The most concrete definition of an intrusive image is when a person receives a material (videotape, e-mail, cassette, photograph, letter, book, etc.) that interrupts their life. The intrusive image is the unexpected that bursts into the fatal dance of reality in which it seems that everything is written, defined, sung, recited and thought, showing that everything can hang by a thread. The intrusive image interrupts the prevailing logic giving power to other possibilities and thus generating the inconceivable on a greater or lesser scale.

A virus that triggers a pandemic. A letter of dismissal. A photo of a lover. A call. A poem. A video. An email. A historical document. A box. A bomb. A song. Anything can become an intrusive image. The image and the intruder is not in the thing itself, but in the effects it unleashes, in its multiple meanings that can emerge in a specific situation or narration.

This publication arises from the Call for research projects and artistic experimentation La Escocesa 2020 La imagen intrusa, by Marla Jacarilla and Juan David Galindo.