THE ECHO OF OBLIVION

What is time other than a succession of events that we inevitably try to control as we begin to forget…

As human beings, we are always willing to forget. Our essence is based on it, and we cannot avoid it because our existence also depends on it.

The past ––once our present and also as longed for and imagined as our future––is nothing more than a collection of facts, situations, events and circumstances that shape how we experience our present, which is nothing other than the reality we currently inhabit and a state in which we forget everything that we have already experienced.

Like an echo that momentarily exists in the environment as it tries to prolong its own existence yet ultimately disappears, we witness individual images appearing before us and merging into one as they claim their new essence. Old images from another time and era that have only been preserved due to harmony appear too before us. At a certain moment, and as a result of our presence, balance is lost, and we begin an inevitable, fearful journey towards oblivion.

But as that eternal process of catching everything in the shadows of oblivion is being consolidated, we realize that we are simply mere observers, whose passivity has only accelerated a process that should have happened naturally. It is the same process that allows a solid to take on a liquid state and change its shape ––but not its essence. A liquid’s past existence can be conceived as rigid, stable and permanent, but once altered, it is inevitably active.

A collective project by Guillermo Anselmo Vezzosi (Visual Artist/Architect), Dr. Eric Larour (Scientist V and Group Supervisor for the Sea Level and Ice Group in the Earth Sciences Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory –– JPL/NASA)

Video project developed with the collaboration of José Luis Bongiovanni (Entrenautas)

CREATED FOR IMAX ROOM MUSEUM SOL DEL NINO / GRUPO FILAMENTO – MEXICO

“PARTICLES”

Particles/Partículas, which was originally created for an IMAX format in an exhibition curated by Marisa Caichiolo at the Sol del Niño Museum in Mexicali, Mexico, has a haunting beauty that guides the viewer through suggestions, taking them from a very arid and dry space towards one where each drop of water is celebrated as a source of life.

The archetypal work taps into Lutyens’s explorations of synesthesia, a condition in which certain people experience an involuntary crossover of the senses.

Particles/Partículas draws on Lutyens’s practice of hypnosis performances which he has showcased in many places such as Culture Summit in Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim NY, the Centre Pompidou, and the Venice Biennial. For Lutyens, hypnosis and synesthesia is intimately linked and points to the possibility of expanding our consciousness through the rewiring of the mind at subconscious levels. He sees art as a transformative process in the audience.

The theme of water has been explored many times by Lutyens, particularly with his large scale sculpture, The Droplet, which was exhibited at the Musée de la Monnaie in 2017 in Paris. The project explored the theme of water security in a historical context and the threats we face today through climate change. He gained the support of eight of the world’s top water scientists, whose words were integrated into the 45’ high sculpture.

The narrative content of Particles/Partículas evolved from a recent trip to the desert area of Al’Ula in Saudi Arabia, in which cultures including the Nabateans have for centuries venerated water as the most precious element that is at the fulcrum between us thriving and our own ecological collapse.

The video, featuring artist Yi-Ping, is an allegory of a larger picture that is happening at planet scale, and hopefully in its own way influences the viewer to value each drop of water with which we come into contact.

CURATED BY MARISA CAICHIOLO

PRESENTED BY VITRINA LAB NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION MIAMI ARTIST: IVAN NAVARRO

The artwork immerses the audience in a digitally-built artificial scenario. The trees, rocks, and fragments of soil are installed in what seems to be a film set, with steel structures (truss) and a chroma-green screen background, a technique used in post production to replace the background in films.

How do we navigate the idea of ‘landscape’ nowadays? How do we understand the territory under the notion of ‘natural’?

The animation shows a setting in which everything or nothing can happen, even a piece of timber floating without any reasonable explanation.

Finally, the music composition was designed by Francisca Bascuñán, by translating the data from the three-dimensional digital objects in the setting into sounds.

CURATED BY MAHARA MARTINEZ