Rencontres internationales Madrid

Les Rencontres internationales came to Madrid once more and this year with an excellent exhibition at the Tabacalera. The program is not as diverse as last year but the high quality of some of the works make it worth the visit. I will start with my favourite, a video by Hans op de Beek entitled Staging the Silence. Ironically, when I got to see this installation the sound was not working and it really changed its appreciation.

This 16 minutes videos is composed by a series of small décors set with delicacy by some anonymous hands and translate the memory of the space experienced by the artist himself. The décors reflect the absence of people allowing the spectator to experience melancholy, sadness and sometimes even to sense humour in the compositions, but what makes this piece special is the clever, yet simple, strategies in the composition of those stages (or décors) and the amazing lightning work.

Another amazing work at this exhibition is You and I, Horizontal (III) by Anthony McCall, a light projection through the smoke builds up a solid but ethereal sculpture.

Anthony McCall is well know and this specific work has almost become a myth. I have seen so many times images of this work that I was thrilled when I finally got to see it for real. McCall had played an important role on avant-garde american cinema during the 1970’s exploring sensuous experience with film projections. Definitely this piece is one of his most emblematic works where corporeal sensations are present. You and I, Horizontal (III) is part of a series of works that transform the idea of image projection (we may think about film projection) in a three-dimensional sculpture opening a new perspective of it. The visitor steps out of the 2D appreciation and is able to built for himself a spacial connection with the piece.

Finally, another well known artist Ryoji Ikeda presented the multimedia installation Data.matrix[nº1-10]. This piece was like a data symphony composed by several projection of graphic representations of data together with a sound composition.

The visuals displayed in this installation include secuenses of  Ikeda’s previous work datamatics [ver.2.0] and each graphical panel represents in a constant flow of data time, space and matter. Some of my friends who saw this with me considered minimalist, but honestly I felt like it was quite the opposite, considering the visual and the sound composition as well. The visuals were displayed with such a velocity and variation that one could be almost hypnotised, and instead of aesthetic reduction of the visual composition (common in minimalism) I felt more like an amplification but in the best of senses… Is definitely a striking piece of art!

There was much more at the rencontres internationales this year but I truly believe that this were the works that most stood out.

Open Up!

Last February it took place at Medialab-Prado an interesting collaborative workshop that aimed to produced 8 projects focused on the usage of urban screens. The workshop was an initiative of the spanish architect Nerea Calvillo in order to inaugurate the LED screen recently built in the Medialab.

I have to confess that my favourite project is luminotetris for the way it creates an interesting interaction with people in the small square just in front of the LED screen. The project creates an unique way of participation extremelly funny and engaging.

Technically is a computerVision system and the software was developed with Openframeworks, where a camera tracks people’s movements allowing them to manipulate the Tetris pieces. The fun part of this game is how people get really exited and try to find a way of playing together with others generating  clumsy and hilarious situations.

This project was developed by Javier Lloret, Carles Gutiérrez, Jordi Puig and Mar Canet. For those who understand spanish there’s a video where the authors explain their project.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Previously, Nerea Calvillo had organized a seminar Urban Screens and Public Space in September 2009, introducing interesting discussions and reflexions about the potential and the current use of urban digital façades as a way of social participation. If you are curious about it you can find the documentation here.