myself unemployed. And I asked myself: “And now, what do I do?”

Lucas had the option of pitching his resume to other prepayers to continue a similar life or using his savings to take advantage of time spent in his pending subjects, such as studying art, which he did. “I took classes with a great teacher, who is Nicolás Menta”, says who had studied graphic design at UBA and knew how to combine many techniques and applied them. I learned that a lot of things could be done with photocopying and I had started researching, gluing, painting and a technique that I am developing by chance appeared, which is picture paintinga mix between photography and painting. Something very specific, that no one does, It started lately when I was working in the prepaid company,” he explains.

He lived for two years on his savings, but he also started earning an income as a model. He appeared in advertising castings and did very well. “I landed leading roles and got some nice money. He looked like a father, a businessman, an engineer, a doctor, a man who drove a car, so they called me a lot for commercials. He had a calmer look, a grown beard, not like he does now, which is more medieval. I had a lot of work”, he says. This work allowed him to devote more time to himself and his art. And by studying, he found the purpose of his life. To paint. office, I sometimes asked him what he was doing there, I thought he was there for something else, but I still didn’t know. This layoff accident helped me change my life“, he expresses.

His beard grew on the recommendation of a fashion photographer, Martin Traynor, who works with French models and magazines. “He told me my beard was great and to leave it longer because a wave of bearded men was coming. And that kind of weird look helped me stay. I received an announcement for Germany, for two days of work in Mar del Plata, 4000 dollars. I lived on that money for a whole year“, he rejoices again.

This is how he is summoned by many television advertising agencies, like a Chilean optician, where he embodies seven characters in the same play. Another of her achievements as a model was when she starred in a video by the Puerto Rican band, Street 13, directed by René Perez Joglar. He raises a glass of beer, shouts, hits one, His head is violently submerged in a fishbowl. He had to play a lot, but the artist was not interested in investigating the theater world. He says it’s good to put on a “face”. Nothing more. “I have a good face with a strange look, but in acting I’m a little wooden“, he rocks.

When he felt he was ready, he started giving painting lessons. He had something to give. Regarding his love life, he says he never started a family or got married and luckily he has no children. “I have absolute freedom and I like it very much. I had girlfriends but I never made it official“, he manifests.

Lucas says the installation at the door of his house was born when the best things happen, accidentally, without a preset. “Because I liked collecting things a lot, I’m kind of a hoarder even though I don’t have a house full of things, when I found something on the street things that might be useful to me, I put them together, like some old calculators, some weird computers. Plus other things I had, records, walkmans, that I didn’t want to throw away, because they’re so cute and they represent such a milestone in my life, my teenage years, with this mechanical thing when now that’s it touch screen“, account. He had everything in a drawer and intended to get rid of these objects. “When I was about to throw it away, something lit up for me. It occurred to me to stick something like this on the doorbell, like it was a space object or a secret agent, like something more technological. i have to make movies“, he reveals. And the story continues: “The next day, the first student who painted, instead of ringing the bell, rang the Discman and a CD intervened by me with paint was expelled”. With this confusion generated, because the student had no idea what it was and why it had rung instead of the bell, Lucas decided to continue sticking outdated technology on the front of his house.

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He glued an old phone he had, a few other things, and found an artistic vein in it all.

Residents of the block quickly reacted enthusiastically, saying they had had one of these devices, which in other times aroused fascination, and now they have become nostalgic. “I have one. At home, I have a walkman. I’ll bring you, ”they would tell him. Moreover, he says that during the pandemic, people began to put their houses in order. and gave him a lot of old electronics, which for him are gold dust.

“I have every cell phone you can imagine. I have the Nokia 1100, the Startac… Each one was like a work of art in itself. There were blue, red, white, with or without a cap , more or less buttons. Now they’re all exactly the same,” he laments.

“This thing of pressing a button, moving a button to remove, move, everything mechanical has been lost in the last 10 years. Everything is already tactile. Unwittingly, what this installation reminds us of, c This is, with nostalgia, romanticism. Today, the object itself no longer has much importance for you. You have the same as the mine that is next to you. Before, every cell phone was very authentic, very special, very unique.”.

The permanent collection at hand is made to touch. Luchas has already received a kindergarten teacher with many curious children. He also meets photographers. Lucas always delighted. This is how someone also arrives who will rob him, in particular old cell phones, on which he put glue. Now they are embedded, screwed. “To take them away, they have to break through the wall.”

He says the wall is 60 or 70 percent occupied. You want to add some devices you want. One is the Atari, which someone from Bariloche has already promised to send him and he still has one waiting: the eighty-year-old Commodore 64 computer.

Each device evokes something more than its beautiful button panels. Also use. Lucas can’t forget the magic of recording his favorite song as it plays on the radio, in a cassette player, pressing REC. It was a glorious moment, when you seized the moment on a tape that would be replayed a thousand times. “It’s our story,” he concludes.

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