Apuntes 2018 II

Cómo debería proceder ahora? El método que he llevado a cabo me conviene?

El Humboldt brasileño
Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira (April 27, 1756 – April 23, 1815) was a naturalist born in the
Portuguese colony of Brazil. He undertook an extensive journey which crossed the interior of
the Amazon Basin to Mato Grosso, between 1783 and 1792. During this journey, he described
the agriculture, flora, fauna, and native inhabitants. Because of the energy and skill that he
devoted to his explorations, he became known as the "Brazilian Humboldt".

Proyecto sobre la transparencia- el agua- el acuario-la pecera

Lla historia de la pecera como ansia y dezeo de ver, desde otra perspectiva.

Pecera a nivel de suelo?

Romper el suelo y hacer una pecera, que no permita ver.

Musgo de java, etc.

Pecera opaca, modelos no visuales de pecera. Ornato, peces etc.

Lo tengo en mi libro de historia natural que me regalo lud

THE QUIET
Image

The Invisible Aesthetics of Perception

Keren Goldberg

I enter a small, dark room, and discover a weird mechanism, composed of tropical plants, lights, and
unfamiliar meteorological instruments. This machine is meant to enhance the elusive feeling of the
‘quiet before the storm’. It is indeed quiet, only the gentle sound of a humidifier can be heard, but I
am not sure whether I am actually sensing something in the air, or just wanting to feel it.

The installation, called ‘The Quiet’, is the result of artist duo Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen’s
intensive research of this natural, scientific, cultural and historical phenomenon, the ‘quiet before the
storm’. They have tried to simulate its invisible conditions: a cold daylight, low temperature, high
humidity levels, electromagnetic waves at a specific frequency, high levels of VOC (volatile organic
compounds), which are artificially emitted here through the exposure of the tropical plants to
daylight LEDs; and finally, increased levels of positive ions, which are believed to cause the negative
feeling present when a storm is approaching.

‘Believed’ is a key word in this project. Together with all these supposedly scientific variants, Cohen
and Van Balen have also included some folkloric artefacts, which are culturally related to this
romantic phenomenon. Hanging in the centre are two storm glasses, specially designed in the early
19th century to predict upcoming storms. Another barometer is made of shark liver oil, which
apparently becomes murky in the face of an approaching storm. These small bottles can still be found
hanging on balconies in Bermuda.

These varied compounds seem as if part of a mechanical construction, but they do not derive their
meaning from a bigger totality, simply because such a totality is missing. The quiet before the storm
is stretched between the scientific and the mystical, in a similar manner to the entire field of
meteorology, where the boundary between science and folklore is blurred (meteorology as a science
was developed in the 19th century, based on subjective fishermen’s observations). The quiet before
the storm is a subjective feeling as much as it is a natural effect. However, when one belie ves, one has
no need in understanding. During the quiet moments before a storm, the supernatural becomes the
natural. The attempt itself to replicate a semi-scientific mythos is absurd, and Cohen and Van Balen
are aware of this difficulty. ‘The Quiet’ is also humorous and self-reflexive in its so-called scientific
trial to create wild pre-storm conditions in a tiny closed room.
In investigating this connection between the supernatural and natural, Cohen and Van Balen
consulted not just meteorologists, but also pain specialists. It is believed that the conditions of the
quiet before the storm heighten pain, which is not surprising, considering the influence the weather
has on our health and body. Pain, just as the sensation of the quiet before the storm, is u ndefined,
amorphous and improvable. Moreover, it relates to another aspect of this phenomenon, which is the
linguistic one. The quiet before the storm is not just a meteorological-mystical situation, but also a
cultural-social paradigm: before the disaster comes, before the pain is inflected, everything seems
peaceful and right.

The heightened feeling of pain is part of a physical form of knowledge or presence, a moment of
connection to the earth, plants, the atmosphere and universe. It is commonly known th at animals can
predict natural disasters and are more sensitive to the conditions before a storm. Birds cease to
tweet and dogs run to find shelter. In sharing this sensitivity with the animals in the moments before
the storm, the human being is becoming animal. When speaking on their concept of ‘becoming
animal’, the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari mention that a specific factor is
necessary in order to communicate the process of becoming (1). Perhaps this factor is the quiet
before the storm, the relation of the animal to nature, through which the human being is becoming
animal.
Deleuze and Guattari also mention art, and especially music, in relation to the process of
becoming (2). Cohen and Van Balen create the musical score of quiet, of silence, which is also, like
pain, a relative construct. Their work of art is a machine, a real working operation in space. But this
machine does not produce any tactile, functional product. On the contrary, the only thing it produces
is quiet, the negation of an occurrence.
Art history is famously paved with various attempts to represent the natural world around us, and
many contemporary artists have tried to simulate natural phenomena. Olafur Eliasson, for example,
is known for his artistic-scientific investigations of light, water, reflections, the horizon and gravity.
However, these works, even when they involve some elements of magic or mystery, always refer
back to concrete natural processes, or proven scientific phenomena. In ‘The Quiet’, the wor k of art
becomes a feeling, and no one knows if it even exists in real life, let alone in the artistic cage of
representation.

In ‘The Quiet’, a new kind of aesthetic relation between object and subject is formed. It is a new way
of thinking of Kant’s elusive ‘common sense’, an inherent part of his concept of the aesthetic
judgment. Similar to Kant’s process of aesthetic judgment, which is based on a subjective principal
but nonetheless holds a universal validity (3), the subject inside ‘The Quiet’ wonders whether his
feelings are subjective, or inflected by his environment and shared with all. He becomes hyper aware
of his sensations, while constantly checking if the work ‘works’. Whether the work works or not, the
viewer perceives nothing but his own perception, and simply becomes aware of that. In this sense,
‘The Quiet’ creates the aesthetics of the invisible, the aesthetics of perception.

1. Becoming is an unnatural process of change, in which the elements involved shed their characteristics
and wear new forms, through the production of molecules that enter into specific relations of rest and
movement, in a zone of proximity. Becoming is always becoming minor, therefore involving an act of de-
territorialisation. More in ‘Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible…’ in: A
Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, trans: Brian
Massumi, Continuum, 2004, p.302.
2. Ibid., p.300.

3. Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Critique of Judgment, translated with Introduction and Notes by J.H.
Bernard (2nd ed. revised) (London: Macmillan, 1914). 22 February 2015,
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1217, clause 22.

> Supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award

> Thanks to Ben Ditzen, Hannah Fasching, Doug Parker and Steve Arnold.

Trapped in the Dream of the Other

I+D en el arte?

Hacer que la practica artística aparezca gracias a y reacicone a experiencias concretas.

Situaciones y contextos que le den un marco especifico de acción al artista.

El proyecto entonces es el modo de proceder.

Como lo de claire bishop que puso sobre una expo que se hizo pensando en unos edificios de el
arquitecto le crobusier y donde muchos artistas trabajaron bajo el mismo marco.

Esto hace que la curaduría no sea una construcción discursiva que selecicone piezas. Sino que es
una practica que dota de un contexto y acompaña un desarrollo especifico.
Exponer a un grupo de artistas a contextos específicos.___ como lo del tercer paisaje, caminar de
la provincia a la ciudad.

O la reserva ecológica de Carlitos. El lugar de villajuarez.

Entonces el curador no articula un discurso que lo posiciona en calidad autoral superior. Sino que
se vuelve un agente en la investigación de dicha experiencia.

((: me gustaría que así fuera mi practica curatorial.

_________________________________-

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/mundo/marina-de-eu-se-disculpa-por-dibujo-obsceno-en-el-cielo
The theme of the 18th WRO Media Art Biennale in 2019 in the 30th
anniversary year of WRO is the HUMAN ASPECT.
Structures of continually increasing capacities, artificial intelligence environments,
power and knowledge which trigger self-propelling relationships within vast
networks, lives – natural and artificial, and non-human cognitive perspectives
locate the human aspect in novel contexts. In how far is the human aspect subject
to technology? To what degree and from what viewpoint is the human aspect
autonomous, unpredictable, faulty, creative?

WRO Biennale
The WRO Media Art Biennale is the major forum for media art in Poland and one of
the leading international contemporary art events in Europe. Since its inception in
1989, WRO has been presenting art forms created using new media for artistic
expression and communication, exploring current creative territories, and forming
a critical perspective of emerging issues in culture, art, society, technology, and
humanities.
 Every two years, Wrocław becomes a place of presentation for the most recent
artistic practicies, combined with talks and meetings of artists and scientists with
the participating audience, oscillating in variable dynamics between both
contemplation and consideration, experience and confrontation.

Over the years, the WRO Biennales have raised a variety of questions about
creative approaches to new technologies and the creative crossover realms that
arise where art and science, economics and social activism intersect.

:___

 A. Maniobras que implican: a) asimilar contradicciones sin salida; b) desmantelar

discursos e ideologías; c) hacer resaltar paradojas (y potencializarlas), y d(develar
y ocultar (poner trampas, tender mantos).
 B. Estrategias de (re)constitución de la trama de la historia, a partir de la
deconstrucción de otras narrativas, según: 1) el material de estudio (archivos y
arqueología); 2) objetos y vídeos encontrados o buscados, y 3) técnicas propias
más de pescador que de cazador (Doisneau).
 C. Combinación asistemática de (anti)métodos: objetos parciales; recorridos
interrumpidos; asociaciones inesperadas; cortes sincrónicos y asociaciones
diacrónicas (transhistorias); conexiones y reconexiones (otra espiral en la espiral
mítica); “abrir abismos en lugares comunes” (Karl Kraus); en algunos lugares
comunes tales como banana republic, el buen salvaje, representaciones idílicas o
monstruosas, etc”[iv].

https://todointeresante.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/fotos-%C2%BFasi-seran-los-animales-del-
futuro/

animales del futuro

El grusgrus es un pájaro que viviría en lo alto de las montañas. Sus plumas azul-metálico reflejan
los rayos del sol para proteger su cuerpo de la radiación.

“the future is wild” en Wikipedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3DiojtIMXI

https://www.eldefinido.cl/actualidad/mundo/8936/Como-seran-los-animales-del-futuro-
Cientifico-muestra-su-extrana-evolucion/

____

For a long time, I’ve been curious about applying the methodology of art as
one way—which I think is equal to science and other powerful explanatory
concepts—for us to understand what is surrounding us and what we are.
—Carsten Höller
Gagosian is pleased to present Zoology, Carsten Höller’s first exhibition in
Geneva.
Trained as a scientist, Höller both echoes and surpasses scientific
procedures in his work as an artist. Many of his projects invite viewer
participation in order to question the facts and forms of human life. From
carousels that reflect and disorient to winding slippery slides and vision-
flipping goggles, Höller actively interrogates the functions of logic,
perception, and entertainment in the larger biosphere.
Zoology is a selection of Höller’s recent sculptures, photographs, and prints,
made between 2008 and 2016, which considers how different forms of
animal life might relate to human embodied awareness. Through taxidermy,
casting, molding, and collage, Höller presents beings that cannot be easily
categorized: they are animals, but they do not occur in nature; rather they
are the products of anthropocentric will—of mutation, breeding, and
grafting. And just as the scientist turns captive birds into hybrids, Höller
turns snakes into soft, squeezable curves of neon-pink artificiality. In their
color and form, the animals become implacable rarities—in Divisions
(Roach and Surface) (2016), minimalist-industrial materials and a
modulated orange grid form a suspension chamber for a small shiny fish,
while in the series of photogravures Canaries (2009), birds perch with
feathers growing at wild, intersecting angles. Zoology thus adds another
layer to Höller’s phenomenological queries: instead of entering at will a
carousel, a gigantic die, or a slide, we encounter rubbery creatures and
experience the childlike urge to prod and pull, although the objects—being
art—are strictly out of bounds. It is this tactile wit that brings the sculptures
into a surreal or hyperreal realm, between human and animal, between
nature and art, taking us along with them.

https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2009/carsten-holler-reindeers-spheres/