About me

Michxll Angxllo

(An attempt to tell my story)

To the person reading this:

I don’t know who you are. Maybe you’re on a bus, in a dark room, in a bathroom at work hiding from your boss, or in a bar at 2 a.m. trying to make sense of your own life. Maybe something is hurting you, too. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter to me, and forgive me for being so painful, but I respect who you are. Because reading is an act of resistance. And because I’m going to tell you things that not even my own shadows know.

My name is Miguel Ángel. Artistic name "Michxll Angxllo". I’m twenty-five years old. I’m from Colombia and I live in Bogotá, D.C.—that city that bites your lungs with the cold and spits on the back of your neck with the Friday sun. I’m an audiovisual artist: a filmmaker. But all those words sound nice and neat, as if my life were an indie film with a vintage filter. It isn’t—and it never will be.

This is more like a wound that learned to speak.

Black-and-white self-portrait of a man with glasses and a beard.

I. Papers That Save No One

I attended high school and graduated with a high school diploma in 2019. Afterward, I earned a technical degree in Advertising Development. I also took a basic course in Artificial Intelligence, because if you don’t learn from machines, the machines will learn from you. Similarly, I took a separate course on Social Media Monetization.

I have professional certificates and online specializations. Tons of them. In Project Management. Another in Digital Marketing and E-commerce. I took courses on Content Creation and Graphic Design. They taught me about The Art of Storytelling Through Images—a fancy way of saying “learn to always tell the truth.” I dove into Songwriting, Music Production, and another course in Electronic Music Production. Another program awarded me a diploma in Creative Writing. I studied Portrait Photography, Landscape Photography, Street Photography, and Audiovisual Narrative: Scriptwriting, Filming, and Editing. And I learned about The Art of Cinema. And that’s it for now.

That all sounds impressive. It makes me sound like a scholar. It makes me sound like I spend my time in libraries with a pipe and a wool sweater.

The truth is: those papers are tucked away in a folder I hardly ever open. Because what’s stored away doesn’t cure illnesses. Because a diploma won’t bring your life back. But knowledge is pure art, because it sparks ideas, concepts, creativity, and above all, freedom—which can change someone’s life in a split second by creating something new in this world that’s so depressing and dystopian.

Black-and-white photo of a man wearing headphones with his hands raised.

A butterfly on a leaf surrounded by black-and-white foliage.

A tabby cat looking through a black-and-white fence.

II. The project that bears my name and my goddamn resilience

In 2026—this year, right now, as I write this—I’m doing something that scares me and makes me proud at the same time.

This project is my life. I specialize in film as a cinematographer, screenwriter, videographer, director of photography, and music producer and composer. It’s all mixed together, raw, and real. I share it on social media, streaming platforms, and my personal website. My focus has always been—and always will be—on documentary filmmaking. In addition to the resources, aesthetic approaches, and main artistic elements such as lighting, composition, camera movement, color, sound, rhythm, and editing, as well as aesthetics and visual narrative; I also focus on autobiography, self-portraiture and portraiture, aesthetics, artistic nude, (conscious) eroticism, minimalism, realism, subjectivity, the poetic, the experimental, the observational, the performative, the reflective, and the contemplative.

Naked, but with clarity—let me make that clear. I’m not a pervert. I’m just a guy who’s learned that the body is borrowed territory.

A completely naked man, seen from behind in black and white, standing in front of a window.

III. Why the hell am I doing all this?

Life is but a moment.

I really learned that—not from a book, not from some nice quote on Instagram. I learned it in a hospital bed when I was eight years old, hooked up to beeping machines that nobody explained to me what they were for.

I had a stroke. Left hemisphere. No one ever knew why. The doctors called it “unexpected,” which is the nice way of saying “I haven't a clue.”

I survived. But I lost all movement on my right side. I lost my ability to speak. I lost half my vision—the right side of my field of vision, in both eyes, was gone forever. And I lost my memories. It was as if someone had taken my life and thrown it into a blender.

Intensive care. Monday after Monday. Hospitals, home, hospitals, home. I learned to walk again. To speak again. To be a different person.

Because the Miguel Ángel from before the stroke is gone. I don't know who he was. I don't remember. That guy is as unfamiliar to me as a stranger on public transportation.

The person writing this is someone else. A Frankenstein’s monster of hospital rehabilitation and my own determination to get better.

IV. The illnesses I wear like medals

Years later, my body started to show the effects. Low bone density and focal epilepsy.

Low bone density: my bones are more fragile than usual. Any fall could result in a fracture. Any bump could be a tragedy. I live in fear of tripping. And I trip often.

Focal epilepsy: Sometimes a small part of my brain short-circuits. I don’t collapse, but I zone out. I lose track of time for a few seconds. Sometimes minutes. When I come back to myself, I’m confused, scared, and don’t know where I am. It’s like someone turned off the TV and turned it back on to a different channel.

And memory... memory is the worst. I don't remember my childhood clearly, just vague memories of who I used to be. I don't remember the stroke. I don't remember what I used to do as a child. I only know it happened because people tell me so. I live with photo albums that aren't mine. With stories that belong to me but feel like they belong to someone else. I am a ghost of myself.

And here's the main reason behind this whole damn project:

I don't know what my purpose in life is.

I still don't have the answer. But while I search for it, I do what I love. Because it makes me feel good. And because if my pain can help someone—even if it's just one stranger who reads this and thinks, “Ah, I'm not alone”—then it was all worth it.

My art is melancholy. It is nostalgia. It is creating beauty from broken pieces. Because my pain isn’t just physical. It’s also in my mind. In the memories I’ve lost. In the memories I’ll never get back. In that childhood that wasn’t happy, but that I can’t talk about either because I don’t remember it fully.

A misty black-and-white landscape with silhouettes of trees and power lines.

Tall trees in the thick fog, in black and white.

A misty gray background with a blurred tree silhouette at the bottom.

V. I don't work. I can't. And that's not an excuse

I have no work experience. Zero. Nothing. Not a single formal job in my life.

I completed my associate’s degree in Advertising Development through a production-based project. At the school, that means that instead of doing an internship at a company, you create your own project. It lasts six months. You also have to defend and present your work. You present it. They approve it. And that’s it. You don’t set foot in an office, you don’t have a boss, you don’t sign a contract—yet I learned a great deal about projects there.

In those short courses and professional specialization programs I took, between modules, sections, and units, I also had to complete short projects to keep moving forward or finish the course entirely: some took hours, others a few days, but they all taught me the same thing: that time is precious, that punctuality matters, that thorough research isn’t a luxury but a necessity, and that every project must begin with a clear objective, because in the end, knowledge doesn’t last forever, and one doesn’t study just to accumulate facts, but to turn what’s learned into creating, producing, shaping, and designing art before the heart stops beating.

Creating projects has always been a part of my life. That’s why I have extensive knowledge and experience in this area.

But getting back to the main point, that, combined with my health issues, leaves me out of the job market. Let’s be honest: no company wants to hire someone who might have a seizure in the middle of a meeting, or who might break a bone after tripping over a chair. They don’t want to be held liable. They don’t want to spend money on a workplace accident involving someone with a complicated medical history.

And then there’s my vision. I’ve permanently lost the right side of my visual field in both eyes. That means I can’t see what’s happening to my right. I bump into people, I bump into doors, I bump into life. Just getting around Bogotá on my own is an ordeal. Cars honk at me. People look at me strangely. The world isn’t made for people like me.

That’s why my project is my only way out. Selling content. Sponsors. Collaborations with other artists. Personal branding. Because if the system doesn’t want me, I’ll create my own system.

That's exactly why I have more experience with projects than with the typical 8-to-5 job.

A man sitting in a white chair next to a loaded motorcycle on the street.

A blurry urban scene of a man walking down the street wearing a helmet.

A street photograph of a woman walking in a park.

A blurry black-and-white photo of players on a field.

VI. Carpe Diem and Civil Disobedience

There are two phrases that are etched in my mind.

Carpe Diem. It doesn’t mean “eat, drink, and be merry because you’re going to die.” It’s deeper than that: seize the day. Knowing that every sunrise could be your last. And even so, do something. Create something. Say something. Not for fame, not for money. Because if you don’t create, you wither away.

Civil disobedience. It’s not about going out and breaking windows. It’s about refusing to follow the rules when the rules are unfair. It’s about forging your own path when everyone else’s path leads you to the slaughterhouse. It’s about saying “no” to a system that dismisses you as sick, and “yes” to your own madness of living by making art.

That's me. That's my personal and professional life.

I do what I do in a responsible and respectful way, without hurting anyone. The only person I hurt is myself, and I do that with my own consent.

Close-up of a hand and torso in shadow against the light from a window.

An artistic black-and-white close-up of a man's hip curve against a curtain.

Silhouettes of a hand and a torso against a curtain.

VII. Art is my resistance

I'm not doing this out of pity. I hate pity. People who look at you with those puppy-dog eyes. People who say, “Poor thing,” and then forget all about it.

I do this because it’s the only way I’ve found to turn pain into something that doesn’t reek of death.

My project isn’t a diary of complaints. It’s a manifesto of existence. In other words: I’m here, even if they don’t want me here. I’m here, even if my body is in ruins. I’m here, and as long as I’m here, I’m going to create.

The documentary—in other words: this body, mind, and story are beautiful too. This troubled mind is capable of thought as well. This half-lived life is worth living too.

A black-and-white silhouette of a hibiscus flower under a cloudy sky.

A dragonfly perched on a black-and-white stone surface.

VIII. Fear and time

My life still feels young. But given my condition, I don’t know how much time I have left. My low bone density could lead to complications. My epilepsy could get worse. The next stroke could be the one that ends it all.

That's not melodrama. It's medical reality.

And that’s exactly why every day is urgent. Every photo I take could be my last. Every composition I create could be the end. Every video I record could be my farewell. Every piece I write is all I have left. It’s the truth of someone living with an hourglass at the back of their neck.

Carpe Diem, once again. But not as a slogan. As a survival strategy.

A low-angle black-and-white view of the bark of a tall tree.

A black-and-white image of a tree trunk and leaves.

A lone tree in the fog, with the silhouette of a man on a bicycle and cables, in black and white.

IX. The podcast, images, text, videos, and audio.

On my podcast, I talk. I talk to myself. I talk as if you were sitting next to me in a cheap bar, with a warm beer and a cigarette that keeps going out.

I’m talking about my life. I’m talking about the artists who inspired me—from Bukowski to Pizarnik, from Cartier-Bresson to Salgado, from Kubrick to Fincher, from Zimmer to Williams, and many more. They, too, knew pain. They all wrote, photographed, filmed, and played from the depths of despair. I’m no better than them. I’m just another link in the same broken chain.

Through images, text, videos, and audio, I share my creative process from the beginning to the end of my time in this world. Because things should also be shown from different angles of a project. Not to show off. To understand. To put photos, words, recordings, and sounds to what I feel. So that someone else knows they aren’t crazy, but simply human.

A cloudy sky in black and white with sunlight filtering through the clouds.

A cloudy sky rendered in grayscale with a sun glare at the bottom.

X. Collaborations, portfolio, sponsorships, content exclusive and magazine

I have a Patreon account where I sell exclusive content. That’s where I share my most personal work. It’s not just nudes. I share absolutely everything about my creative process, my studies, my learning, my creations, my inventions, my frustrating days, and everything else. Is it erotic? No. It’s intimacy. It’s about revealing what society prefers to hide: the reality of learning and growth.

A portfolio of my unexpected creations, like the mist brushing against my face without me realizing what’s happening.

Similarly, I am always open to collaborating with others in all areas of my work.

Any brands interested in sponsoring me—if any ever come along—will have to understand that. I’m not here to share happiness. I share the truth. And the truth isn’t pretty. But it’s authentic.

All of this is because art doesn't pay the rent—including this website. Because the nobility of the starving artist is a story the rich like to tell. I don't want to be a martyr. I want to be someone who makes a living from what he does.

I publish a magazine where I discuss topics related to cinema, though nothing to do with technical aspects—rather, I focus on the emotional side: stories, anecdotes, events, suspense, laughter, and tears that you never would have imagined could happen.

A black-and-white photograph of a man's buttocks and a hand near a curtain.

A black-and-white close-up of a hand gently touching a torso.

An abstract black-and-white image of a man's penis behind a curtain with a floral pattern.

XI. The finest art

This isn't a résumé. This isn't a cover letter for a job I'll never have. This is a narrative. A story. A justification for my time on this earth.

Because I could have said, “I'm Miguel Angel, I have this background, I'm working on this project—end of story.” But that would be cold. It would be a lie. It would be hiding behind my reality.

The most refined art is the kind that hides the artist. I disagree. For me, the most refined art is the kind that reveals the artist in all their turmoil and suffering, even if it gives everything, even if it hurts, even if it brings tears to the eyes.

That's what I do. That's who I am.

A completely naked man in black and white standing in front of a window.

A man in black and white, his body's curves highlighted by the backlighting.

An artistic black-and-white photograph of a man's back and curves.

XII. Thank you

To the person who has read this far:

Thank you. For your time. For your energy. For not turning the page when the words got heavy. For listening—even if only through a screen—to a stranger who once nearly died and hasn’t stopped creating ever since.

I don't know if this project will amount to anything. I don't know if brands will sponsor me. I don't know if anyone will buy my content. I don't know if anyone will want to collaborate with me. I don't know if anyone will watch, read, and/or listen to my content.

But I'm trying.

And while I try, I am happy. Or as close to happiness as a man can feel when death is breathing down his neck and melancholy weighs on his body and mind.