^{_{Exhibition view of «Skype» by Melanie Smith at XII Bienal FEMSA at Centro de las Artes, Monterrey, Mexico, 2016}}

The Colonia Veraniega is an area outside Monterrey where european industrial company managers of the 1920’s would pass their summers to escape the heat from the city. Now the area is practically a ruin of its former self. This largely european wreckage made the setting for this short film, filmed entirely from my studio in Mexico City via skype. Here the physical voyage is superseded by the virtual one, and a substandard image bizarrely induces remnants of painterly surfaces from the past.

^{_{Melanie Smith. Mapa de Monterrey 1930, 2016. Óleo sobre MDF, 42 x 50 cm. Melanie Smith. Nube 4, 2016. Óleo sobre MDF, 30 x 36 cm. Melanie Smith. Mapa de la CDMX 1875, 2016. Óleo  sobre  MDF , 41 x 55  cm}}

^{_{Stills from «Skype», Melanie Smith, 2016, Video recording on iPhone via Skype app, 14′}}