y Rita

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Within the albur and the culture of masculinity, aggression is portrayed as a sexual, symbolic, and evidently masculine feature; the female element is turned, symbolically, into a passive object of use and abuse. "y Rita" is a set of objects for conceptual interaction based on the Mexican albur "Concha, Queta, Mela y Rita”, where one might experience the pleasure and irritability of a violent game commonly known as manliness.

"y Rita" is a collection of interactive conceptual objects which form part of the last collection "Albures" from the Mexican group La Tlapalería.
"Albures" was presented at Wanted Design, NYC, May 2015. Its intention is to create interaction among the conceptual objects, underlying within that interaction a cultural interpretation.

Albures" is derived from the word albur.
In Mexico, an albur is a pun or a double entendre in which all meanings strictly carry sexual undertones. There are two general purposes of an albur: the sexual joke and general degradation.

"y Rita" is a set of objects based on a chosen albur which is about four friends: Concha, Queta, Mela & Rita. This one is a phonetic type of albur, being an homonimous. When you say these names quickly in Mexican Spanish, it can be interpreted as: "When you masturbate me, you get my cock irritated".

Each one of the characters is interpreted in one of the tools used in order to interact with the central piece. The central piece is a clear reference to the phallus. You can play with it to achieve a great pleasure and at the same time you irritate it.

An albur can be used as a joke to be comical between friends, but it also has its dark side.

In Mexican culture, and in the practice of using the albur, there's a constant exhibition of masculinity where the person who says the albur (who is usually a male) tries to degrade the other person by showing his "lack of virility".

The iron filings represent the societal ideology of attraction towards phallocentrism. They end up irritating it, in the same way masculinity eventually gets into us. "Don't cry", "man up", "don't be a pussy", "be a man". This relationship transforms into a stressful atmosphere where men "need" to prove their virility. It all leads to a violent culture.