Everything you've said goes against you The narrative circularity of Clàudia Pagès

Claudia Pagès’ mesmerizing video installation Gerundi circular (2021) revolves around global maritime routes, legal jargon, and the relentless flow of commerce and people that has characterized capitalism in action. Filmed in a seamless 360-degree loop, the footage blends the rhythmic gestures of three performers and layers of handwritten texts into a series of music-video sequences. The panoramic narrative is set around three distinctive and interconnected sites related to the past and present of Barcelona’s commercial port: the ship-shaped business hub of the World Trade Center, the 19th-century customs building, and the harbour breakwater. Completing the installation is a cardboard carpet printed with snippets of phrases derived from law manuals in which Pagès mixes up gerunds (a verb form that does not inflect gender or number) and considers bodies as both objects and actants. Gerundi circular bears witness to the logistical intricacies of the city as a seemingly frictionless interface between the open space of the sea and manmade infrastructures, behaviours and languages.