Interference

Sep 15 to Oct 30, 2021

Interference is an investigation into the creation of systems and ecosystems through unique coding languages. The exhibition, which emerged from an interest in the dialogue between art and engineering, has cybernetics—understood as the study of systems that entail a cause-and-effect relationship—at its core. The three works created especially for this exhibition are based in logics that internally responds to their own rationality, however when seen from outside—for example, by viewers in a physical space—they become ambiguous. It is just this tension between systematic logic and perception that this exhibition interrogates, as it blurs the lines between the human, the organic, and the technological.

Echo is an open-code sculpture, the result of a collaboration between Lúa Coderch, Julia Múgica, Lluís Nacenta, and Iván Paz. Referencing the myth of the nymph Echo, the sculpture only knows and can only use words it has heard before. Echo listens, responds, and rehearses ways of combining learned words. Thus, the sculpture depends on others to expand its vocabulary, develop its language, and articulate increasingly complex thoughts. As in the myth, Echo is a body that is stripped of meaning, or at most has only coincidental meaning. Despite this, it finds a way to speak, largely dependent on the ability of listeners to imbue what they have heard with greater significance.

In Un bosque sintético dentro de una piedra [Synthetic Forest Within a Stone], Serafín Álvarez presents a sculpture that contains a small digital world. Drawing on the aesthetic of videogames, the artist incorporates the observation of sea creatures, microscopic photography, and scientific illustration to generate an ecosystem comprised of different species of alien microorganisms. These ‘beings’ behave autonomously, interact with each other, and undergo diverse biological processes in real time within this virtual landscape. According to the artist, this is a speculative simulation that imagines possible life forms beyond our planet, perhaps also beyond our time, inspired in notions of astrobiology, astrogeology, artificial life, and synthetic biology.

In the series Redundancy, Karlos Gil works with pieces of neon repurposed from old advertising signs, archeological remains of a technology in risk of extinction, which have lost their original meaning and adopted a new one. Based on reflection around the memory and biography of these recycled objects, the artist establishes analogies with the organic, and considers the presence of passing time in the things we humans create. Here the typographical shapes of the neon pieces—reminiscent of some alien calligraphy or hieroglyphics—seem to hide an encrypted message. The neon works also give off a series of message in morse code as they activate and try to establish communication, toeing the thin line between meaning and lack thereof.