LA CARPETA DE CARLOS ANDRES CORTES:
Cortes mimics the historical legacy of Las Carpetas—the FBI surveillance files that targeted Puerto Rican activists, intellectuals, and artists throughout the 20th century. Using satire, AI-generated documentation, and self-directed myth-making, Cortes crafts a fictional FBI file that interrogates how dissent is cataloged, caricatured, and ultimately criminalized in the eyes of authoritarian power.
The project is both absurd and chilling. It invites viewers to laugh, but not without discomfort. Through a fabricated file that casts the artist as a potentially dangerous threat to the Trump administration, Cortes explores the fine line between humor and horror in a climate of escalating political suppression.
The file poses urgent questions: Who is considered a threat in our society? Who decides? Is dissent a matter of ideology—or simply of being outside the in-group? The work draws connections between historical surveillance of Puerto Rican citizens and the modern targeting of university students, activists, and intellectuals—particularly those who question dominant narratives. The “threat” in question isn’t just the radical; it’s anyone who dares to think critically.
By referencing the Greek notion of kairos—the right or opportune moment—the project acts as a wake-up call. It encourages viewers to recognize this critical juncture: a moment in which silence becomes complicity, and where speaking out, even humorously, is an act of resistance.
Ultimately, this work invites reflection not just on state surveillance with the assistance of AI, but on the structural realities of capitalism and white supremacy. It suggests that under a system designed to benefit white billionaire men, everyone else will eventually be deemed expendable. LA CARPETA DE CARLOS ANDRES CORTES doesn’t just expose the absurdity of surveillance—it implicates us all in the fragile mechanics of freedom, truth, and Surveillance.
