Consumption Linee _ a tribute to Piero Manzoni

Consumption Linee _a tribute to Piero Manzoni is the site specific art piece that we have created for the Socle du Monde Art Festival which concpet has been developed by Tijs Visser at HEART Museum in Herning, Denmark.

Curated by Simon Njami

Without solution of continuity, a Line, wrote Manzoni, “does not measure metres . . but is zero, not zero as an end, but as the beginning of an infinite series”.

Lines of Infinite length do not measure time or distance, but represent endless duration and limitless extension. If there is anything today that we can define as infinite, it would be the trash generated by human beings. Consumption Linee aims to symbolise this infinite, continuous and unbridled consumption in which we find ourselves.  The recovery and reuse of the polystyrene (flamingo in Danish) that, generally, protects the most precious goods during their transport, is the starting point of a work that reflects on global supply chains, but also on daily acts of consumption and the links that are established between them.

We are part of the *DO IT! Upcycle* together with other artist such as Sui Park, Jean Tinguely and Arman, Cesar, Christo, Daniel Spoerri, Francois Dufrene, Gérard Deschamps, Jacques Villeglé, Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle, Raimond Hains, Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp.

 

Scion

Scion is the beginning of an investigation into the forms of production of the plant species with which we cohabit in our most intimate environments, in our homes, but also into the forms of care, of exchange, of relationship… that unite and unite us, the human caretakers, with our plants. Enhancing these multi-species relationships that go unnoticed could be the pillars of a change in the relational paradigm in the city.

The research has been developed together with students of the Department of Visual Culture of the Technical University of Vienna during the seminar Plantare (PLANT + cARE) and other citizens of Vienna. The result and the work of the students can be seen in this magazine published specifically to accompany the installation.

Scion is part of the group exhibition Bordering Plants curated by Carmen Lael Hines, Roberto Majano and Adam Hudec for the Gallery of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and with exhibition design by Bilal Alame and Joanna Zabielska.

Boardering Plants will consider, through critical transdisciplinary work, how plants interrogate, affirm or question notions of the border. Interpreting borders not as a stagnant entity, but, to quote Brett Neilson and Sandro Mezzadra, as a ‘methodology’ and an ‘epistemic standpoint’ for thinking about ‘shaped’ and ‘re-shaped’ relationships, (…) of tension and conflict, partition and connection, traversal and barricade, life and death’. The border thus becomes not a fact, but a methodological perspective that suggests something binary, on various scales.

All our relationships with plants should be symbiotic, collaborative relationships, for our survival depends on theirs, and it is this sometimes invisible link that Scion reflects on. The project is an investigation into the forms of production of the plant species with which we cohabit in our most intimate environments, in our homes, but also into the forms of care, of exchange, of relationship, that unite and unite us, the human caretakers, with their plants.

The project aims to investigate and analyse the production systems of indoor or retail plant species, to understand their mode of production, times, forms, techniques, etc., as well as their subsequent distribution. To understand the systems of production and consumption, to make the invisible visible, to become aware of the global implications of everyday acts of consumption. Contrast these plants, which generally come from large greenhouses. These places are like production factories, spaces for the chain replication of living plant beings. Greenhouses currently do not sow but replicate species using agricultural techniques such as cuttings, which means that practically all the plants sold are genetically identical (clones), and therefore the majority of the population of a specific place can be caring for exactly the same plant. Human beings united through the care of the same plant species, invisible links of relationship that the project aims to visualise in order to promote these multi-species relationships that go unnoticed but which could be the pillars of a change in the relational paradigm in the city.

 

 

MADE IN. Group exhibition: Fables for a different world.

Fabulating a different world (curated by Blanca de la Torre) suggests that the climate crisis has placed us at a turning point where the old narratives inherited from a Cartesian paradigm force us to rethink the stories behind an ecocidal hegemonic system that has been revealed as unsustainable.

Aligning the exhibition proposal and the works included in it with this propositional tone, where the element of criticism serves to rethink the planet from the eco-dependence that leads us to the
construction of different alternatives and, ultimately, to a better place. Within this framework, Basurama proposes MADE IN as an exercise in personal reflection but framed on a global scale, represented by a map with a Fuller projection, Dymaxion, which separates us from the north-south dichotomy and places us in the imaginary of other possible futures. The map is built from reused cardboard boxes – with their memory, their origin, their design, their brands -, the quintessential symbol of transport on a global scale and a fundamental reference for understanding the framework of the global trade system. The addition of the participation of those attending the exhibition will allow us to draw patterns that identify the industrial centres of production on a global scale, as well as to visualise our individual consumption.

We will establish relationships between the local and the global, the first step towards raising awareness of the interrelation of our social models and environmental impacts.

Invisible Drifts

Invisible Drifts proposes a reflection on the enormous amount of plastic waste present in our marine ecosystems, increasingly contaminated especially by nets and elements used in the fishing industry.

According to marine pollution studies carried out in 2018, around 85% of the waste found in the ocean worldwide is made up of lost or deliberately abandoned fishing nets or gear. In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the presence of elements from the fishing sector is estimated at 46% of the total 79 thousand tons of plastic. These abandoned nets, also known as ghost nets, not only pollute the seabed but are responsible for entangling and suffocating fish, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, octopuses, whales, seals and even birds. Despite the widespread belief that marine pollution is mostly made up of single-use plastics such as plastic bottles, bags or straws, the presence of these ghost nets is much greater.

Inspired by the traditional traps used by fishermen to catch crabs or lobsters, we propose an urban-scale art installation to reflect on this reality. For the installation, a real fishing net has been used, recovered and reused to build an urban fishing element, a waste in itself that has arrived directly from the ocean, a potentially dangerous net as a ghost net.

Invisible Drifts is an art installation for the Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia de Lisboa and which we inaugurated on June 25 on the occasion of the celebration of the United Nations Conference on the Oceans that took place in this same city.

Many thanks to MAAT and the entire team for the invitation and support.
With the support of the Embassy of Spain in Portugal.

Photographs by Bruno Lopes.

Memory Transfer Laboratory

Project.

Ontology defines an object as a substantial individual endowed with all its substantial properties, in particular the property of change.

Indeed, through the use of objects a change occurs in them known as “object memory”. This slow process of acquiring memory is fundamental, since it ultimately means that an object ends up being trash or becomes a unique personal treasure.

But this memory, although very powerful, is also very fragile. If at the moment when an object changes hands its memory is not transferred to the new owner, it is lost, leaving the object again in danger of becoming trash.

In an experiment never carried out before, this installation attempted to produce a transfer of memory from a series of objects from the collection of the Museu de la Vida Rural to some random plastics from the greenhouses in the area. The latest theories suggest that this process, although slow and complex, could be possible.

For the transfer to be effective, people must move through containers specifically designed for this purpose, observing the rural objects through the plastic surfaces. It is in this act of observation that the transfer could occur successfully.

The rural objects that were part of this experiment belonged to people who used them for work, household chores, travel and generally, to have a better life. Many were handmade and some had to be repaired numerous times to continue to be useful. On all of them, scratches, signs of use and the passage of time could easily be observed.

Plastic, however, is very resistant to memory. The polymer chains that compose it prevent memories from easily penetrating its structure and, thanks to its high molecular weight, sweat, dirt, words and other substances that carry memories can easily be removed from its surface.

With this experiment we wanted to see if technological evolution is this, that objects spend less time with us so that they cannot acquire a memory that prevents us from replacing them with new ones.

Context.

This installation was part of the exhibition Plàstic, organized by the Museu de la Vida Rural and curated by Núria Vila.

Faced with the challenge of dealing with a topic and a material outside the museum’s permanent collection, we wanted to investigate the possible connections between both worlds, because beyond the romantic vision that we may have of life in villages, the contemporary reality is that plastics are as much a part of the rural life model as any other object.

The visit to the museum’s warehouses, where numerous objects donated by people from the area accumulate, prompted us to try to understand why some objects can belong to us for decades and pass from generation to generation and others last in our hands for less than a few minutes.

Only Geology Lasts

Only Geology Lasts is an installation for which more than 15,000 expired plastic water bottles have been reused, creating a dystopian landscape to walk through.

It aims to reflect on a possible future in which the environment, as we know it, will have completely changed and we will have to cross geographies of plastic and lakes of salt crystals.

Likewise, Only Geology Lasts aims to imagine the possible effects of climate change, it is an indefinite landscape that can recall the melting of polar ice or refer us to any of the desert areas of the globe, represented through the central salt lake. These two scenarios shed light on the interconnection between problems and solutions that represent global environmental challenges.

The intervention can focus mainly on two of the Sustainable Development Goals, number 12: Responsible consumption and production and number 13 Climate action. And that is why it questions us about the role we play in climate change linked to our consumption processes. In a global world, where production and consumption are two sides of the same coin, where everything is interconnected, Only Geology Lasts highlights the need for alternatives to traditional forms of consumption.

Shelter from Loneliness

Collaboration with Dagoberto Rodríguez, co-founder of Los Carpinteros, for the realization of this specific work for the exhibition La NO Comunidad.

As an artistic proposal against loneliness, a “Refuge against Loneliness” is presented, taking up the idea of ​​the hermitage as one of the icons of the Spanish landscape. Mythically dedicated to hermits or monks in solitude, their widespread abandonment and conversion into the center of the festivals of all towns are the best reflection on the destruction of communities in favor of the contemporary individual.

Taking these as a basis of inspiration, they propose the construction of this refuge against loneliness as a place to escape from the mobile phone; a meeting place, intimate and at the same time open, where anyone can enter, ready to be approached by anyone, to chat, comment, lament or laugh. An architecture of complex geometry, inspired by spy planes that manage to be invisible to radar, which welcomes the viewer with an atmosphere of urban sounds and light inspired by the sunset, that moment of the day when one comes out of oneself to observe what surrounds them, share it, enjoy it, comment on it, feel it or hate it.

The NO Community was open from October 24, 2018 to January 27, 2019.
Refugio contra la Soledad was located outside, right in front of the entrance to Centro Centro and can be seen and inhabited until January 2, 2019.

The construction of the Shelter was carried out by Mimétrica.

WONDERFRUIT FESTIVAL. CYM TEMPLE

More pictures of the proyect

Context

Wonderfruit Festival is an international music and art festival that is being taken place since 2014 in Pattaya, Tailandia. This festival is centered in the curating of ephimeral installations that, during the days of the event, transform the prairie where the festival takes place in a small city with scenaries and restaurants.

Proyect

CYM Temple (CYM de Cyan, Yellow y Magenta) is an installation mainly made using straps, those strong and resistant plastic strapts used to transport big objects.

Like the majority of the materials employed in the packaging and transport, its useful life lasts for the trip from the producer to the consumer.

In Pattaya´s dump and in several barns along the main road piles of these straps can be found, together with pallets and birch plywoods, that are also employed in the making of the packages.

But in a music festival, where takes place mainly after sunset, materials are as important as the light… Or the shadows.

Due to a simple light combination everything that was going into the CYM Temple originated shadows in the basic colours, blue, yellow or pink, inviting the public to enter, experiment and more around between the jungle of straps of the installation.

Agostamiento (Withered). Abierto x Obras.

Basurama proposes an interior landscape for Abierto por Obras. It has been extracted from the plantation of 7000 sunflowers it has cultivated on Gran Vía del Sureste Avenue during the summer of 2016 with the community of the Ensanche de Vallecas area on the very southeasternmost edge of Madrid. An impossible public space welcoming everyone for a chat and a few sunflower seeds. (Sunflower seeds are one of the most popular snacks in Spain and have served as the cheapest form of entertainment for decades).

What was to be the main boulevard of the 60 meter- wide avenue is actually a secluded terrain vague of 350 mts long and 30 mts wide that has been standing there for years, waiting for a plan that is not to be completed. It is one of the many leftovers that the 2002- 2007 housing bubble left in Madrid when it bursted. A bleakly heartbreaking and unsettling urban landscape, set out to be and reinvented as an agricultural landscape, becomes a meeting place, producing both crops and relations.

Among the leftovers of the new city, there are people living, who have decided to take their lives and their communities in their own hands, taking care of them and its public spaces. When in August is time to plough, the cycle of life and inflorescence gives way to an space for life to be built and shared.

Photos of the process

Some more info:

 

The City is For Playing

The City is For Playing ephemerally hacked two of Sao Paulo´s most central highlines for the Virada Cultural festival. Viaduto do Chá and ‘Minhocão’ (elevado Costa e Silva) under spaces remain abbandoned decades after their construction and are the perfect examples of wasted spaces of the modernist metropolis.

Just with some swings made of ropes, reused advertisement outdoors and discarded tires, we transformed the use of this wasted spaces into vibrant, playful and diverse Places.
Workers and commuters, who normally avoid the areas, feel atracted by the balance of the giant swings.
Homeless people living under the Viaduto do Chá, started pushing the lonely visitors, receiving some money as gratitude.

‘Use’ is the soul of spaces. As Jane Jacobs announced, places full of people, are safer and happier.