EN RESiDÈNCiA és un projecte experimental de residències d’artistes a instituts públics de Barcelona. Cada creador concep un projecte artístic per ser desenvolupat a l’institut amb un grup d’alumnes d’ESO i amb la implicació de tota la comunitat educativa.

TRANSFORMA_ACCIONS URBANES DE CREACIÓ COL·LECTIVA PER A LA MILLORA AMBIENTAL I SOCIAL DE L’ENTORN

Lluís Sabadell Artiga EN RESiDÈNCiA a l’Institut Collserola

TRANSFORMA proposa la realització d’una acció urbana creada col·lectivament entre l’artista, els arquitectes i els estudiants de l’IES Collserola implicats en la residència. L’objectiu és que aquesta acció urbana suposi una millora ambiental i/o social de l’entorn de l’institut. Per tant, el projecte de millora ha de sorgir de les condicions i el coneixement del territori (institut, carrer, barri…). I qui millor que els seus habitants pot conèixer els punts forts i les mancances, les seves disfuncions? Qui millor pot pensar com donar solució a aquestes mancances i disfuncions?

Partint d’aquests principis, Lluís Sabadell Artiga i Ecosistema Urbano plantegen un procés de treball i una metodologia que els porti a crear un mecanisme de transformació autoimpulsat. El valor artístic del projecte, doncs, consisteix tant en el resultat final com en la gestió de la potència creativa col·lectiva.

L’obra final anirà definint-se a mesura que es desenvolupin les diferents fases de treball: anàlisi de l’entorn, selecció de l’àmbit d’actuació, definició i ideació del projecte i realització.

Podeu seguir el procés de treball al blog del projecte.

Sínthesis (o el descobriment de la mel) és una performance que reflexiona sobre l’espiritualitat contemporània.

Sínthesis és un esdeveniment performàtic en forma de trilogia, presentat com un retaule que es desplega en 3 parts. Aquesta acció está entesa com un ritus o com una litúrgia total i per tant no desenvolupa una acció argumental sino que centra tota l’atenció en els elements que la formen: acció, paraula, cant, objectes… aquests elements en són el corpus principal.

La paraula Síntesi prové del grec synthesis/syntithenai “posar junt, ajuntar, combinar” de Syn “ajuntar” + tithenai “posar, emplassar”. Síntesi és l’oposat d’anàlisi. Anàlisi suposa la distinció i la ressolució d’allò complex en elements més simples. Aquestes són dues maneres d’aproximar-se i d’aprehendre  la realitat. La ciència ens ha aportat el coneixement analític i reduccionista: dividir allò a estudiar en porcions més i més petites i en especialitats d’estudi més i més delimitades. La mística en canvi, suposa tot el contrari: una aproximació total, fins i tot excessiva a la realitat. Divisió i separació vs. Unió i totalitat. Aquest acte performátic utilitza diferents aproximacions místiques, espirituals i científiques entenent-les com un tot integrat esdevenint així una acció trascendent en si mateixa.

L’acció té tres registres: la part cantada, la part llegida i un llibret que no tan sols recull els textos de la performance sinó també altres escrits provinents de fonts tant diverses com l’escolàstica clàssica (Meister Eckhart), la mística occidental (Julian of Norwich, Simone Weil), el budisme (Nâgârjuna), l’induisme, el sufisme iraní (Mahmûd Sahvestari)… però també la de la Teoria de la Complexitat (Edgar Morin).

Crèdits:

Idea, llibret i imatges: Lluís Sabadell Artiga

Música: Xavi Lloses i Lluís Sabadell Artiga

Soprano: Laia Frigolé

Viola de gamba: Santi Miron

Ballarí: Isidre Rebenaque i Cru

Recitats: Lluís Sabadell i Artiga

LLOCS i DATES

·Festival EBENT 2009

Dissabte 21 de Novembre de 2009 a les 20h (hora a confirmar)

L’Antic Hospital de La Capella - c/Hospital, 56 08001- Barcelona

Divendres 27 de Novembre de 2009 a les 21:30h (hora a confirmar)

Ca L’Estruch - c/Sant Isidre, 140 - 08208 Sabadell

Workshop on-line impartido por mi durante los meses de septiembre i octubre de 2009.

Sobre el proyecto

El objetivo del proyecto PIRINEOS: ARTE Y ECOLOGÍA EN EL s. XXI es divulgar, a través del lenguaje artístico contemporáneo, el conocimiento científico actual sobre las amenazas que el calentamiento global provocado por la actividad humana, empieza a causar sobre el paisaje; otro objetivo es discutir el sentido y la función que el arte aporta al conocimiento de la naturaleza y la sociedad del s. XXI.

El proyecto PIRINEOS: ARTE Y ECOLOGÍA EN EL s.XXI consta de dos fases:

• fase 1: Seminario científico: evolución del paisaje, cambio climático, y arte (teórico y práctico)
• fase 2: Estancia de trabajo en residencia.

Consecutivamente a la realización del seminario y la estancia de trabajo en residencia, se abre a través de este portal la participación on-line a todas aquellas personas interesadas en el medio ambiente y el arte.

Sobre el taller on-line

Coincidiendo con la presencia de los artistas en residencia en las diversas sedes desarrollando sus obras de forma presencial, se ha organizado un “taller virtual” dirigido y coordinado por Lluís Sabadell Artiga para que todas aquellas personas interesadas en el proyecto puedan participar de manera “expandida” gracias a la utilización de las diversas herramientas de comunicación on-line al alcance.

Objetivo

Desarrollar una obra artística colectiva a través de internet. La obra será presentada en la exposición que se realizará el próximo 2010.

Music: Xavi Lloses  Type of work: Video-sound installation   Materials: Neon of 2.30 meters long, oscillometry, Photo-video digital camera with 2.3 ‘ LCD display, transformer, plant, 4 CDs.

una lámina de agua cubre todo el espacio de la cueva devolviendo su reflejo perfecto y creando un espacio infinito sin principio ni fin. bajo la superfície del agua una constelación de leds de luz blanca esparcidos por una superfície de unos siete metros de diámetro en forma de círculo que se difumina por los bordes, va subiendo y bajando de intensidad según el movimiento del mar. las olas en su ir y venir son las que alimentan de energía estas luces accionando unos generadores de corriente hidráulicos. de este modo la escultura se convierte en un elemento vivo y autosuficiente como el entorno que la acoge, como el mar que le da vida. la virgen viene del mar. la energía que alimenta la escultura viene también del mar. Luz, Agua, Energía…

el sonido del mar junto con la cadencia de aparición y desaparición de la luz hace que todo el espacio de la cueva se impregne de un halo mágico y el lugar adquiera una atmosfera sagrada que invita al silencio y el recogimiento, a la introspección. Como el viejo mito alquímico relata “lo de arriba es igual a lo de abajo”…

Esta obra forma parte del proyecto para el Concurso para la “Remodelación de la Plaza de la Patrona de Canarias y su entorno” realizado conjuntamente con Manuel Feo Ojeda y Claudia Collmar. En el programa se pedía una escultura de luz para la cueva donde apareció la Virgen de Candelaria, patrona de las Islas Canarias. Este proyecto obtuvo el tercer premio.

Enero - Marzo 2009

Presentación

EL PAISAJE EXPANDIDO: LA CUMBRE reflexiona sobre como llevar un paso más allá la relación que establecemos con el paisaje, expandiendo en consecuencia no solo esta relación sino también la condición que este adquiere para nosotros. Ampliar nuestras percepciones implica automáticamente expandir el paisaje, y para ello no hace falta más que profundizar en las conexiones ocultas u olvidadas de la relación con nuestro entorno. Esta percepción del paisaje está tanto relacionada con nuestros sentidos, como con el bagaje cultural y social que llevamos con nosotros y que condiciona nuestras percepciones.

Expandir el paisaje significa pues, no prestar más atención a nosotros ni al paisaje, sino prestarla a la relación que se establece entre ambos, de manera que automáticamente se diluyen las fronteras entre uno y otro y se abren nuevos mundos inmanentes a los dos.

A partir de estas premisas nos hemos aproximado al concepto de la cumbre con una mirada abierta a percibirla en toda su complejidad y abordandola desde la multiplicidad de aproximaciones que fundamentalmente giran alrededor de la idea que considera la cumbre como un lugar salvaje, natural, indómito, protegido… analizándolos desde diversos puntos de vista: el reencuentro con nuestros sentidos (La percepción ampliada), el debate conceptual por usar opuestos que nos permitan posicionarnos y construir una definición siempre precaria (Natural/Artificial y Hombre/Naturaleza) o bien analizando los procesos como espacios donde se produce la explosión de la vida (El paisaje como proceso) y como esto permite entender como complementarios aspectos que antes considerábamos totalmente antagónicos (Creación/Destrucción/Cambio).

Taller expandido

Metodológicamente este taller se ha desarrollado mediante un formato totalmente innovador, expandido en sí mismo: mezclando el trabajo presencial con los alumnos de la ETSA.ULPGC y los participantes online de diferentes países. El proceso creativo se ha desarrollado de forma virtual con el objetivo de realizar posteriormente de manera física las intervenciones para la exposición, llevando un paso más allá la colaboración creativa gracias al uso de las nuevas tecnologías e internet que han permitido poner en contacto a creadores de los más diversos puntos de España y Europa trabajando en la elaboración de las obras para esta exposición.

Lluís Sabadell Artiga
Director del taller

Participantes

ESCUELA TÉCNICA SUPERIOR DE ARQUITECTURA.ULPGC
PROYECTOS ARQUITECTÓNICOS I

Comisario: Manuel J. Feo Ojeda
Director: Lluís Sabadell Artiga
Coordinador: Antonio Rocha Quintero

PARTICIPANTES:

Natural/Artificial
Gerardo Hernández Perdomo
Eduardo Hernández Izquierdo
María Núñez Villena
Carolina Santana Naranjo
Óscar Navarro Grueso (Badajoz/Online)
Francisco Cevallos (Segovia(Online)
Pilar Delgado Mesonero (Barcelona/Online)

Hombre/Naturaleza
Álvaro de la Cruz de las Vecinas
Óscar Latorre González
Patricia Ruiz Feliciano
Raquel Jurado Batista
Sara Niebla Chandas
A. Jaime Rivas Rodríguez
Lila Suárez Gómez
Álvaro de la Cruz de las Vecinas
Fernanda Caram Codina
Oriol Piferrer (Banyoles/Online)
Fernando Alfaro (Valencia/Online)

La percepción ampliada
Araceli Mesa Provecho
María Tomé Nuez
Agustín Uribe Echevarria
Pablo Delgado Núñez

Creación/Destrucción/Cambio
Nuria E. Pérez Santana
Tania Delgado Acosta
Unai Barrameda González
Carlos Marrero Macías
Sara Armento (Pescara_It/Online)
Angelo Bucci (Pescara_It/Online)

La Naturaleza como proceso
Santos Bregaña (Gipuzkoa/Online)
María Cucurulla (Barcelona y Alemania/Online)
Isa Roldan (Sevilla/Online)

David Rocha Quintero
Yessica Santana Santana

Losing place. This dissociation between man and nature has resulted in human beings losing their place on Earth and within the natural cycle of life and I say this not from a poetic or new age point of view but rather from a substantial one. This loss of place has also meant the lack of a feeling towards nature. The concept of landscape emerges when we become modern “individuals” independent from our surroundings and we can, therefore, identify the landscape as an element external to ourselves to admire it as an object or res extensa. The first step towards a reunion between man and nature would be to talk of the world in the second person – as Jordi Pigem proposes – which will allow us to establish other types of dyadic relationships between two equal elements. This you instead of he/she places us in a position of equality and of proximity that allows us to reinstate our place in/with nature. Nature is no longer that other but is this other and this this other refers only to ourselves.

Listening. Being able to speak on an equal basis with nature means being capable not only of speaking, affecting surroundings, but of having the capacity to listen – a very difficult aspect in an egocentric society like the modern one where individuality is put before and above all. We would have to set up a parliament of things, as Bruno Latour proposes, which finally also means listening to nature, to ourselves, to our body and to our natural substrate that Western medicine has largely forgotten, relegating this responsibility to machines and to medical specialists. Therefore, the moment has arrived to listen and stop blindly acting on the world.

Nature no longer exists. It is inevitable to think that nature is not nor will ever be more than a nature in “pure state”. The action of man on the world has a history of more than thirty million years to believe that he has not, directly or indirectly, left his mark on all the corners of our planet. In this sense the development of man on Earth has left and is leaving his mark day after day. If we understand by nature what Descartes called res extensa, that which exists in itself outside of man and his thought, this non-human, purely materialist nature no longer exists. In a process of co-existence (rather one should talk of in-existence understood as living-in or being-in) of around thirty million years, the mark of man on Earth (biotic substrate) is undeniable and now we can no longer talk of nature as such, it is necessary to find other terms. The chaotic matricial substrate is given form ecumenally (eco-techno-symbolically). The Earth, with the effect of technology and culture, is transformed into world. We no longer live on the Earth, we live in the world.

Basic trajection: biotic trajection. Any living being is a system that needs energy to be able to subsist: from a plant cell to an elephant or a man, all require, in this life process, energy that they constantly transform. In its development any living being is an interior that takes from the exterior resources that modify this interior and this exterior. When we eat an apple we feed ourselves and transform the matter into energy and into other matter (cells…) also changing the exterior (the apple). By eating we are interiorizing the world and exteriorizing ourselves. Obviously this trajection is basic because it affects any living being but this very trajection can evolve and become increasingly more complex until reaching a high level of symbolization and of mediation, which would be what Augustin Berque calls ecumenal development (eco-techno-symbolic). In this text we will develop the two fundamental elements, in my opinion, of trajection: food and home as motors of constant transformation of the surroundings (of the world).

Our physiology and the surroundings. The basic need of all living beings is that of satisfying the requirements of food and this fact obliges us to establish a relationship with the surroundings. Therefore, our physiology will only make sense if it is in contact with these surroundings and these surroundings define it. We are how we are based on how our surroundings are. In order to receive energy in the form of matter we must be able to perceive it and, moreover, assimilate it as food. This implies that our physiology is founded and constituted, in principle, in function of these two parameters.

The basic and universal trajective movement: food. The basic need to feed establishes a trajective relationship with the surroundings given that, based on a primary interior need (to eat), we interact, first cognitively and then technically, on our surroundings (taking this food, and therefore affecting and changing it). This is a basically trajective movement given that it connects at a very basic– not yet cultural – level common to all living beings our interior and our exterior. In this sense, the biochemists Maturana and Varela talk of giving birth to a world; in the words of Berque we cosmosize ourselves (we make a cosmos) in the world but, also, we somatize it (we make body) constantly. This is precisely the trajective movement, which keeps the landscape in constant mutation, a movement to and fro between our interior and our exterior which never stops and that maintains the buzz of life in movement.

Biological trajection and cultural trajection. We can distinguish two types of trajections: those based on the basic physiological needs of our own development as living beings (food, nest, reproduction) which to a greater or lesser extent are universal and those which emerge based on and a posteriori to the former; we would speak in this case of cultural trajection. Both have a direct influence on our surroundings. When the basic needs are covered a cultural development can emerge, a relationship with our surroundings which is the result of a surplus of time and energy and which goes beyond what is meant to satisfy basic needs. This also involves the development of a complex symbolic relationship, which finally channels this relationship with the exterior and obviously also directly affects it. Thus we see how the biological trajective movement can finally become a much more complex trajective movement, as is the cultural, which mediates between our interior and our exterior.

The emergence of agriculture: the stabilization of the primary need. The appearance of agriculture, together with the technological revolution it brought, made it possible to stabilize one of the main basic needs: food. The effects of this stabilization also had repercussions on the relationship with nature as sedentariness emerged together with social, economic and other repercussions. But what most interests us is the emergence of a new relationship with the second of the basic needs: shelter. The establishment, more or less permanent, allowed the development and the rooting of the shelter which gave body and form to the house. A technological change like agriculture provoked, by extension, a change in the shelter transforming it with time into a house and later into a home.

Concentric needs. As we have seen the ambit in which we move is the analysis of the most animal root of the being-in-the-world and because it is the most fundamental it also becomes the most universal. It is possible to make a diagram through circles that would concentrically be added to the needs of men beginning with the most basic and therefore most universal, until the most individual and subjective or cultural. Therefore, we would locate food on the outermost circle, then shelter and afterwards reproduction. These three factors are common to almost all living beings. From here the need would begin to be diluted in specificity and the social or group communication need would emerge which would lead to culture: a specifically human need. Within culture we can find different levels of relationship of need that gradually individualize (the need to know how to read is more universal or common than the need to have a jeep or a chalet in the mountain).

The second basic trajective element: shelter. If on the one hand food is the first trajective foundation, on the second level we find the need to find shelter, accommodation. For ants, birds, beavers and many other animals the second main foundation in life after the search for food is the construction of the nest, of the shelter or the house. This is a basic need for all living beings (some large fish or animals do not have the need to make a nest but they do defend their territory: their nest-state constructed with invisible frontiers like those of our countries). This is the second great trajective action of living beings on the world, an action that constantly transforms our surroundings to a greater or lesser extent. A colony of ants constructing its ant-hill, a stalk making its nest in a tree or a rabbit are radically transforming their own surroundings, although from our point of view these transformations can seem insignificant.

Relationships and the meta-surroundings. We can say that our being-in-the-world is mainly based on the relations that we establish with what surrounds us. Within the great sphere of what surrounds us and is closer to us, we must also include the other beings-in-the-world that share our sphere. Therefore, within the surroundings there are also other human beings who will become surroundings. When we talk of surroundings, therefore, we refer to the material and to the human that exists around us. However, at the same time, we ourselves also become surroundings given that we are the surroundings of other surroundings. The being-in-the-world in fact is being-world. This not only creates physical surroundings around us but also meta-surroundings which are the psychological, cultural and social surroundings that are often not visibly present because they are immaterial or because in our daily existence they have become invisible. These meta-surroundings are those that allow community life and, more extensively, society life.

The meta-home or the house-nation and the feeling of identity with the Earth.In his treatise Spheres Peter Sloterdijk poses the idea that the passage from the private sphere to the collective goes through the formation of globes that are common identity formations. If the family consists of a first existential wrapping that shapes the home, the nation-patria amplifies this sense of identity until establishing our identity with the country as an extension of the home. Home and country become synonyms. This patriotic feeling serves as a catalyser to form social coagulations that emerge from the structured relationships of great groups of population.

The amplifying effect of society. The change from nomadic cultures to sedentary cultures provokes a large growth in populations. First people live in tribes more or less reduced for eminently practical reasons given that if not the movements would have become exoduses. The settlement in fixed enclaves means that community life becomes society life with the consequences that this implies. The most important aspect for the issue that concerns us is that the influence of an individual or a small group of individuals on the surroundings is highly amplified exponentially with the massive increase in population. Society, with the consequent cultural expansion, provokes much faster changes and the consequences are much more serious. Ants, for example, are social but not cultural beings that constantly affect the world and essentially their-world, constructing ant-hills. The social nature of the ant-hills means that they can intervene much more powerfully in the world, adapting it to their needs.

We all work for a better world. All living beings are genetically programmed with the impulse to cover their needs, above all the basic. This means, as we have seen, decisively affecting their surroundings to adapt it, above all with the nest, to their needs. In this process of change what is sought is to create a better-world-to-live-in. The ant-hill constructed by the ants is in fact their better-world-to-live-in. Therefore, in any basic process of life trajection there is a sense of utopia, whether in animals or in persons, to construct a better-world-to-live-in. The fact of having more or less success in this impulse only depends on the accuracy when establishing our priorities for the needs to be satisfied.

Complex relationships. As we have seen, when the basic needs are covered we have a surplus of time and energy that allows us to develop much more complex ways of relating. This is how the meta-surroundings emerge. Culture is the meta-surroundings that, we can say, encompasses the surplus development of the human being on Earth. Culture acts as a filter when affecting the world until distorting the basic needs in such a way that they become almost invisible. With all the cultural substrate that has been accumulated about our existence – and more since the appearance of modernity – the most animal part of man or the basic needs have become invisible elements and in many cases troublesome for culture or have been regurgitated by it in forms of postmodernist atrophy: the chalet, nouvelle cuisine.

Economy as a cultural metaphor of organization of the basic foundations of life: house and food. In order to be able to establish a link that regulates and organizes the relationships that appear through culture of the surplus which emerged from the Neolithic, man develops a super-effective and practical system as is that of money and on a higher level, that of the economy. Although these two concepts have been associated with a series of eminently negative moral values, it is still a symbolic system of amoral exchange (in the strict sense, that is, without morals).

The cultural filter and the economy. Culture understood as a symbolic development of the being on Earth acts as a filter when affecting the world through technique. And as we have seen, affecting the world or the act of trajecting is primarily governed by the basic laws of food and home. Thus, culture acts as a sieve between our basic needs and the developing world, a technique through which we shape these basic needs in the surroundings and in the meta-surroundings. It is, therefore, the cultural lens which will optimize or not the resources of the surroundings now providing a moral charge to the economy.

Subtrophy and hypertrophy of the house and eating. The trophics of the basic relationships of man with his surroundings are provoked by moral trophics acquired after thousands of years of mistakes and misunderstandings. The trophics are therefore imbalances within our ecosystem by excess or by defect and are related with the two basic elements of life: house and food. The hypertrophy of the first economic powers of the world generates an excess (not for nothing the richest country in the world is also one of the fattest countries of the world) and the subtrophy a defect. These trophics have their origin in the relationship of possession that we establish with our surroundings and with its basic foundations.

Reformulating the basic trajective relationships: house and food. It is therefore necessary to first reformulate our basic relationships with the surroundings from two aspects that are currently in crisis and that are fundamental: house and food. A society without these aspects in balance (whether through hypertrophy or dystrophy) can have neither a socially nor culturally harmonious and balanced development. This is evident in the innumerable wars that assail our planet: all military confrontations, without exception, are provoked by imbalances with the house (invasion of countries, nationalisms…) and with food (control of energy resources). Moreover, the situation of development chaos of our country also denotes a largely unaware relationship with the house element.

The emergence of change as a concentric movement. Let us return to the diagram of needs of living beings. In this diagram a process of concentration is produced as we approach its centre. In the middle of this is the subject that demands a multitude of personal and peremptory, circumstantial and non-universal needs. A concentric force is thus produced from the exterior to the interior. From the universal towards the concrete. Therefore, a change of eccentric mentality is very difficult (from inside to outside) – society itself already uses this same denomination, often contemptuously. If there is no alternative, the change must be concentric from outside to inside (from universal to concrete). If we make the basic and fundamental needs of all persons shake, the remaining needs will automatically be reformulated. In short, being without a jeep can mean a more or less bearable calamity but being without a house and without food makes us see life through other eyes.

Crisis as an emergency. The ecological crisis we are currently experiencing is in fact a crisis that affects our house which is the planet Earth (the term ecological comes from the Greek oikos meaning house) and this implies, paradoxically, that it is also a crisis of food as, in our case, our house gives us food. This crisis is therefore the driving force that will lead to a social, economic, technological and political shift that will regenerate our whole world and drastically, radically and unquestionably relocate the relationships of need that we establish in our life with our surroundings. If we do not decide to voluntarily change it will be the house, the Earth, that which will change us and our world.

Recycling humanity. For this change to take place a fundamental circumstance must appear: we must recycle humanity. When talking of recycling I do so in the literal sense of the term: to return to the cycle. If man had not lost his most intimate connection with nature and had not exiled himself from the cycle of life we would not currently be in the situation we are. It is, therefore, necessary to recover our place in the cycle. Resuming the cycle will mean resuming life. If modernism has taken us to this point, postmodernism has realised this meaning and the obsolescence of this proposal. The modern machine has expired. It is, therefore, the moment to resume what is biotic. Resuming the natural cycle means recovering our lost eternity as we give up being teleological, unidirectional, speculative, lineal and temporal. We give up being un-presentable; that is, we will cease not being in the present. If we resume the cycle we will become systemic, chaotic, attractive, dynamic and synthetic. We will be presentable again, we will therefore live in a present continuous.

The synthetic or transmodernist moment. Thus, being synthetic strictly speaking means that we will synthesise all the knowledge of the past, recycling it in a new present. This new present involves a recycling at all levels: industrial, social, political, economic… We must, therefore, cease producing disposable things. We must abandon the Kleenex era to reach a point where everything we do is useful, and when I say do it is in a sense of becoming, everything we will become with our thoughts and our acts must be immersed in a cycle that serves those coming after us. Our waste must feed the others. Everything must be recyclable, not only industrially but also in terms of life. Uncovering the modern fallacy that makes us believe that the life cycle is birth-life-death and that it ends here when, in reality, the life cycle is birth-life-death-decomposition-life for another. In this sense, being synthetic also means being transmodernist: transcending modernism. Being in the cycle means being aware and letting oneself live in the apparent instability of constant mutation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-BERQUE, A., Le paysage de Cyborg, Quintana, vol. II, 2003, “Espacios y percepciones”.

-BÖHME, G., “Perspectivas de una filosofía de la naturaleza de orientación ecológica”, in H.R. FISCHER, A. RETZER and J. SCHWEIZER, El fin de los grandes proyectos, Ed. Gedisa, Barcelona, 1997.

-CAPRA, F., La trama de la vida, Ed. Anagrama, Barcelona, 1996.

-SLOTERDIJK, P., Esferas I. Burbujas, Ed. Siruela, Madrid, 2003.

-TRIAS, E., Ciudad sobre ciudad. Arte, religión y ética en el cambio de milenio, Ed. Destino, Barcelona, 2001.

-TRIAS, E., La Edad del Espíritu, Ed. Destino, Barcelona, 2000.

-Various authors, Mouvance, cinquante mots pour le paysage. Éditions de la Villette. Paris, 1999.

In the exercise of looking at the reality which surrounds us – and the landscape is a part of this, a set of elements which interrelate and create a frame, a limit, sometimes precise, sometimes diffused – we realise that in the process of looking and all the events which start from this (thoughts, attitudes, actions…) all the structure which shapes us (cultural, social, psychological, physical…) becomes obvious. And so, the link which is established between ourselves and the landscape we see leads us to a new construction of it.

And this construction does not refer to an artistic creation or representation but rather to a vision which emerges from our own structure of thought.

The way in which we conceive landscape also conditions how we confront it when the time comes to modify it. We could say that the first conscious modifications took place at the moment when man went from being a gatherer to being a farmer. This was a geographical modification of space. This change could even have been earlier, when this primitive man decided to cut a branch to make a cover from the rain, thereby creating an architectural modification of space.

It is probable that these two changes took place together, in a space of time we could call contemporary but not simultaneous, as a change must surely have taken place inside primitive man which enabled him to think of himself not only as another part in all his system, but also as a part which could reconvert certain elements of this ecosystem for his own use, by changing and modifying space.

This change of mentality produced a radical and profound change of the entire social, mental and sacred structure of man at the same time as it completely changed the face of the planet.

The discourses on our relation with nature raise the question as to whether we consider ourselves as one more part of a whole system or, on the contrary, that man does not belong to it and therefore is a different element. In a general way, these are two positions which define our role in nature.

If so-called primitive man considered himself the usufructuary of a territory, of a nature which surrounded him, of which he formed part and which offered him its fruits to feed himself in this specific context, it is logical that the sacred concept towards nature that is typical of ancestral civilisations should appear. We see then that the relation between what is sacred is still a relation of gratitude and interchange as well as fear in the face of what is larger and unknown. However, there is an identification between man and nature. And so any intervention that has a positive or negative effect on it, will directly affect man for he is part of it. All the ritual offerings to mother nature are therefore understandable.

We find ourselves then in a situation of equilibrium in which man and nature form a unity and this balance begins to be upset when human beings realise that they can intervene in this process and modify it – cultivate – the territory. This leads to the fact that man considers he has rights over the land he works, rights which result in a sense of ownership.

The bond of ownership does not become a situation of respect or equality, but just the opposite. It places us on another level with respect to what is owned; we are not an integral part of it now, man and nature have divided.

Was this change the beginning of a catastrophe or was it the beginning of an unbridled evolution-revolution towards a better world? Where is the boundary/limit of these modifications, of this evolution: historical, moral, of survival, spatial, technical, scientific…?

These are only a few of the questions that emerge when we think about landscape and the role played by man in its constant modelling. The work of the artists in this exhibition goes beyond this. All of them transgress not the concept of landscape, but rather landscape itself through the creation of hybrid landscapes which dilute the limits between what is natural and what is artificial. But at the same time, they cause us to reflect on what can be considered natural and what artificial. Does there really exist today (or has there ever existed) in a strict sense what is natural? Can a family of peas genetically modified according to the Mendelian method be considered artificial? Is it when it enters a laboratory that it is artificial? As always there are more questions than answers.

What relation becomes established between man and nature? And what happens when this relation is mediated by technology and/or science? There is no doubt that science is a structure of thought and a cultural construction. As Dora Fried Schnitman says, another social womb, however much we want to understand it, even today, as an objective vehicle, external to what is personal and human, external to what is subjective, in fact.

From the time of antiquity until the Middle Ages there was a conception of knowledge, of knowledge understood as a unity, even though categorised. These categories were not unconnected among themselves. There was only an opposition between knowledge and the absence of knowledge or ignorance, between light and darkness, but thought was a real continuum.

This unitary conception began to crack in the seventeenth century, called the century of science, when knowledge became specialised and the connection between the different branches gradually became lost. This process culminated in the twentieth century, in what C.P. Snow called the “two cultures”: humanistic and scientific.

Thus, there appeared the two great approaches to reality which have developed side by side until the present time. It is evident that reality itself has constantly cast doubt on this division, posing serious philosophical problems to scientists but, at the same time, contributing methodological layouts to philosophers.

This division would also condition our approach to nature. We could place ourselves before the landscape in a romantic, sentimental, poetic, subjective, passionate way… or instead in a scientific, cold, objective, measured, methodological manner… There were no intermediate options, there were no greys, as one position automatically invalidated the other. And so, the scientific approach will annul the poetic vision of the landscape and the poetic vision the scientific.

It is not until the two cultures enter in crisis, independently and precisely because of this desire for independence and division, that what Snow himself will call some years later the Third Culture starts to be noticeable. This is a culture that has emerged from the union, or the meeting between the humanistic and the scientific. While romantics died of feelings, a few centuries later scientists died of sentimental inanition, asepsis and both of them from disconnection with reality. Each of the two cultures had to assert and carry through their positions – the one claiming in its moment art for art and the other claiming science for science – to finish by realising that what they said had no meaning if they excluded the other.

It was at this time when romantics had to look at the world from a little more distance and scientists had to come out of their laboratories to breathe fresh air. And it is at this point that they met and established dialogues which brought them together by making them realise that their positions were not mutually exclusive, but complementary.

It was during the second half of the last century, especially the last decades, when the “two cultures” began to walk side by side. We will see how the creative potential of the world of art is increasingly claimed by the world of science, but also how methods, planning and scientific technologies are acquired by the world of art.

It is at this point that poetic reason and scientific reason come together and widen their respective and mutual horizons in order to advance and open an infinite range of possibilities which both will profit from.

This entire process is not without a certain tension between the elements that make it up – man-nature, nature-technology, art-science… – and which become the ideal field of cultivation for new plans, new paradigms to emerge from, which will shape the process of construction of the present reality.

We realise, therefore, how the new techno-scienific tools help us to observe, understand and go deeper into nature and landscape, in order to explain what we can call the metalandscape that there is behind what we can see. They enable us to see the hidden connections that are built up from the relations and interconnections among the elements that make up this landscape.

It is in this context that the poetics of landscape emerges, the hidden poetics that is only visible thanks to the tools and methods of science and technology and which these artists use to emphasise it or intervene in it. They do not change the landscape but instead they go further than that and, by using these tools and methods, change this hidden structure, creating new connections which make it more evident. They transgress landscape, modifying its essence.

By means of different documentation (photographs, videos…) they present the recording of processes of work and at the same time of nature, in which we observe how the ones intervene in the others provoking the emergence of new spaces and new relations.

Lluís Sabadell i Artiga

Materials: Stones and horse excrements   Sizes: 400 x 400 cm.   Year: 2008   Where: International Meeting EcoArt in Nature- Anversa, Italy

PROCESS WORK N°2

SQUARE AND LINE

NATURA E CULTURA

(RE)CYCLE OF LIFE

(RE)CYCLING CULTURE (means coming back to life)

RENATURER LA CULTURE / RECULTURER LA NATURE

ECONCEPTUAL ART

LESS IS MORE

FROM SAND TO SOIL (there’s just shit in between)

FROM DEATH TO LIFE (there’s just shit and water in between)

S-OIL

C’è UN PROCESSO

IT’S ABOUT LIVING PROCESSES

THE SHIT OF LIFE

RECYCLING HUMANITY (is bringing humanity back to the cycle of life)

THIS LINE IS PART OF A HUGE CIRCLE/CYCLE

ALL IS NATURE

ALL IS NATURAL

UNNATURAL ATTITUDES ARE THOSE THAT GO AGAINST LIFE

NATURE IS LIFE

LIFE IS NATURAL

REAL NATURE IS NOT GREEN*

*Koert van Meensvoort

SMELLING OBJECT*

*Geert Schiks

THIS IS A LIVING SCULPTURE

LIVING THINGS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS WORK

BEAUTY & SHIT (BUTTERFLY SUITE)

Technique: Photograph   Year: 2008