During the summer of 1997, avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage acquired a Bolex camera. A few days later, he decided to test it out by filming a nearby stream. But instead of recording the surface of the water, he chose to capture the undercurrents—that which stirred below. This exploration of the existence that lies just under the surface of everyday life might be emblematic of the kind of artistic experience that the Argentinean artist Jorge Gumier Maier seeks as well.

It suggests a way of looking at the world. “I have always been fascinated by silent, almost mute things, things that move only