Past exhibition
Mar Guerrero
COSMIC NETWORKS
September 13 - November , 2018
Press release

From the concrete observation of space, through the dictatorships established between tradition and future, ideas of technological progress and migratory aesthetics are put into tension. The main objective is to investigate about the concept of 'networks' from two main axes. The first part of the idea of ​​'human networks', which has been carried out through a series of actions in Madrid (Matadero Madrid), Johannesburg (Nirox Foundation) and Miami (Art Center South Florida). The second point is related to the idea of ​​'technological networks', developing a research on the SKA SA (Square Kilometre Array) radio telescope and the growing technological industry linked to interplanetary tourism.

 

Can we feel the immensity? For the realization of the audio-visual Cosmic Migrations, a workshop is held in the facilities of Matadero Madrid, where the basis of a spatial program is built, which will invite the participant to develop a series of practices that will dissociate it from the space and time, to enter physically and mentally in a fictional space. Thus, a hypothetical journey through the cosmos is made, integrating us into a continuous movement of relationships between celestial bodies. In the installation we find ourselves in a scenario that invites us to share the time of observation and reflection from the body to the stars.

 

The Earth Constellation piece is composed of various areas made of plaster, which are deposited in the landscape along the journey from Johannesburg to Cape Town. This action refers to The Nile Meridian, a set of sites where from a symbolic point of view, the Nile terrestrial imitates in its journey the Nilo Celeste or Via Lactea. Since the beginning of humanity we have contemplated the sky and told stories about the stars, the African continent is a source overflowing with traditions and stories in relation to the cosmos. In the origin myths of many African societies, the first beings descended from heaven, a world with powerful spirits and a creator god, believed to have special abilities these early ancestors founded communities and served as connectors between the realms of earth and heaven.

 

We are presenting part of the audio-visual Fictions on the other side of the frontier, piece in process, since two of the three have been made expeditions that comprise it. In the first of this series, Cosmic Expedition, a journey is made from the origins of humanity until the origin of the universe. After a journey around the Sterkfontein caves, (Cradle of Humanity), where archaeological remains of hominid beings were first found, up to the facilities of SKA SA, an international project to build what will be the largest radio telescope on the planet. This will formed by a network of radio astronomy sensors, composed of thousands of antennas equivalent to one square kilometre of total surface distributed between two continents, Africa and Australia. Spanish scientists will be participating in all of the key research projects that are planned for this, ranging from the exploration of alien signals to the search for answers about dark energy, going through the study of the first galaxies and stars that formed after the Big Bang. The radio telescope allows one to see further, that is, further back in the weather. This project poses dichotomies between the resources invested in discovering the mysteries outside our planet as well as the complex political, social and environmental situation that shakes Africa. The whole expedition will be marked by a series of encounters with local people and SKA SA workers, who will lead the way of the explorer. This main character appropriates afronauts clothes, a historical figure that emerged in Zambia when the US and the USSR were immersed in the Cold War and in the Space Race to the Moon. Although in reality it is the look of someone who comes from outside who presents a Ambiguous identity, like an alien who has just arrived, who looks at this world for the first time. The following audio-visual, aims to appropriate the aesthetic and symbolic atmosphere of science fiction, since 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Man Who Fell To Earth; Y of art, making reference to artists such as Yinka Shonibare or Cristina de Middel. A journey is thus constructed, a visual narration that accounts for a change in the look, in the territory and in time.

 

The next chapter, Space Tourism, takes place in the US (or on the Moon), developing a plot based on two scenarios: HM69 Nike Missile Site (Homestead) and the Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral). We are at different times: the Cuban missiles Crisis, in the context of the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union disputed the arrival to the satellite terrestrial, at the same time as they prepared and defended themselves against a possible attack on the other; and a promise of interplanetary future that could become part of the past. Timeless scenarios with a similar aesthetic: desire to go out into outer space and fear of irruption in one's own space, projections towards other worlds without locating ourselves, technologies of conflict and illusion. We find new races towards the conquest and the commodification of the territory. As well as an idea of ​​space tourism outdated, to be able to visit other satellites and planets through attractions and 3D simulations. How do we imagine the future of space tourism?

 

The third expedition will take place in Russia, at Baikonur cosmodrome facilities, where we can find the remains of the space shuttle Buran. Soviet politicians thought that the shuttle could destabilize the balance of power established during the Cold War. This project became the largest and most expensive in the history of space exploration, and the Soviet Cosmic Networks refers to the construction of fiction; own, induced and / or dreamed. In this sense, and as one of possible endings, I quote Jonathan Crary and his dystopian 24/7: "In the framework of the mid-20th century futurism, the products that one bought and integrated into daily life seemed vaguely linked to popular evocations of a future world prosperity, the benign automation that would displace human work, space exploration, the elimination of crime, disease, and other similar phenomena. There was at least one confidence placed in the solutions technologies in response to social problems. Now, the accelerated time of the supposed change erases all perception of an extended time frame that is shared with a community and that sustains even a nebulous anticipation of a future different from the current reality. "