9 La Catástrofe SitacIX Memorias PDF
9 La Catástrofe SitacIX Memorias PDF
9 La Catástrofe SitacIX Memorias PDF
SITAC IX
Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe
ÍNDICE
Escuela de accidentes. “Favor de empujar: la puerta abre hacia dentro” 16 Eventos críticos 86
JUAN VILLORO MANUEL DELANDA
Respuesta al desastre por los medios, métodos y materiales necesarios 35 Superflex y Patrick Charpenel – Conversación 94
CONVERSACIÓN MEL CHIN Y CHRISTIAN VIVEROS-FAUNÉ
Finales 103
A Map is not the Territory 48 PABLO VARGAS LUGO
JOSÉ JIMÉNEZ ORTIZ
Panel 2
Panel 1 SARINA BASTA, DR. AMY SARA CARROL & RICARDO DOMÍNGUEZ Y PAULA SIBLILA
ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS MODERADOR: TOM VANDERBILT
(HELENA PRODUCCIONES), GEORGE OSODI Y RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES
Oceanomanía. Gestionando lo desconocido, de la sorpresa al agotamiento 117
Catástrofe, proteccionismo y explotación. O eso mismo pero en otro orden 50 SARINA BASTA
HELENA PRODUCCIONES (ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ,
CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS) Media dislocativa, una historia de fantasmas (o como frotar piedras en el nombre
de trans-cuerpos por convertir-se) 124
71 DR. AMY SARA CARROLL Y RICARDO DOMÍNGUEZ
GEORGE OSODI
Sueños de reprogramación corporal (¿Para doblegar técnicamente
Terremoto 85. Arte, arquitectura y desastre 76 a la catástrofe… o quizás para provocarla?) 142
RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES PAULA SIBILIA
DÍA 3. La imaginación estética frente al caos 158 Clínicas SITAC IX 228
Panel 3 Clínica 1
“Corporalidad y catástrofe” 232
JULIETA GONZÁLEZ, JOSÉ ROCA, ITALA SCHMELZ Y FELIPE EHRENBERG
FABIÁN GIMÉNEZ GATTO
MODERADOR: EDUARDO ABAROA
AGRADECIMIENTOS 451
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) 203
JOHAN GRIMONPREZ
Quiero agradecer al Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo A.C., La frase “Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe” es nuestro punto de partida. Me pareció
a su mesa directiva y al comité del SITAC: Aimée Servitje, un poco irónica. Podríamos entender que exista una teoría cientifica que estudie las
Patricia Sloane, Osvaldo Sánchez, Mariana Munguía, Ery Camara catástrofes. Como pronto aprenderemos, la hay, y es muy importante. Pero que alguien
y Sol Henaro por su labor indispensable a favor de un mayor concienzudamente se propusiera una práctica de la catástrofe, no tiene un sentido
alcance del diálogo en torno al arte actual. Gracias, evidente más que en un tono irónico, absurdo o profundamente destructivo. Sin
también, por haberme dado la oportunidad de colaborar embargo, en un segundo momento de reflexión acerca del mundo y de nuestra
con ustedes en este evento de la vida cultural en la ciudad de México. situación actual, acabé por encontrar atinado el título.
Expreso mi admiración y agradezco muy especialmente a todos Al terminar el 2010, tan lleno de desastres de todo tipo, pensar sobre este tema
los artistas, escritores, filósofos y curadores que, con su trabajo y talento, tiene cierta pertinencia, especialmente en lugares como México, que hoy se ve
conforman esta novena versión del SITAC y su programa de clínicas, inmerso en una serie importante de problemas, cuya solución se percibe cada vez
tan brillantemente organizadas por Sol Henaro. Quiero mencionar más lejana. Es a partir de aquí y de una manera heterodoxa, casi afectiva, que pre-
la gran labor de María Bostock y el equipo del SITAC, que han trabajado tendo generar una discusión que será muy productiva, porque este evento cuenta
intensamente para coordinar y dar forma a este evento. También a Taller con magníficos participantes.
de comunicación gráfica por su exclente trabajo de diseño. Primero es preciso y necesario definir un campo de acción. Una catástrofe
Durante los próximos tres días se cristalizará el esfuerzo realizado implica, a grandes rasgos, un cambio, una crisis o un desastre, a partir del cual ya
durante un año por personas extraordinarias; a todas ellas nada es lo mismo, un evento de la mayor trascendencia para la vida o el sistema
expreso mi reconocimiento y gratitud. Finalmente, de manera especial, al que se refiere, ya que significa su transformación inevitable e irreversible. A partir
quiero agradecer a nombre del SITAC, y a título personal, la amplia de esa definición simple, surge una gran variedad de connotaciones, las que nos
generosidad de las personas, empresas e instituciones permiten abordar en conjunto ámbitos que quizá, en otro contexto que no sea el
patrocinadoras y facilitadoras de este valioso esfuerzo colectivo. artístico, deberían estar separados. Con ello busco una pluralidad de enfoques y
temáticas, un efecto de dispersión que, estoy seguro, dará cabida a discursos dife-
rentes e, incluso, a estados de ánimo contrastantes.
A este simposio hemos invitado a filósofos, artistas, curadores y escritores a dis-
cutir las posibilidades de un vocablo antiguo y elusivo, que en su historia, desde
Aristóteles, denota un elemento dramático o trágico, es decir, teatral. Lo catastrófico
es, en primer lugar, imaginario. Los desastres proliferaban en el pensamiento mítico
de muchas culturas. Hasta hoy no ha menguado la potencia simbólica de epidemias,
diluvios, plagas y devastaciones naturales, más arrasadoras que la muerte misma.
Muestrario El amplio espectro de lo que hoy se considera arte permite una apertura a dis-
ciplinas afines como el fotoperiodismo, la pedagogía, el desarrollo sustentable y el
activismo político. Algunos artistas han configurado nuevos modelos de organización
colectiva que trascienden los esquemas de difusión artística convencional para
buscar cambios tangibles de su entorno político y social. En otros casos han logrado
provisional de canalizar los recursos culturales y materiales de las instituciones dedicadas al arte
contemporáneo hacia la recuperación de zonas de desastre, desafiando la acostum-
brada distancia de la alta cultura frente a sectores más amplios de la población.
En nuestra época parece haber una voluntad cada vez mayor de actuar frente
a una lista aparentemente interminable de problemas pendientes. Aún así sigue
eventos
siendo vigente e indispensable reflexionar sobre el sentido y el alcance de nuestras
fuerzas como sociedad e incluso como especie. No es posible siquiera considerar
el papel del arte como forma privilegiada de conocimiento, si sus practicantes eluden
investigar los episodios de crisis que afectan a un grupo cada vez mayor de personas
alrededor del mundo.
catastróficos
CVF: Vamos a empezar con un par de preguntas. Comencemos pues con el texto
introductorio del SITAC IX, del cual quisiera hacer particular énfasis sobre el si-
guiente enunciado, para, en base a él, introducir mi primer cuestionamiento: “Una
catástrofe implica a grandes rasgos un cambio, una crisis o un desastre definitivo,
a partir del cual ya nada será igual, un evento de la mayor trascendencia para
la vida o el sistema al que se refiere, ya que significa su transformación inevitable
e irreversible.”
Tú, Mel, realizaste la película 9/11 — 9/11 (2006) en el cual empataste el
septiembre 11 de 1973 en Chile, con el septiembre 11 de Manhattan. Como uno
de tantos chilenos que vivimos el golpe, conozco la manera en que una pérdida
personal puede generar empatía para con el dolor de otros. ¿Por qué te parece
importante trazar una equivalencia entre estos dos eventos históricos, los cuales
comparten una fecha en el calendario? ¿Fue para cuestionar o agujerar aquel odioso
Under Discussion (2005)
JENNIFER ALLORA & GUILLERMO CALZADILLA
fenómeno histórico del excepcionalismo estadounidense?
MC: De hecho fue un intento por descentralizar la preocupación u obsesión esta-
Esta es una pieza filmada en Vieques, una pequeña isla frente a Puerto Rico. Después de décadas de dounidense con el 11 de septiembre. Estados Unidos lo ha convertido en una
esfuerzo local y de protestas internacionales, en 2003 el gobierno estadounidense cesó los experimentos
militares en la isla. Sin embargo, el reto para los viequenses se ha vuelto otro: lograr hacerse un territorio
tragedia “nacionalista”, en la gran justificación en sus guerras subsecuentes. Poco
cuando actualmente entran en escena intereses especulativos y turísticos. Allora & Calzadilla, a través después del suceso visité el lugar de los hechos, ground zero, en compañía de un
de este trabajo, intentan movilizar esta discusión a lo largo de la isla generando poéticamente amigo y me descubrí emocionalmente incapaz de aproximarme a aquel sitio.
intersecciones entre poder, activismo y ambientalismo. Esta fue la primera exhibición pública del filme
en México.
Me detuve en seco en el lugar donde se encuentran los carteles con las fotos de
Video en un solo canal, b/n, sonido estéreo, 6' 59" / 1920 x 1080 48 DÍA 1 | Muestrario provisional de eventos catastróficos 49
Edición de 3 copias más prueba de autor.
Panel 1 De las emblemáticas palmeras de la ciudad ubicadas en el sector no quedan
sino largos palos humeantes. En la madrugada del cielo caleño cae un polvo rojo,
ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS
(HELENA PRODUCCIONES), GEORGE OSODI Y RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES polvo de ladrillo de los edificios y las casas de material que volaron por el aire.
A través de los medios de comunicación se habla de mil trescientos muertos y más
de cuatro mil heridos. La versión oficial de la Presidencia de la República en la
tarde de ese aciago día es que hubo sabotaje político.3 La versión sobre el hecho
más presente en la memoria colectiva es que se manipulaban proyectiles para las
Catástrofe, proteccionismo y explotación. salvas de la fiesta patria del 7 de agosto y que hubo un accidente.
La tarde del 7 de agosto de 1956 por la televisora nacional se realiza el primer
O eso mismo pero en otro orden Teletón de la historia de Colombia. Los bogotanos desfilan por la televisión ayudando
con dinero y entregando en especies a SENDAS (Secretaría Nacional de Asistencia
Social) y a la Cruz Roja.
HELENA PRODUCCIONES Muchas iniciativas en esta dirección, nacionales e internacionales, logran recau-
(ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS) dar para los damnificados importantes donaciones y provisiones.
Según la historia oficial, la explosión en Cali y sus interpretaciones influyen para
que el presidente de Colombia en ese momento, el General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,
deponga el poder en 1957 y se asile protegido por un dictador centroamericano.4
El 7 de agosto de cada año se conmemora en Colombia la batalla de Boyacá, acon-
tecida en 1819, y que fue definitiva para la campaña libertadora liderada por Simón
3
Bolívar desde Venezuela. El 7 de agosto es también la fecha en que los presidentes César Ayala Diago. “La explosión de Cali, agosto 7 de 1956”. Revista Credencial Historia. Bogotá. Septiembre
de 1999. Número 117. Y en: lablaa.org/lablaavirtual/revistas/credencial/septiembrede1999/117explosion.htm.
colombianos inician su mandato en este país. Mientras se escribía este texto Álvaro 4
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, militar de alto rango e ingeniero civil, llega al poder por un golpe de Estado contra el
Uribe Vélez, después de ocho años1 en el poder, le entregaba su cargo al economista conservador Laureano Gómez, el 13 de junio de 1953, día festivo consagrado al Sagrado Corazón. Laureano
Juan Manuel Santos, miembro de una poderosa familia que dirige El Tiempo, diario Gómez era un presidente abatido por la enfermedad, que gobernaba desde su cama de convalecencia.
de su propiedad y uno de los de circulación nacional más importantes del país. En En sus funciones oficiales era remplazado por Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez, cuando estalló el golpe militar, bien
1956, en la madrugada del 7 de agosto, la ciudad de Cali, en ese momento de unos recibido por la oportunista clase política colombiana, los militares y el pueblo, pues desde 1948 a raíz del
asesinato del líder político liberal Jorge Eliécer Gaitán el país sufría el caos de la sangrienta violencia bipar-
240,000 habitantes, sufre una hecatombe. Siete camiones pertenecientes al ejér-
tidista (conservador - liberal). Los colombianos escuchan decir por la radio al General Pinilla al asumir el
cito nacional2 cargados con cuarenta y dos toneladas de dinamita hacen explosión poder: No más sangre, no más depredaciones en nombre de ningún partido político. Paz, justicia y libertad.
en el corazón de la ciudad. Desaparecen los edificios del batallón Codazzi y la policía —En su gobierno hubo significativas reformas sociales en beneficio de los sectores más desfavorecidos,
militar de la Tercera Brigada, ocho manzanas de un populoso sector residencial y lo que impulsó el desarrollo económico, social y educativo: introdujo la televisión e inauguró la televisora
comercial aproximadamente entre la calle Treinta y la calle Veintidós y la carrera nacional con su televisión educativa; creó la Universidad Pedagógica de Colombia, y el Servicio Nacional
de Aprendizaje SENA; automatizó la telefonía urbana y rural; despolitizó la policía agregándola al Ministerio de
Primera y la carrera Séptima, que hasta los años cuarenta fueron el centro de Cali,
Guerra; construyó el Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado y dieciocho aeropuertos más; pavimentó la mayor
quince manzanas más son dañadas por la explosión. parte de carreteras troncales del país; terminó la represa hidroeléctrica de Lebrija, la nueva refinería de
Barrancabermeja, Acerías Paz del Río, El Hospital Militar, el Centro Administrativo Nacional CAN, el Club
Militar y el Observatorio Astronómico, creó el Banco Ganadero, el Banco Cafetero; capitalizó la Caja Agraria;
estableció el Instituto de Fomento Tabacalero y el Instituto Nacional de Abastecimiento; creó la Oficina de
1
Presidencia de Álvaro Uribe Vélez: primer periodo, 2002-2006; segundo periodo, 2006-2010. Rehabilitación y Socorro para colaborar con los damnificados de la violencia. Y la Secretaría Nacional
2
Catorce camiones cargados de dinamita venían de Buenaventura e iban hacia Bogotá, siete de ellos se de Asistencia Social. Y entre otros reconoció los derechos políticos de la mujer y su derecho a votar mediante
quedaron en Cali la noche del 6 de agosto. el acto legislativo número 3 de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (A.N.A.C), de agosto 25 de 1954.
Obras citadas
Padilla Ignacio, Arte y olvido del terromoto. Editorial Almadía, México 2010.
Debroise Olivier, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Teratoma A.C. La era de la discrepancia: arte y cultura visual en
México; 1968-1997. Turner Ediciones S.A., México 2006.
desastre generaciones y por otro lado la conciencia de un poder tecnológico que antes era
impensable y que sale de control esporádicamente con consecuencias funestas.
y panacea
5 6
Michel Serres, “It Was Before the (World) Exhibition” En The Bachelor Machines (Nueva York: Rizzoli, Christopher G. Langton, “Life at the Edge of Chaos” En Artificial Life II. Editado por Christopher G. Langton,
1975) p. 69 Charles Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, Steen Rasmussen. (Redwood City: Addison-Wesley, 1992), p. 73.
Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (2003-2008) es una serie de acciones efímeras, vinculadas con el Land Art
7
Ibid. p. 76. y documentadas en video o en fotografía. Gaillard pone en funcionamiento extintores industriales en
8
Ibid. p. 86. espacios cuidadosamente seleccionados, entre los que está el icónico Spiral Jetty de Robert Smithson.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 102 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 103
nerviosas, la estricta etiqueta del aplauso, la vestimenta de gala, la afinación de la
orquesta, la entrada del director o el solista, son todos elementos de un ritual depu-
rado a lo largo del siglo XIX y primera mitad del XX, y cuyo objeto de culto es la par-
titura que descansa sobre los atriles.
Cabe preguntarse ¿cómo es que esta tradición —con todas las necesidades
educativas, de infraestructura y organización que exige— ha logrado ejercer una
atracción tan poderosa? Hoy en día las orquestas, salas de conciertos y programas
de música clásica siguen siendo parte de la agenda cultural de casi cualquier ciu-
dad de escala respetable en nuestro continente; sin mencionar por un lado la densa
oferta que se puede encontrar en Europa, cuna de esta tradición, y por el otro lado
la proliferación de conservatorios, orquestas y prodigiosos intérpretes en China, Japón
o Corea del Sur. ¿Cómo una tradición surgida en la Europa cortesana y desarrollada
a lo largo de los turbulentos procesos la industrialización y la formación de estados
nacionales, cuya mirada en el espejo de los años previos a la primera guerra mun-
dial dio como resultado música que parecía no querer escucharse ni a sí misma,
fue capaz de definirse como un logro civilizatorio tan elevado e imprescindible para
cualquier nación? Podría argumentarse que otras instituciones culturales europeas
—como el museo— fueron exportadas por todo el mundo como parte de los pro-
cesos de colonización, y hoy en día cumplen su problemática función, atentas cada
una a su propio contexto. Pero ninguna otra de estas instituciones permanece en un
estado de animación suspendida tan desafiante, con un repertorio que se resiste al
cambio o a romper su propia rutina y convenciones. Así, aún hoy en día, el momento
de mayor liberación de una orquesta sinfónica consiste en tocar su versión de un
mambo o un danzón que nadie puede bailar.
Para ofrecer una explicación adecuada a este espacio podría esgrimir dos razo-
nes, la primera es el texto musical mismo, cuya escritura establece una barrera de
lenguaje al mismo tiempo que supera otras muchas, ofreciendo como pocas ins-
tancias una ilusión de universalidad. La otra es la institucionalidad que la música
y su ritual encarnan, y que arropa a una comunidad en los pertrechos de la civiliza-
ción. Efectivamente, para encontrar un nivel de codificación similar hay que asistir
a los actos de gobierno, a los rituales religiosas o a las ceremonias universitarias
más añejas. Esta función institucional es una que la música adoptó con gusto a
partir del siglo XIX, que coincide con la fundación de orquestas profesionales y su
distanciamiento del mundo cortesano y eclesiástico que había cobijado la produc-
ción musical a lo largo de 200 años.
Esta independencia permitió una creciente autonomía de la expresión musical,
uno de cuyas formas paradigmáticas es la sinfonía. Esta forma deriva de pequeños
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 104 Finale (Bruckner, Octava Sinfonia) (2011)
interludios instrumentales de dos o tres movimientos que se incluían en óperas u
oratorios, y que a finales del siglo XVIII comienzan a interpretarse como obras por
derecho propio. El carácter instrumental y la interpretación colectiva de la sinfonía
permitía dejar de lado la necesidad de poner la música al servicio de una narración
o escribir para el lucimiento de un cantante o solista. La sinfonía, dentro de una
estructura más o menos convencional, daba un espacio para el desarrollo libre de
las ideas musicales y pronto se convirtió en el género que daba legitimidad y ponía
en perspectiva las ambiciones y talentos de un compositor.
Esta breve introducción establece un marco para comenzar a hablar del tema
de esta exposición, que es el final sinfónico. En este ejercicio emularemos al mal
lector, que aburrido o ansioso atisba a las últimas páginas de su novela para saber de
una vez cuál ha sido el destino de los personajes que el escritor se ha ocupado en
desarrollar a lo largo de cientos y cientos de páginas. El símil entre la sinfonía y la
novela no es casual, y aunque probablemente haría falta un estudioso de la cultura
más agudo y disciplinado que yo para ofrecer los sustentos históricos y teóricos de
esa relación, no es difícil identificar en los desarrollos temáticos, modulaciones, cli-
maxes dramáticos y resoluciones trágicas o triunfantes de los motivos musicales
en una sinfonía, las tribulaciones, dilemas, aspiraciones y golpes del destino a los que
el arte novelístico somete a sus personajes. La novela explora el misterio de la individua-
lidad a lo largo del tiempo, y construye un mundo narrativo que vive por derecho
propio y puede hacerlo en sus propios términos. La sinfonía abre un universo sonoro
que conforme transcurre el siglo XIX se va volviendo más amplio y envolvente, más
extenso en el tiempo, más extravagante en sus ambiciones y confiado en su autonomía.
Pero a diferencia de la novela, que debe aterrizar en los conflictos históricos y coti-
dianos, la forma sinfónica parece tender al enrarecimiento, involucrada en su propio
lenguaje, aparentemente alejada de la esfera social y discursiva. La sinfonía ha lle-
gado a ser la expresión más acabada de esa ilusión que, paradójicamente, mantiene
a la música clásica como un mudo objeto de veneración.
Entonces ¿cuál puede ser el contenido de esta música? ¿Podemos dilucidar algo
de ello a partir de los 15 o 20 compases que cierran una obra? Me adelanto al final
porque es ahí donde la obra dibuja su relación con el silencio que le sigue, e igual-
mente con el que precede al primer compás. En el final, el compositor debe decidir
qué hacer con el mundo sonoro que ha creado, y que ha reclamado del espectador
no solo su entera atención, sino su inmovilidad y su silencio. Puede asfixiarlo, perderlo
entre las alturas, darle un golpe de muerte, llevarlo al paroxismo o simplemente fre-
narlo, como quien detiene una locomotora o baja las velas de un barco. El orgasmo,
la caída, la muerte y la catástrofe están cifrados en estas notas finales, que son un
Si hasta poco antes las sinfonías terminaban con un rondó —movimiento de tiempo
rápido y material musical comparativamente ligero— que finalizaba con resoluciones
más o menos previsibles, gráciles e ingeniosas, esta parece delimitar un territorio,
cerrando herméticamente una frontera sonora. La música acumula literalmente las
energías de todos los intérpretes en una cabalgata hacia el final, el cual parece pos-
ponerse en cada clímax, en una especie de coitus interruptus. En este final, el acorde
de Do mayor es repetido una veintena de veces. En palabras de Edward Said, el
compositor parece decir: “el Do mayor es mío, mío, mío”, apropiándoselo por pleno
derecho tras un ejercicio de individualismo heroico. Si con frecuencia se escucha
hablar a la ligera de ‘arquitecturas musicales’ para describir composiciones comple-
jas y ambiciosas, aquí el símil no es del todo inexacto, ya que los acordes juegan el
papel de columnas, elementos de la estructura que son al mismo tiempo su portal
y su sostén. La idea de lo clásico adquiere así una expresión inusitada.
Si la orquesta sinfónica manifiesta la existencia de una sociedad pudiente y
organizada, el poder que se otorga al compositor al poner en sus manos ese dis-
positivo, y las expectativas que ello despertaba, eran expresión de una burguesía
cada vez más confiada en sus aspiraciones. El final heroico es al mismo tiempo
cierre de la construcción musical y pauta para la reaparición —por decirlo de
algún modo— de la comunidad reunida en torno a la partitura en su ovación o
rechazo hacia la obra. Pero no tardan en aparecer los antihéroes en esta escena.
El segundo ejemplo viene de la Sinfonía Fantástica de Héctor Berlioz, obra que
pretende narrar musicalmente la tribulaciones de un artista enamorado, quien
sumido en un sueño narcótico alucina haber asesinado a su amada, asistiendo
después a su propia ejecución y siendo después testigo de una aquelarre en torno
a su tumba, donde será atormentado por el espíritu de su difunta amada. Aquí se
Obras como la de Brahms, marcaron la pauta para un enrarecimiento cada vez mayor Mahler 3A, 46" (Fragmento)
del material musical. Las sinfonías ganaron en duración, las orquestas en tamaño
y la escritura en ambición, densidad y complejidad. Sinfonías como las de Bruckner Este naufragio musical es emblemático de toda la posterior producción mahleriana,
se hacen con el tiempo del escucha sin miramientos, convencidas del privilegio del ocupada en un socavamiento constante del material musical, el cual es presentado
compositor y de la necesidad de llevar sus ideas tan lejos como sea posible, lo cual en bajo una luz, sólo para mutar tras ser cuestionado en su integridad y aspiraciones
la técnica Bruckneriana probablemente significa más lento y más alto. En el final por toda clase de recursos antitéticos. No en vano Mahler prefigura el distanciamiento
de la octava sinfonía los cornos, trompetas y violines articulan entre sí los temas de final de la tradición clásica en la música dodecafónica. No lo hace, sin embargo,
los cuatro movimientos, en una parsimoniosa y compleja polifonía que más que a por un mero procedimiento técnico, sino por una especie de historización del mate-
una cabalgata recuerda a una procesión. Pero en la articulación de estas frases rial, que se vuelve sujeto de un tiempo que no es ya mera duración, sino también
asoma algo más que las alturas alpinas o el lento tránsito de las nubes. degradación y atrofia, engaño y decepción. La tercera sinfonía, llega, sin embargo,
a un final más reconocible, que es una versión lenta y prolongadísima del tema antes
Bruckner 1' 30" (video) hecho naufragar. Se expresa aquí algo que recuerda el encuentro con un océano,
como si el aliento musical no cesara pero ya no tuviera a dónde pisar, detenida por
¿Es muy aventurado encontrar en este final el ritmo pesado de una locomotora una fuerza en sentido contrario:
deteniendo su marcha? Después de todo a Bruckner se le ha criticado por su ten-
dencia a la repetición mecánica de los temas, que parecen atascarse y avanzar al Mahler 3B, 1' (Fragmento)
siguiente paso solo para volver a detenerse una vez más. Sería demasiado aventu-
rado pintar a Bruckner como un antecedente del minimalismo, pero me parece
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 110 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 111
Sigamos con Gustav Mahler. Su sexta sinfonía es como la imagen distorsionada de
la primera, y los atisbos de heroísmo se ven una y otra vez aplacados por trinos
sardónicos y mutaciones degradantes. El final se ve dos veces detenido en su desa-
rrollo por lo que el compositor describe como ‘golpes de martillo’, que deben ser
tocados por una especie de híbrido de tambor y sarcófago. Después de los dos golpes
de martillo, con la música literalmente agonizante, queda un tiro de gracia, que
nunca deja de sorprender al escucha más experimentado.
En la Canción de la Tierra, una obra que no es propiamente una sinfonía pero que para
efectos de la obra de este compositor no puede sino considerarse parte de su pro-
ducción sinfónica, Mahler abandona las referencias a bandas militares y danzas
campesinas y baja el tono de sus exaltadas melodías. En su lugar, decide poner
música a poemas chinos traducidos al alemán, con una orquesta de dimensiones
considerables, la cual rara vez es escuchada en su totalidad. En vez de ello la orques-
tación recurre a pequeños grupos que se forman y desintegran en unos cuantos com-
pases, dando a toda la obra una sensación íntima y de fugacidad. Es notable que de
entre las obras de Mahler, sea en este extraño universo chinesco donde la ironía parece
más lejana, como si la máscara de la otredad diera cubierta al compositor para desa-
rrollar el material musical sin ver dónde podía meterle el pie. La última canción del
ciclo, “El adiós”, dura tanto como las otras cinco juntas, pero a diferencia de ellas su
integridad parece siempre estar en juego, a punto de perder la cohesión, algunos de
sus pasajes, incluso, están marcados para tocarse “sin prestar atención al tiempo”.
El final de esta canción es una larga desaparición de la orquesta, que toma aliento
antes del silencio absoluto solo para volver a decaer, mientras la voz canta la pala-
bra ewig (eternamente) una y otra vez. Si entendemos el final sinfónico como el
punto en que la música se articula con el ruido del mundo que inevitablemente le
sigue, el final de La Canción de la Tierra es una especie de gradual claudicación.
Las ramificaciones de la obra de Mahler son múltiples. Por un lado, la escuela vienesa
de Schönberg, Webern y Berg. Por el otro, compositores como Dimitri Shostakovich
que buscaron continuar la tradición sinfónica, modernizándola sin ceder al radica-
lismo dodecafónico. El caso de Shostakovich se ofrece como un reflejo interesante
de la obra de Mahler, vista desde el otro lado de la primera guerra mundial y con
El pasaje siguiente a este colapso es larguísimo y casi estático, iluminado apenas por
las notas finales de la celesta, que no pueden sino recordar los últimos compases
de La Canción de la Tierra. Pero a diferencia de aquél, éste es un paisaje sumido
en una calma amenazante; es una música desolada.
Webern (fragmento)
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 116 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 117
leguas de Viaje Submarino.” Nemo, el protagonista, es curador renegado de un
museo de historia natural, hombre multidisciplinario y genio de la ingeniería, su
enorme biblioteca y colección resguardadas a bordo del Calypso se convierten en el
lente a través del cual se puede interpretar la historia. Los cascos de buceo con
‘ventanas’ de cristal hacen posible respirar bajo el agua y explorar las profundidades
del océano. Esta tecnología existía antes de la novela de Verne, así como la ineludible
cámara de descompresión que acompaña al casco. El cordón umbilical atado al
sujeto para proveerlo de aire desde la superficie, y el pesado equipo y maquinaria,
hace parecer al sujeto como una especie de ser irreconocible, un ser que habita
la alteridad del océano, la necesaria transformación mediática del sujeto. El sub-
marino Calypso, habitado por el protagonista durante casi toda la novela, tenía tec-
nología desconocida aún por los ingenieros contemporáneos a la obra de Verne.
Desde el punto de vista visual, como lo refleja Alphonse de Neuvile en los gra-
bados que acompañan la obra original de Julio Verne, y las pinturas monumentales
de Bernard Buffet, una serie realizada hacia el final de su vida en la década de los
noventa, el Calypso se convierte en un aparato de visibilidad enorme que envuelve
a los personajes y sus libros y a todo el conocimiento disponible. El aparato se
encuentra en movimiento capturando las vistas inconmensurables de paisajes
subacuáticos. Observamos cómo los sujetos miran a través de una incipiente lente
como espectáculo cinematográfico mientras son arrastrados hacia lo desconocido.
Estas formas de interpretación de la vida en el océano, permean en la muestra
Oceanomanía y son acompañadas con algunos paradigmas y contradicciones
sobre nuestra capacidad de comprender la complejidad de los océanos como meta-
sistemas. El artista Mark Dion, captura estas contradicciones entre la maravillosa
convivencia creada en los paisajes del océano y la melancolía que surge al observar
su colapso. Dion toma como punto de partida la explosión que provocó un derra-
me de petróleo de la compañía Deep Water Horizon, que tendrá repercusiones
ambientales a largo plazo en todas las regiones oceánicas y cuyas consecuencias aún
no han sido completamente calculadas.
La medición del riesgo es una evaluación que se encuentra a menudo en
manos de inversionistas y empresas capitalistas. La externalización del problema,
no ha mitigado la escala del impacto de las catástrofes ecológicas en el medio
ambiente, tanto para la vida animal como para los humanos. Nuestra falta de
conocimiento, de visión, de tener algún interés directo con el asunto o resultado,
ha sido expuesto de forma dramática en los peores escenarios. Al parecer, no
sabemos ni cómo empezar a buscar soluciones o reparar los daños. Allan Sekula,
G.T. Pellizzi, Oceanomania Navigation Wheel (2011) hace una referencia a la noción de riesgo en la cinta Lottery of the Sea (Lotería del
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 120 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 121
está muy por encima de nuestros avances científicos. La tecnología y el conoci-
miento relacionados con los océanos, evolucionan a una velocidad prácticamente
inversa a la de la evolución humana.
Replicar nuestra bastante confortable visión sobre el océano como espacio
del otro, del que nutre y del desconocido, tiene un costo real en términos de la pro-
pia gestión del hombre sobre los recursos oceánicos y la mano de obra humana
que tiene lugar sobre su superficie. El desastre de BP es relevante en este sentido
ya que nos llevó más de tres meses detener la ‘fuga’ –no contamos con el conoci-
miento o la tecnología suficientes para controlar ésta o ninguna situación parecida.
Y las consecuencias aún están por ser ponderadas. La amenaza sobre las especies
es evidente y su desaparición se ha acelerado considerablemente mucho antes de
alcanzar un verdadero conocimiento sobre la biodiversidad y las enormes posibili-
dades del océano. El concepto de ‘gran desconocido’ que hemos romantizado del
océano, las especies aún por descubrir, lo sistemas que todavía no comprendemos
del todo, pueden esfumarse por un proceso terrible de agotamiento, el corolario
dialectal de explotación y acumulación ciegas.
El Océano como espacio olvidado o desconocido corresponde a una cuestión
aún vigente más general de un una visión anticuada y romántica sobre la natura-
leza. Nociones contradictorias como responsabilidad, conservación, protección, y
libertad, sugieren que a medida que la tecnología avanza, es necesario que
aumente también nuestra comprensión y visión de una gestión más mesurada de
los recursos oceánicos, esperando no perder el extraordinario potencial del océano
de maravillarnos.
Seascape: Floating Costume to Drift for Eternity I (Armani Suit) (1991) p. 123
Escape marino: Traje flotante para estar a la deriva por la eternidad I (Armani)
Cortesía del artista y Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Nueva York
Seascape: Floating Costume to Drift for Eternity I (Armani Suit) (1991) p. 123
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 124 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 125
encontrar un entre, un en medio de. Entre y por entre la catástrofe de las fronteras agresivos del Estado, buscamos con HTM, dar cuenta de las complejidades perfor-
petrificadas de la historia, la tragedia sin retorno de los capitalismos desastrosos, mativas de las nuevas tierras donde caminamos y de aquellas de las que vinimos,
así como la materialización de tiranías barrocas de una arcaica globalización —un una geo-estética que reconoce las cartografías de los trans-cuerpos transfronterizos
Imperio del desorden—de cada una de estos acercamientos se le presentan alter- con derechos que son, necesidades ya inevitables. Disponemos de nuestro reloj,
espectros, alter-eucatástrofes, y alter-desastres que, como restos positivos de un de nuestros relojes en contra de la desorientación y al servicio de una obra de arte
trauma, recombinan y resisten la configuración de otros. Un fantasma en espera sin como un puente que enlaza la geo-filosofía de los cuerpos flotantes a través los
reservación. Nuestro fantasma Benjaminiano espera por su reemplazo no cuanti- continentes. Prácticas integrales que fragmentan nuestra geo-estética, incluyendo
ficado. Pero él mismo es uno cuando hablamos mucho más que de quienes tienen art-ivismo, tácticas poéticas, hactivismo, teatro de los nuevos medios, tecnologías
un nombre propio—como de cuerpos transfronterizos. fronterizas del disturbio, realidades aumentadas, tecnologías queer, feminismo trans-
nacional, cifras, Zapatismo digital, representación intergaláctica, _________ (ayú-
5. En agosto de 2010 una asombrosa oposición flotó, recirculando como el aire— denos por favor, a llenar los espacios vacíos).
como de camiones refrigerados. Al final del mes de julio, antes que los cuerpos de
setenta y dos migrantes fueron encontrados en Tamaulipas, estado fronterizo 7. Si se va en tren desde Barcelona hasta la frontera francesa, Portbou es la última
de México, cincuenta y un cuerpos se hallaron en fosas comunes en el este de parada española que encontrará. Es un pueblo de pescadores que cuenta con una
Monterrey. Usando excavadoras para desenterrar los cuerpos, los soldados mexi- estación antigua de tren. Portbou ha sido el lugar donde, múltiples representacio-
canos pusieron en evidencia la narcoviolencia por medio de los camiones refrige- nes de la ‘melancolía migrante’ (Schmidt Camacho 2008) del siglo XX se han lle-
rados. De manera espeluznante, al otro lado de Arizona, el médico forense de vado a cabo. En los años veintes, surgió La Route Lister la cual, tomó su nombre
Pima County notó un aumento de migrantes muertos por el calor desértico. “Para del General Lister, Republicano de la Guerra Civil Española, quien pasaba de con-
acomodar los cuerpos” en el calor extremo, los oficiales utilizaron un camión refri- trabando a simpatizantes y soldados a través la frontera española-francesa. En los
gerado afuera de la oficina de la morgue. años 40, judíos europeos y anexos, huían de la ocupación Nazi, arriesgando sus
Es difícil no pensar en esas contrapuestas ironías del peligro en cruzar la fron- vidas en la La route Lister, soñando con Buenos Aires o Nueva York a la manera
tera. Es difícil también, no pensar en las historias que escribió Luis Alberto Urrea de Casablanca o Tánger. Incluso, todavía las guías retratan a los Europeos del Este
en su libro The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (2004). Después que los cuerpos de los o a los Africanos del Norte como seres anónimos, a modo de un juego donde las
“Yuma 14” fueron devueltos en avión hasta sus pueblos en Veracruz, Rita Vargas preguntas no son hechas. Es decir, Portbou es un pueblo fronterizo.
estimó el costo de transportación por unos 68 mil pesos mientras se preguntaba Por supuesto, Portbou celebra al migrante que ‘decide’ establecerse. La impro-
“¿Qué hubiera pasado si alguien hubiese invertido ese dinero desde el principio? visada rememorización de Walter Benjamin sobre un pueblo con villas, es la principal
ganancia del mismo. El kiosco, principal atracción turística, del centro del pueblo,
6. HTM es arte fronterizo del disturbio que combina un geo-estética con geo-ética en es donde los guías venden un catálogo de la obra Homage to Walter Benjamin (1994)
contra de los límites que cruzan cada cuerpo en el planeta, empezando en una del artista Dani Karavan que muestra el ‘ambiente’ de la región. Para un recuerdo al
nanoescala que va cuestionándose dentro del mismo GPS mientras que, con su alcance, también se venden postales que contrastan el Portbou de los años cua-
neblina cubre al mundo. renta con el Portbou del 2004.
Imagínese una geo-estética que conecta a el humano y el no-humano, a la geo- Llegamos en un día lluvioso de verano, caminamos por el paseo marítimo de
grafía y la ética. Imagínese una geo-estética que entra y trastoca la neblina de la Portbou, tomando al mar Mediterráneo con su dramática vista hacia los peñascos
movilidad geo-espacial, que soporta objetos éticos y varias formas de sustentabilidad. acantilados. Bajamos las empinadas escaleras que conducen hasta la playa.
Si vivimos en un mundo donde cosas y servicios tienen derecho, a priori, de Recogimos piedras y conchitas. La puesta del sol era enmudecida por las nubes
cruzar fronteras, donde cosas y proto-cosas crean nubes inalámbricas de informa- que la cubrían, como si el cielo la cobijara con una manta blanca. Ya para el atar-
ción, de acceso y contención, donde un caosmosis de mercados demanda filtros decer encontramos el viejo Hotel de Francia donde se suicidó Benjamin. Cuando
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 126 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 127
regresamos a nuestro hotel (con el árbol, creciendo por entre una de las dos his- heridas profundas, ‘las heridas abiertas’ a través de lo eventual—las fronteras—de
torias) percibimos un profundo contraste: en lugar de encontrar largas paredes anhelos mutantes en contra de la máquina abstracta. Si en Spook Country uno de los
blancas y ventanales abiertos, sus muros blancos, de piso a techo, estaban cubier- personajes nunca duerme bajo la misma cuadrícula GPS dos veces, por el miedo
tos con dibujos, fotos, artículos y ensayos que “tangencialmente traducen” la rela- de vincular su cuerpo a las coordenadas del GPS, el cuerpo trans-fronterizo que
ción entre Benjamin y este pueblo. conjuramos, nunca duerme debajo la misma frontera-sin-frontera de la cuadrícula.
Pero, todavía este cuerpo necesita sustento y trans-derechos.
8. Nuestros excesos fragmentarios parecen jeroglíficos anticipando nubes de infor-
mación (cumulonimbus) en la que todo se difumina en el aire inconexo del WiFi. 9. Basura. La serie de fotos de Delilah Montoya, Sed: A Trail of Thirst (2004) pre-
Somos los artefactos locales de los cuales, William Gibson escribió en su novela gunta, “¿Quién y qué constituye lo desechable?” recontextualizando la pregunta en
Spook Country (2007). términos de lo que nosotros abandonamos. Sus imágenes dibujan un camino migra-
En Spook Country, Gibson describe el arte locativo como estética en pro de la torio a través del desierto Sonora. Campamentos abandonados, elementos perdidos
monumentalización de los holográficos muertos. Es su visión del Imperio de las o descartados, estaciones abandonadas de agua. Recientemente, un caso recha-
Nubes en donde todos somos realidades aumentadas del fallecido River Jude zado por el 9th Circuit Court of Appeals de los Estados Unidos (Septiembre 2, 2010)
Phoenix, también de F. Scott Fitzgerald. En el libro, los personajes viajan entre contempla las formas y contenidos de la ‘basura’. Más específicamente, la mayoría
todos los ‘símbolos cartográficos invisibles’ y las coordenadas específicas de reali- opina que la definición de ‘basura’ se traslapa en opiniones que disciernen en el
dades locativas. Todo se desmorona dentro de las grietas de lo hiper-etiquetado y uso de la palabra ‘basura’ en vez de ‘desecho.’ En contraste, en el texto de “The
por entre los bordes de la ola de nuevas realidades: ‘el artista va anotando cada United States of America v. Daniel J. Millis” sólo se encuentra un pasaje que alude
centímetro del lugar, de cada objeto físico. Visible a todos, en aparatos como estos’ su propio testimonio en defensa: “En su juicio, Millis confesó que puso botellas de
(2007: 24). Las máquinas de los medios locativos, llaman a los muertos y a los per- agua en el refugio. Pero, testificó que dejando agua para los migrantes es compa-
didos antes que a la vigilancia de las políticas forzadas al olvidado del estado som- rarlo con el apoyo humanitario y esto “nunca es un delito” (2010: 13294).”
brío (Spook Country). Las estrategias propuestas por Gibson, van desde los ataques E inmerso en opiniones discrepantes, una aislada referencia en el “Otro” y
políticos y militares preventivos a las más sutiles tácticas de los medios que utilizan po- sus escombros en el Arizona Buenos Aires Federal Wildlife Refuge: “En el juicio,
líticas afectivas que conciernen al miedo. A las cuales murmuramos un ‘¡Bu!- un el oficial Kirkpatrick testificó que “hay un gran negocio dentro de la basura del
contragolpe fantasmagórico. Para ello, Gibson incluye posibles y escalofriantes refugio que consiste en ‘botellas de agua, mochilas, ropa, comida y vehículos… y
interpretaciones sobre el ‘futuro de hace cinco minutos a la actualidad’ donde el de todo lo que usted se puede imaginar’ (2010: 13306).”
Estado sombrío intenta colonizar a lo virtual para obtener lo real, o, podríamos decir, ¿Un maletín lleno de manuscritos?
persiguiendo lo inoportuno de lo eventual—un evento que fractura la fragmentaliza-
ción entre lo real y lo virtual—que manifiesta la perversidad locativa de todos aquellos 10. A través de HTM, buscamos experimentar con un art-ivismo que compruebe las
que viven y respiran más allá del cementerio holográfico. Consideremos pues, el condiciones de las fábricas post-Fordistas del “sin-lugar”, que señale dónde están
contraste de eventos basados en la estética del HTM y su matriz preformativa como los huecos más allá de la red del (post/super) modernista, que fuerza al Imperio
un ambiente móvil construido para desviar las desapariciones hasta un no-lugar de la Nube a tartamudear en sus exigencias, en sus fallos. Con HTM, aspiramos
mitopoético de un in/contable Estado de todo lo que cruza lo demasiado humano. capturar la esencia del ser de la mayoría en el Imperio de la Nube, así como del post
Paradójicamente, en ésta instancia, lo que pasa como ‘mitopoético’, minimiza la hiper- 9/11 encarnado del Destino Nanofiesto que flota en la máquina-estatal-interactiva.
media de estar siempre conectado. La mitopoesía tiene el potencial de afinar cuerpos El Imperio de la Nube, viste con la retórica neoliberal de la libre elección, la demanda
de información para ralentiza el ‘estar’ digitalmente que siempre, está vinculado a que todo y todos participen en la cultura de software para organizar las infinitas bases
lugares que cortan y pegan fronteras a nuestro alrededor. A través de la mitopoesía de datos que estandarizan las relaciones del mercado entre los cuerpos reales y
(Gloria Anzaldúa, 1987, The Headmap Manifesto) con HTM buscamos señalar las los cuerpos de información.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 128 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 129
La estandarización es la estrategia clave para tener un diagrama funcional de la información está flotando en y por los océanos, como los restos de las islas repe-
relación subjetiva del binomio producción-consumo. Pero, ¿qué manifiesta las den- titivas de la Modernidad. Los océanos, históricamente, son una condición integral
sidades que se escapan de este código? Proponemos que HTM ensaya las materia- para el Imperio. Ahora Google tiene sus centros oceánicos de información para dar
lidades dislocativas de las precarias trans-ontologías que demandan pre-ciencias apoyo al Imperio de las Nubes, para resolver el calor de millones y millones de pro-
distribuidas en cada trans-cuerpo, dentro y fuera de las nubes de información. cesadores que están utilizando las aguas para suavizar el poder emergente, para
crear ciclos de agua en pro de la subyugación. Pero el Imperio de las Nubes es
11. El compromiso compulsivo de Benjamin con la alegoría permitió su arruinado sólo parte del reflejo de lo que Google muestra en su infraestructura.
‘estudio de culturas’ O, ¿acaso fue al revés? La fuerza de los infinitos objetos-informáticos-logísticos está separando fron-
Como respuesta al The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, Theodor teras-informáticas-nacionales. La viejas ciber-fronteras están desentrañándose como
Adorno en su famosa confesión a Benjamin expresó, “Si alguien deseaba ponerle las fronteras conceptuales de la máquina del súper-estado —en contra de todos
en tela de juicio, podría decir, que sus estudios están al borde de la magia y el posi- trans-cuerpos— regenerando sus formas. El corazón del Imperio de las Nubes
tivismo. Este lugar está encantado. Solo la teoría puede romper el hechizo” (Cohen absorbe, como una esponja, más y más medios sociales y económicos en una escala
1998: 2). Tom Cohen dice que la parálisis que Adorno ve en las obras de Benjamin mundial. Cuerpos trans-fronterizos, como viejas formaciones de ciudadanos, que
son parte de la “edad de los estudios culturales” (Cohen 1998). están perdiendo sus derechos antes de poder enfrentar el contrato del usuario-final.
Estamos menos interesados en leer literalmente, de lo que carece la teoría, y La nueva guerra civil en el Imperio de las Nubes, declarada por parte de los
estamos más interesados en los mecanismos, los vestigios del ‘encanto’ que dan cuerpos trans-fronterizos, ven imposibilitada la oportunidad para rehacer el vínculo
fuerza a la estética que teoriza y crea “los objetos de investigación.” En “las ruinas entre territorio y Estado, tampoco pueden reafirmar la creciente cercanía entre lo juris-
de un edificio nunca construido” (Sarlo 2000: 24), ¿podríamos efectuar una fron- diccional y la ley en sí… En vez de esto, debemos desatar y desanudar; debemos de
tera comparativa, cultural, étnica, postcolonial, de género y sexo, _________ (llena re-citar los flujos de la alter-globalización que empujan los trans-cuerpos a cuerpos
el espacio en blanco otra vez) de estudios que niegan la prevalente relación de lo ilegales hasta las post-cosas extra-legales—con ello, la declaración completa de
para/estético (como dice Yúdice, en “la conveniencia de la cultura” [2004] ¿se derechos de los post-humanos que flotan entre las profundidades locativas. (Y, hasta
puede defender la “colaboración” de la durmiente totipotencia? este expuesto final, recordamos a los Zapatistas de Chiapas, unos de los primeros
¿Podemos arriesgar (o podemos no arriesgar) la hospitalidad, Derrida apunta: trans-cuerpos de una guerra civil mundial).
“¿Podemos decir que sí a quien o a lo que parezca, antes de cualquier determina-
ción, anticipación, antes de cualquier identificación, un extranjero, un inmigrante, 13. La colección de poesía de Rose Alcalá Undocumentaries (2010) enfatiza el poder
un invitado, un visitante inesperado, aun cuando sea o no ciudadano o extranjero, del prefijo “un-” de la misma manera que Samuel Weber expresa sobre la escri-
un ser humano, un animal, una criatura divina, algo vivo o muerto, masculino o tura de Benjamin que depende de un sufijo, casi no traducible como “-idad”
femenino?” (2000: 77) (2008). La fijación de Alcalá con “un-” irrumpe a una documentación predomi-
nante y performática con el Border Industrial Program (1965) que fue iniciado casi
12. Tiqqun escribe: Imperialismo y totalitarismo son dos modos en que el Estado como un precedente del Tratado de Libre Comercio (1994). Sandy Soto describe
moderno intentó saltar su propia imposibilidad, en primer lugar pisoteando sus pro- el fenómeno sin nombrarlo: “la oposición binaria del orden y desorden […] orga-
pias fronteras en pos de una expansión colonial y después, por una interiorización niza sin crítica alguna, la (s) representacion(es)” de la frontera México-Estados
dentro de sus propios límites. En ambos casos, estas reacciones desesperadas del Unidos (Soto 2007: 420).
Estado —con las que pretendían incluir ‘todo’, se convirtieron en ‘nada’ —encabezando Alcalá dice, “La oficina para los agentes/Es la fábrica de etimología […] Leen
su transformación en guerras civiles que el Estado pretendía prevenir. (2010: 109). pro-piedades/ por pro-sas. La fábrica es una acción/y un acto, más impresiones /que
Este nada que antecedió el todo del Imperio de las Nubes, toma forma de las una historia.” Undocumentaries demuestra una agilidad y habilidad para recono-
preguntas que van moviéndose por los océanos de la información. De hecho, la cer la mediación de la inmediación. Palabras que se deslizan hacia otras (o no)—
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 130 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 131
propiedades y prosas, acción/acto e impresiones/historia. Alcalá privilegia al flujo lamentó junto a Gershom Sholem que el nombre de su primo “no esté escrito por
más que a la obstrucción, a la vigilancia, aun cuando el mal eclipsa a la relación. ningún lado.”
El resultado: una difusión, fusión, una sutil mención de la lógica binaria. Michael Taussig reflexiona en la desigualdad entre nombre y cuerpo, haciendo
¿“Datos duros” que prevalecen? Paradójicamente, la “temporada de la muerte” una lectura final como algo ‘alegórico’. Concluye: “El viento sopla por allá. Tiene su
en la frontera mexicano-estadounidense demanda una superposición de la desma- propio nombre, la transmontaña, su propia personalidad, sus orígenes y razones
terialización del objeto (de arte o de cartografía) y la desmaterialización del sujeto son un misterio. En la primavera y luego en el otoño el viento es tan fuerte que te
(el ser humano). La “política de la pregunta” que buscamos iniciar con HTM —como atropella. ¿Podemos imaginar un estado, una religión, una comunidad ligada al
los ejercicios de Alcalá— son una afinación de latitud, un auto-interpelación con “la recuerdo, que tuviese el ímpetu o la locura para nombrar al viento un monumento?”
canción del mundo desafinado” que registra y resiste la frontera como una serie (2006: 30).
de una geografía infinita, literal e imaginaria.
16. Deleuze y Guattari declaran en ¿Qué es la filosofía? (1996) “El arte no es emo-
14. La propuesta de Maurice Blanchot en la primera frase de su The Writing of the ción, sino moción. No es importante que sea sino lo que haga.” Como directriz de
Disaster (1995) es “El desastre arruina todo.” También deja “todo intacto” (1). El vuelo ¿qué hace HTM como código ético-estético?
desastre trastoca el conocimiento catastrófico sin-olvidar que cruza, va y viene y Proponemos que HTM permite que los trans-cuerpos hagan visible su abandono
regresa en contra de la disociación y el olvido, ambos necesario para la fronteriza- de la máquina del Estado constituyendo una guerra civil. HTM ayuda al trans-cuerpo
ción del conocimiento, epistemologías del acercamiento. editando el paisaje de globalización con la fuerza del deseo de ser-más-que-trabajo,
Trans-cuerpos transtocan fronteras sin barreras, concretamente (como en la para convertirse en algo más desechable. A través de HTM rechazamos el no-lugar
poesía concreta) al futuro y el momento. El desastre vincula trans-cuerpos con de la sobremodernidad propuesto por Marc Augé en su libro Los No-lugares,
otras experiencias y otras temporalidades. Cegándonos mientras abandona todo Introducción a la Antropologia de la Sobremodernidad (2009). HTM trastoca fron-
aquello que nos es común, forzándonos a confrontar la posibilidad de una relación teras imaginadas y reales a manera de los no-lugares, rehaciéndolos como
visceral. Dependiendo mucho de una estética de lo sobre-escrito/o de lo justo. El “Sistemas de Poesía Global” para inventar nuevas funciones que manifiesten la
inusual movimiento de atravesar, crea una geografía de la ética, un geo-estética trans-vida visibilizada de aquellos que huyen de un lugar a otro y los que se pro-
mundial. El desastre es un no-evento de efectos/afectos revelados/demorados que nuncian en contra de la máquina.
se deleita en las posibilidades de espacios donde las historias-por-venir puedan ser “El sabor de la abundancia” (1981) ensayo escrito por Paolo Virno en el que
contadas, atestiguadas y realizadas a través de trans-afinidades (constelaciones, toca el tema de la recolocación de líneas de fuga como un éxodo:
asociaciones, alianzas, relaciones) como una forma indocumetada por dentro y fuera
de las ruinas del futuro ahora. La desobediencia y la fuga no son gestos negativos que eximan a alguien de
actuar y responsabilizarse. Al contrario, huir significa modificar las condiciones
15. Benjamin Walter. Agentes en Portbou escribieron a la inversa, el nombre de conflictivas en vez de someterse a ellas. Y la construcción positiva de un esce-
Walter Benjamin en su certificado de defunción. También escribieron que era cató- nario favorable que demanda una lucha con las condiciones anteriores. Un
lico. Aunque Portbou documentó las memorias de Benjamin (al menos en pulcros afirmativo ‘hacer’ que califica la deserción, dejando huella de un sensual y
letreros de sus edificios más pintorescos remarcando puntos de interés en inglés, operativo sabor del presente. El conflicto se compromete empezando por aquello
español y catalán) el pueblo no muestra interés alguno en el cementerio donde con lo que contamos como formas de vida en vez de aquellas con las que
supuestamente yacen en un nicho, (rentado por cinco años por Frau Gurland vamos construyendo experiencias. A la vetusta idea de huir se contrapone
con un costo de setenta y cinco pesetas), los restos del filósofo quien después otra de un mejor ataque donde la certeza del vuelo es más efectiva si uno
fue transferido a una fosa común. Pero a tan sólo unos meses posteriores a su tuviera algo más que perder aparte de las cadenas propias (49).
muerte, Hannah Arendt quien después de una visita no podía encontrar a su primo,
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 132 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 133
Con HTM buscamos modificar el proceso de mapeo globalizado de los traba- podría entender, mudando sus propias raíces, más allá de las leyes fronterizas”
jadores migrantes re-colocando la emergencia de una nueva ola de sujeto(s) en y las “leyes de libre comercio.”
acción. No nos estamos refiriendo a la multitud del post-Fordismo, ni al migrante Dicho de otra manera, la frontera-sin-frontera no ha parado la migración norteña.
ilegal bajo “arresto domiciliario” sino a los sujetos trans-fronterizos en su híper- Como dice Rita Raley en su libro Tactical Media (2009):
éxodo quienes ya irrumpen las redes del arte, las redes lógicas del poder y su invi- “Contabilizando, los números parecen tener un histórico aumento —entonces,
sibilidad a través de su “fuga” entre los campos de percepción, de la corporeidad ¿qué sentido tiene una frontera-sin-frontera?” Etienne Balibar escribe en otro con-
más allá de la cuadrícula GPS. Cruzando existentes mapas políticos, estos indivi- texto sobre el poder simbólico de unas “prácticas ostentosas y obsesivas” que en
duos quienes desertan—hacen nuevas tierras, nuevas obras de tierra, comprome- la frontera son “diseñados […] como mucho, para mostrarse como si fueran acciones
tiéndose solamente a aquello que en eco-filosofía es conocido como una ‘ética reales. ¿Cuál sería la función socio-cultural de “mostrar”? La investigación de Peter
recesiva’ (Boetzkes 2010: 4). Andreas: Border Games: Policing the US-Mexico Divide, nos muestra algunas res-
puestas. Dando a notar que el ‘exitoso’ funcionamiento de la frontera depende del
17. En marzo de 2010 el Department of Homeland Security de los Estados Unidos funcionamiento de la imagen, [el cual] no está basado necesariamente, ni corres-
anunció que un segmento virtual del muro fronterizo no funcionaba bien, citando a ponde a los niveles del actual destierro, Andreas concluye que el control de la fron-
varias fallas técnicas y una híper-incapacidad para distinguir entre el viento, la maleza tera es una “actuación política en la cual, la frontera funciona como el escenario.”
y los seres humanos. Recientemente, el Department of Homeland Security aban- En otras palabras, el performance de brindar seguridad es más importante que la
donó la barrera virtual que se llama SBInet (hecho por Boeing) cuyos sensores fueron seguridad verdadera, la teatralidad sirve como un sustituto por lo real. Los kilóme-
inicialmente anunciados como “lo último en tecnología anti-migrante” 2011). tros de rejas con púas, la omnipresencia de los agentes de la patrulla fronteriza, los
El no bien reconocido documental de Chantal Akerman: De l’autre côté (2002), aviones—todos son cosas reales, pero son parte crucial de lo que Andreas llama
hace uso de una serie de tomas aisladas. Con su cámara toma fotos panorámicas “actuación simbólica.”, “Los esfuerzos por controlar la frontera no sólo son hechos
del desierto, mientras el viento sopla la maleza, representando un espectro de la (hecho por un fin) sino también gestos que comunican algún significado” (36).
barrera virtual. La cruza de fronteras de trans-cuerpos en una escala mundial ensaya nuevas
De l’autre côté revela su objetivo—un cambio en la migración, dando pie a formas de la visibilidad de los trans-derechos. El número real modificará algunas
dramáticas reconfiguraciones de las fronteras sociales y ecológicas —que despla- leyes existentes, así como la invención de nuevos derechos. Ellos re-construyen la
zarían posiblemente a las entradas indocumentadas de la frontera sombreada en la matriz performativa en contraposición de la siempre más grande “actuación sim-
campaña de México-California hasta las zonas peligrosas que son controladas por bólica” del control de la frontera.
el narco, interpretando a la zona de México-Arizona como ‘los caminos del diablo’.
Los silencios prolijos de De l’autre côté, en la tradición de las “imágenes dentro de 19. Jay Parini dramáticamente imagina las últimas palabras de Benjamin en su
imágenes” de Akerman (ver Sultan y Akerman 2008) permanecen como un vacío novela Benjamin’s Crossing (1997).
engañoso, histórico y solitario propio del desierto, lo que De l’autre côté representa “Tikkun Olam,” susurra. La reparación del mundo. “Tikkun Olam” (281).
un rugido cacofónico. En realidad, Benjamin escribe su mensaje final a Henny Gurland (una de sus
compañeras de viaje y la madre de José): “Esta es una situación en la que no hay
18. HTM reconoce la creación inmanente de nuevos derechos, más allá de la bio- escapatoria. No tengo otra opción sino terminar aquí en un pueblito en los Pirineos
política zona fronteriza —una zona que desde el inicio del Operation Gatekeeper y donde nadie sabe que mi propia vida me está drenando.” Citando a Kafka remar-
después del 11 de septiembre del 2001— se hizo más peligrosa que nunca. La fuerza ca: “Hay suficiente esperanza, pero no para nosotros.”
táctica de los trans-cuerpos flota por entre los límites de la frontera, es el epítome ¿Qué tiene Benjamin en común con los migrantes contemporáneos?
del “riesgo”—no solo porque los que cruzan son “ilegales” o “no autorizados” sino Podemos entender los sentimientos últimos de Benjamin como las circunstancias
porque ellos re-hacen las condiciones de lo que por ciudadanía continental se actuales de los que hoy cruzan la frontera, “mente mojada.” Podemos también
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 134 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 135
dibujar líneas paralelas entre su dramática situación y las circunstancias terribles de que el futuro puede ser—multi-nodal y escalar, excediendo la dimensión y creación
aquellos pobres entre los pobres que hoy viajan en tren o van caminando. El exilio en ruta de los objetos en el Imperio de las Nubes.
universal de Sebastião Salgado.
El refugiado económico sociopolítico. Así como muchos académicos del mo- 21. En su Notes on Conceptualisms (2009) los autores Rob Fitterman y Vanessa
mento post-colonial, de lo subalterno, de lo global, de lo neoliberal, de la nota (divi- Place proponen que “la escritura conceptual es escritura alegórica” (13). Sin duda
dida) digital: individuos/colectivos —a la deriva de sus ‘orígenes’— son más que alguna. Pero con HTM decimos que no se puede aludir ni a lo “alegórico” ni a lo
los ciudadanos del estado más poblado del planeta. “conceptual”—tampoco a una conexión entre ambos— sin haber tomado en cuen-
ta las especificidades de los sitios, los periodos casuales, o las exaltaciones de la
20. Los túneles del neo-modernismo y la industrialización global están re-diseñando influencia. HTM llama a las fantasmas latín/o americanos conceptualizados, desde
la realidad mientras vamos dando cuenta de ella. A través de sus propios medios aquellos que fueron elaborados por Luis Camnitzer (2007) hasta aquellos que fue-
post-Taylor específicamente diseñados para las “estéticas relacionales” (Bourriaud, ron implícitamente marcados en exhibiciones como en Phantom Sightings: Art
2002) los objetos se transforman en redes de otras cosas: deseos propios del iPad, alter the Chicano Movement (2008) que podríamos llamar bajo el signo de “arte
transgresiones de la escritura por mensajes de texto, poderosas nubes de informa- (del disturbio) fronterizo” al que debemos añadir el nexo zapatista “nuestra palabra
ción, los escaneos corporales en el aeropuerto, datos económicos del Facebook… es nuestra arma”, comunicado, documento poético, conceptualismos poéticos a la
Podemos decir que éste fenómeno es como el casi completo Imperio amorfo de Place y Fitterman, flarf, literatura electrónica, obras de tierra, tecnología queer, arte
las Nubes, el cual, teniendo objetos-captura para su logística, estos, llegan como de la red 3.0, y más…
elementos fragmentados de diseño ante nuestros nervios ópticos y dedos, cons-
truidos por pieza en diferentes espacios, montados en otro, y entregados en múl- 22. El arte en red (arte.net/net.arte) y arte del software apuntan a formas de estética
tiples rutas antes y después que los consumamos (Bourriaud, 2002). que va desapareciendo. Procura transformarse en vacuolos de no-comunicación,
O a lo mejor, reconocemos que somos capturados por su logística cosificada. personificándose en y por medio del eslogan: “¡Salte del radar!”. El modus operandi
Esta, es la misma logística que pueden/podrían gobernar los flujos y protocolos de es la hibernación, soñando profundamente dentro de túneles interconectados. Y
los trans-cuerpos, sus propias fronteras, sus movimientos de formación extra-legal, otra señal es también un juego por debajo la invisibilidad durante los años noven-
su remix territorial, su contra-computacional procesamiento, sus formas del deseo ta—las ontologías de estar híper-presente, de estar demasiado visible para la
y sus métodos para atravesar (a pie, por barco, va documento de PhotoShop, con- máquina del estado (un plagiador utópico de “Deja que tu vida sea contra-fricción
virtiéndose en los más buscados/menos buscados cuerpos trabajadores que que detenga a la máquina” de Henry David Thoreau).
podría requerir el mercado global). Las prácticas de Desobediencia Civil Electrónica (DCE) deben ser entendidas
Un promedio del setenta hasta el ochenta porciento de los objetos del mercado como la manifestación visible de la conexión entre cuerpos de información y cuer-
global están en determinado paso del proceso de tránsito y esta migración corre pos reales (más que de una vez). La dicotomía entre el dios digital y el físico es un
en paralelo con el flujo de los trans-cuerpos, atravesando fronteras en todos lados, dios falso. Como dice nuestro colaborador, Micha Cárdenas, “DCE incluye un número
los trans-cuerpos son forzados a sacrificar sus derechos, sus personas, y sus fami- de componentes físicos, que van desde el hardware, el sitio de web que corre con
lias para estar “siempre a tiempo” en el sistema de circulación del Imperio de las Java, hasta el cuerpo humano que activa el código.” Los cuerpos que participan en
Nubes. Un estado alternativo al desastre tecno-científico está al acecho en el espa- la DCE están “¡en el radar!” El mito de anonimato no aplica a las estéticas de la DCE
cio de los túneles fronterizos (en los “ensamblajes terroristas” de Israel/Palestina y del HTM. La matriz preformativa de HTM construye formas más fluidas de partici-
México/Estados Unidos) (Puar, 2009). El suyo es un tráfico de los trans-cuerpos en pantes-encarnizados en un cierro virtual, que no es, necesariamente restringido a
contra del ensamblaje sobredeterminado en la ali-e-neación del mundo. Imagínese las mismas reglas y protocolos de género, sexualidad, raza o religión en los que
unos rastros/trazos en un mapa de vínculos entre cosas y ser humanos. Peculiares podrían tener experiencia día a día en cuerpos trans-cuerpos que, con el uso de
encuentros entre objetos logísticos, trans-cuerpos, y la soberanía que presagia lo cualquier sistema relacional de comunicación (desde un sitio de web hasta un
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 136 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 137
celular) se abren a sí mismos para ser órganos visible sin cuerpos conectados a 26. HTM es un soft-where donde imaginamos la inclusión a través de los cuerpos
sus cuerpos reales. transfronterizos en un performance estético de democracias virtuales, que se pre-
Las virtuales potencias de los trans-cuerpos, hacen arden lo “real” como cuer- sentan como formas de vida conformadas por trans-derechos. Estos trans-cuerpos
pos reales volviéndose realidades viscerales aumentadas con sorprendentes órganos encarnan riesgos geográficos interiorizados de lugares (hogares, tierras, olores, imagi-
nuevos y esquemas organizados para circun-navegar las opresiones logísticas de naciones locales). Celebra singularidades menores que ilegalmente se convierten en
la ali-e-nación de ensamblaje. zonas biopolíticas, encarando fronteras desbordadas del Imperio de las Nubes. Se
revelan en rechazos invisibles, reinsertadas bajo la primacía de notas al pie de página
23. El vidrio está quebrado, como si alguien hubiese querido pasar del otro lado. y posdatas. Con HTM caminamos por la presunta ‘nada’ futurista de lo “anti-anti-
“Es más difícil rendir tributo a la memoria de los sin nombre que a aquellos utópico”, como seguramente hemos caminado por el desierto Sonora (Muñoz 2009).
que han sido renombrados. La construcción histórica es devota a la memoria de
los sin nombre.” G.S.I. 1241. 27. HTM ha almacenado notables reseñas de personajes políticos estadounidenses
Es difícil dar la vuelta y subir de nueva cuenta. como Glenn Beck, quien escribió en su blog, The Blaze, el 31 de agosto del 2010,
No hay jardines bien cuidados aquí bajo la forma de alfombras atendidas por que HTM y su “poesía explícita amenaza con disolver al país.” La hipérbole de The
los sirvientes. Blaze evidencia la estética de la derecha, pero también atestigua a la primera fase
El “ambiente” de Karavan se entiende así: en esta alta costa vacía, son los del uso de HTM como una intervención conceptual.
entornos naturales que dominan como las olas del Kaddish quebrando una y otra Entre el éxtasis y lo audaz del discurso (Butler 1997, Foucault 2001).—está
vez a las tejas y limoneros en derredor del cementerio. Arendt describe este lugar el objetivo, de la seducción.
bajo una belleza impresionante. Un poema en movimiento que redibuje el mapa del continente. Una obra de
Homage to Walter Benjamin llama a un diálogo intenso con el medio ambien- la tierra que irrumpa el discurso de sus propia estética, de un mercado-orientado-
te. Inmerso del lado de la montaña, desde el exterior, lo salado y lo oxidado cons- transparentado que esté al alcance de una industria-militar- compleja, reduciendo
truyen un ambiente que hace parecerse a un triángulo gigante pegado a otro lo que pudiera ser el cruce de los restos con los criminales. De la minúscula fron-
creando un pasadizo. Ochenta y siete peldaños se detienen en un panel rectangu- tera entre Estados Unidos y México, hasta la frontera mayúscula de las teorías con
lar de vidrio que, toma la apariencia de un portal para viajar a través del tiempo. el arte, literatura, política pública… como Jacques Ranciére, podría decirnos “Lo
Qué delgada es la membrana que separa a los vivos de entre los muertos. real debe ser ficcionalizado para ser pensado” (2004: 38). La poesía y el agua no
son equivalentes, pero, con la nueva ola tóxica de la cultura de guerra, propia de
24. Debemos preguntar como HTM trastoca lo que queda de la catástrofe y del desastre los Estados Unidos, nos deja sedientos de más lecturas ampliadas.
del momento post-contemporáneo como un estetic‘ismo’ menor o un transcendental
‘ismo’ que crea pasajes para los mártires, quienes enfrentan la violenta apoteosis 28. Trans [ ] infinitos bailan sobre la nada: e-ventos llegan a los pies de una paloma,
que nos rodea. Una re-teocratización del futuro y sus espejimos de una singularidad nos sorprenden en los momentos de mayor silencio, e-ventos e-vitan la nada del
post-humana. HTM representa la sintomática revuelta de las ruinas que quedan para [grupo vacío] creando universos paralelos que nos llaman a “compartir el trabajo”
construir los cuerpos transfronterizos, —no como la significación, sino como el sentido o lo que esta por hacerse, sin el infinito de por medio. Todas las situaciones loca-
de ser reha/s/c/er— no de la ley sino de las allo-ontologías de justicia. Sólo nosotros. tivas resuenan con el Aleph [ ], los paréntesis vacíos, como mancuernillas tem-
blando, se convierten en intentos por capturar al infinito, cerrar el grupo [ ] y tirar
25. El parecido es asombroso: la firma de arquitectos Rael Sanfratello, responde al la llave. HTM supera la singularidad del Infinito, inundando el grupo, nombrando a
requerimiento para rediseñar la barrera/el muro de la frontera México/Estados los infinitos pluralizados [ ] que nunca dejan que la catástrofe de las fronteras les
Unidos, visibilizándola como una puerta de luz, un “ambiente” oxidado que se pare- sustraiga—la lógica de un ética errada=una estética sin nombre que se mueve
ce a la propia Karavan. ¿Podemos entrar en un portal, sin salir de otro? adentro y a un lado de nosotros.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 138 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 139
Place, Vanessa and Robert Fitterman. Notes on Conceptualisms. New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009.
29. Escuchamos al viento cadencioso, alijado en las piedras del mar y las conchitas Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Asssemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke U. P., 2007.
que hemos recogido el la playa de Portbou. Como si el sonido de dos restos de un Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics, translated by Gabriel Rockhill. New York: Continuum, 2004.
“tiempo mesiánico” frotadas juntos, su tocamiento—lo que quedara de él—nos Raley, Rita. Tactical Media. Minnesota: University Of Minnesota Press, 2009.
recordara que lo post-neoliberal no reside en el futuro, pero sí en la translúcida Sarlo, Beatriz. Siete ensayos sobre Walter Benjamin. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000.
Scheurmann, Ingrid and Konrad, eds. For Walter Benjamin: Documentation, Essays and a Sketch, trans-
infinitud de conjunciones conjugacionales de un tiempo histórico-contemporáneo.
lated by Timothy Nevill. Bonn, Germany: AsKI, 1993.
Soto, Sandra K. “Seeing Through Photographs of Borderlands (Dis)order.” Latino Studies 5 (2007):
418- 438.
Obras citadas Sultan, Terry and Chantal Akerman. Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space (catalog). Houston:
Akerman, Chantal. De l’autre côté. 2002. 103 minutes. Blaffer Gallery (The Art Museum of the University of Houston), 2008.
Alcalá, Rosa. Undocumentaries. Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2010. Taussig, Michael. Walter Benjamin’s Grave. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. San Francisco: aunt lute books, 1987. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Resistance to Civil Government, edited by William Rossi. New York: W.
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SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 140 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 141
Sueños de reprogramación corporal de los herederos inmediatos de la turbulenta modernidad. Contrariando lo que supon-
dría semejante linaje, desorientados y un tanto paralizados, los habitantes de
(¿Para doblegar técnicamente a la catástrofe… este planeta globalizado sentimos que esas dos fuerzas nos arrastran como si fue-
ran ajenas a nuestra voluntad y a nuestras acciones, tanto las reales y efectivas
o quizás para provocarla?) como aquellas posibles o incluso pensables.
Además, ambos vectores están relacionados. La catástrofe, por ejemplo, no
sólo parece impulsada por los fabulosos inventos técnicos del último par de siglos,
PAULA SIBILIA sino que a su vez ella misma promete ser controlada técnicamente… o, al menos,
eso se intenta. No sólo en lo que respecta al gran cataclismo planetario —prota-
gonizado por el terrible drama ecológico y por cierto agotamiento de los modos de
vida asociados al capitalismo avanzado—, sino también en lo que se refiere a las
Todo cuerpo se nutre, muere y renace continuamente. […] Si día tras pequeñas catástrofes cotidianas que nos afectan individualmente: desde las enfer-
día devuelves al cuerpo lo que ha gastado, renacerá tanta vida como se haya medades o cualquier otro tipo de malestar psicofísico, hasta la tragedia personal del
consumido; así como ocurre con la luz de las candelas, nutrida por envejecimiento y la muerte. En efecto, nada de esto suena muy novedoso; al con-
el sebo derretido que continuamente se va restaurando… hasta que su trario, parece algo ligado inextricablemente al mismísimo destino de la condición
resplandor se convierte en oscuro humo y la luz muere. humana. No obstante, ciertos elementos tiñen este derrotero con un aire novedoso,
LEONARDO DA VINCI delineando la actualidad del fenómeno que inspiró el título de este ensayo: los sueños
de reprogramación corporal.
Así como hoy tenemos relaciones sexuales sólo por sus recompensas afectivas
y sensuales, podremos separar el acto de comer de la función de obtener Intervenciones técnicas en la materia orgánica: corrección o programación
nutrientes. Esa tecnología estará razonablemente madura en la década de 2020. ¿En qué consisten esos míticos devaneos? Para intentar explicarlo, vale recurrir a un
[…] Podremos comer lo que se nos antoje, que nos dé placer y realización par de imágenes, que son representativas de dos configuraciones históricas bastante
gastronómica […] usando nano-robots que operen como minúsculos distintas. En primer lugar, convoco la silueta de un árbol cuyo tronco crece torcido,
compactadores de basura. […] Se podría sugerir que la función de eliminación inclinado, como desviado hacia un costado. Por tal motivo, esa planta debe ser ende-
proporciona placer, pero sospecho que la mayoría de la gente estaría feliz sin ella. rezada con una estaca o una especie de tutor, que con el tiempo la forzará a desarro-
RAY KURTZWEIL llarse de forma cada vez más recta. Ese método de intervención en la materia viva
tiene ciertas características que lo asocian al ideal mecánico, y desde una perspectiva
Afirmar que vivimos una época extraña no significa demasiado, ya que todas lo deben contemporánea podría decirse que usa una técnica analógica, en oposición al apara-
haber sido y probablemente siempre lo serán, pero quizás este momento histórico taje digital que hoy reina entre nosotros. En síntesis, dicha embestida refleja una volun-
tenga una peculiaridad. El tiempo presente parece conciliar, como nunca, eufóricas tad de esculpir, tallar y labrar un organismo que detenta cierta flexibilidad pero a su
celebraciones de una supuesta felicidad triunfante, y perspectivas sumamente deso- vez es duro, rígido, opaco. Es una materia que resiste ante el accionar de estos proce-
ladoras para el futuro cercano. De algún modo, al iniciarse esta segunda década dimientos técnicos que pretenden normalizarla al enderezarlas. De modo que se trata
del siglo XXI, el porvenir se vislumbra cerrado o bloqueado en una confusa nebu- de un método arduo y lento, un tanto bruto e incluso cruel, cuyos resultados son
losa. Esa bruma compacta sólo se disipa en dos grietas bien iluminadas: aquella inciertos: no es una estrategia cien por ciento eficaz. A pesar de los cuidados y los
que asciende por una escalerilla infinita de avances tecnológicos, y aquella otra que avances logrados durante siglos en las técnicas utilizadas para alcanzar objetivos
se desploma rumbo a la catástrofe. En ninguno de esos senderos, sin embargo, de este tipo, no hay ninguna garantía de que la planta de hecho se enderece y quede
parecemos ser nosotros los sujetos de la historia; algo que resulta curioso, tratándose recta; ni tampoco se sabe cuándo eso sucederá, si es que de hecho llegara a ocurrir.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 142 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 143
La segunda imagen que quisiera evocar, para contrastar con la anterior, muestra industrial. Es decir, puro hardware de engranajes, palancas, poleas y tornillos, como
una semilla cuyo genoma fue alterado. Así, convertida en un organismo transgénico, un conjunto de piezas ensambladas para formar una unidad indivisible, cuyo com-
la planta que ese grano dará a luz estará proyectada genéticamente. No sólo para plejo mecanismo se ve animado por una misteriosa energía vital. La segunda planta,
que no crezca torcida o defectuosa, sino también para que posea ciertas caracte- en cambio, sería otro tipo de aparato: una máquina cuyo hardware —entendido
rísticas especificas, tales como la tolerancia a un herbicida, por ejemplo, cierto tamaño como el organismo o la materialidad de su cuerpo— está dirigido por una especie
y color, o determinados tipos de nutrientes en su configuración. Todo eso se puede de software comparable a un programa informático. De modo que su cuerpo y su
lograr porque el código genético de la semilla en cuestión ha sido programado para vida están comandados por las instrucciones que integran su código genético. No
que la planta desarrolle dichos rasgos. sería exagerado sostener que el ADN funciona, aquí, como una especie de sistema
La distancia entre las estrategias tecnológicas ejercidas sobre los dos vegetales operativo que gobierna no sólo a esa semilla en particular y a la planta que de ella
descritos en los párrafos anteriores podría resumir la historia de la intervención téc- nacerá, sino también a todos los demás vegetales y todos los animales que viven
nica en la materia orgánica, ya sea humana o no-humana. Al menos, hasta ahora. actualmente o que alguna vez han vivido sobre la Tierra; incluyendo, por supuesto,
En sentido tanto literal como metafórico, esas dos imágenes sintetizan la “evolu- al hombre.
ción” de las formas en que usamos la tecnología para alterar la vida. Por tales motivos, esta flamante visión del mundo implica otra lógica de la vida:
Ambas condensan la historia de los modos como se implementaron los diver- una nueva biológica, que es tanto biotecnológica como biopolítica. Este nuevo rela-
sos saberes y herramientas inventados a lo largo de milenios para transformar los to cosmológico —para recurrir a una expresión cara a los antropólogos—, esta
organismos vivos según los más cambiantes objetivos humanos. En ese conjunto explicación del mundo típica de nuestra tribu, se está volviendo cada vez más
de seres intervenidos técnicamente se incluye, por supuesto, el cuerpo vivo de los hegemónica en la cultura occidental globalizada del siglo XXI. Y, según sus narra-
hombres y las mujeres. Cabe aclarar, sin embargo, la importancia de las comillas tivas, las cuatro letras químicas que componen “el alfabeto de la vida” integran un
en el término “evolución”, al menos en este contexto, ya que entre el primero y el lenguaje: esos cuatro signos componen el ADN, un código cuyas infinitas combi-
último ejemplo mencionados no ha habido tan sólo una acumulación de avances naciones en instrucciones ordenadas helicoidalmente dan como resultado la enorme
graduales rumbo a un perfeccionamiento técnico cada vez mayor, sino un verda- diversidad de formas de vida terrestres. Es el mismo lenguaje, compuesto por esas
dero quiebre: una ruptura histórica que se manifiesta tanto en términos tecnológi- cuatro únicas letras, el encargado de codificar la “esencia” de todos los seres vivos:
cos como biológicos. desde la mosca de la fruta hasta el roble o la luciérnaga, desde la paloma y el cuervo
Ese corte radical se debe a que la materia que conforma cada uno de esos hasta la orquídea o la hierba. O bien un perro, un cactus, una mariposa, una bac-
dos organismos vivos es diferente. Su materialidad se piensa como siendo distinta teria, un elefante, un mosquito, una lechuga: la enumeración podría ser infinita,
y, además, se la puede manipular de formas diferenciadas. La primera planta se porque comprende absolutamente todos los seres vivos. Sus cuerpos y sus vidas
moldea o se “corrige” desde afuera hacia adentro: su envoltorio exterior o su cás- están programados con ese mismo lenguaje, compuesto por aquellas cuatro úni-
cara es presionada mediante el uso de rudos métodos mecánicos y analógicos. En cas letras: A, C, G y T.
cambio, la segunda planta se puede proyectar desde adentro hacia afuera: se la Así, por ejemplo, la diferencia entre el chimpancé y el ser humano ya fue
programa a partir de su núcleo interior, recurriendo a métodos mucho más sofisti- cuantificada en esos términos, y los científicos responsables por dicho estudio ase-
cados que son de índole biotecnológica y de inspiración informática. Por eso, guran que esa distinción contempla menos del dos por ciento de sus respectivos
podría afirmarse que estos últimos procedimientos son más cercanos al universo genomas. No se trata solamente de una discrepancia mínima; además, medidas
digital que al analógico, y apuntan a reprogramar algo considerado imperfecto por de ese modo, las diferencias entre ambos tipos de seres se tornan meramente
naturaleza en vez de intentar corregir ciertos desvíos de la normalidad. cuantitativas: se refieren a una mayor o menor complejidad, a una mayor o menor
Si fuera posible aplicar a esas dos plantas la clásica metáfora de la máquina cantidad de información genética. Por eso, vale la pena detenerse en las peculia-
—una figura retórica tan fértil en la tradición occidental, que fue sumamente activa ridades de cada uno de estos relatos cosmológicos, y pensar cuál habría sido
a lo largo de toda la era moderna—, la primera de ellas sería un viejo artefacto el panorama antes de esta reformulación informática de la vida y la naturaleza. Si
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 144 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 145
el hombre y el chimpancé fueran observados como dos mamíferos maquínicos a involucrados en esas transacciones debían ser “compatibles” sexualmente. Eso sig-
la vieja usanza, por ejemplo, se los vería como dos máquinas semejantes en varios nifica que sus carcasas corporales debían ser capaces de intercambiar mecánica-
aspectos, pero irreductiblemente distintas en muchos otros. Por un lado, tendríamos mente el material genético de ambos organismos. Porque los átomos que integran la
un mono; y, por otro lado, un hombre o una mujer; es decir, dos tipos de seres con materia orgánica así comprendida son mucho menos dúctiles que los bits que com-
diferencias cualitativas e inexorables entre sí. ponen la información: aquellas partículas carnales eran menos dóciles y flexibles
Hoy en día, sin embargo, aquellas otras comparaciones matemáticas —así como, que los flujos de datos, se consideraban más duras y rígidas que esta nueva forma
eventualmente, sus combinaciones e intercambios de información genética— de descomponer químicamente la materia orgánica al punto de tornarla casi inma-
pueden efectuarse entre cualquier par de seres vivos, y el resultado siempre arro- terial de tan etérea, volátil y ubicua. Por eso se trata de dos tipos de materialidades
jará una diferencia meramente numérica: un problema de cantidad y organización bastante distintas: aquella de la planta torcida y enderezada mecánicamente, por
de la misma información. Las diferencias entre los humanos y la vaca, por ejemplo, un lado; y, por otro lado, la de la semilla programada biotecnológicamente.
abarcan alrededor del veinte por ciento de su material genético. Menos que la dis- Así, antes —cuando sólo disponíamos de los viejos métodos mecánicos y
crepancia entre el genoma del hombre y el del ratón, por cierto, aunque la diver- analógicos—, un burro y una yegua podían dar origen a una mula, por ejemplo, o
sidad informática entre el maíz y el ser humano también es menos significativa que una naranja y un limón podrían generar un nuevo fruto cítrico. Pero jamás habría
la distancia entre dos clases de bacterias. A pesar de todas esas disparidades y sido posible combinar, de esa forma tan burdamente “analógica”, el material gené-
curiosidades aritméticas, en todos los casos se trata del mismo tipo de información, tico de la soja con el del salmón o el calamar, por ejemplo, o la sustancia física de
ordenada de diversas formas y en distintas dosificaciones. un conejo con la de una medusa o una luciérnaga; o bien los ingredientes de un ser
humano con los de un cerdo o una flor. Porque esos cuerpos comprendidos en
La vida como información y una naturaleza reprogramable clave mecánica y analógica eran incompatibles entre sí, y en aquel entonces no se
Debido a esa equivalencia de base, según estas nuevas narraciones cosmológicas trataba de operar intercambios de información inspirados en los modelos digitales,
que se apoyan en verdades con evidente aval científico, los códigos de las distintas como sucede ahora. No obstante, esto es lo que ha ocurrido durante milenios,
especies podrían combinarse y recombinarse en una serie infinita de mezclas posi- puesto que los nuevos métodos biotecnológicos de inspiración informática son
bles. Y esa múltiple mixtura permitiría una reprogramación total de la vida: de cual- muy recientes: surgieron hace unas pocas décadas, con sus fabulosas propuestas
quier forma de vida, incluso de aquellas todavía inexistentes y hasta impensables, de recombinar genes, diseñar organismos transgénicos y efectuar las más auda-
o de aquellas otras que se han extinguido hace millones de años. Por tanto, no se ces clonaciones.
trata apenas de una ruptura antropológica o concerniente a la especie humana en A pesar de su corta trayectoria, quizás estas inquietantes novedades estén
particular, sino de una genuina reformulación biológica que engloba a todas las abriendo un nuevo capítulo en la historia de la humanidad, así como en la relación
especies animales y vegetales, inclusive aquellas que hoy se considerarían quimé- entre la tecnología y la materia viva. Por eso son tan elocuentes las imágenes de
ricas. Además, esa transformación viene acompañada por una serie de convulsio- aquellas dos plantas emblemáticas —una cuyos desvíos se intentan enderezar con
nes ocurridas en todos los ámbitos, con serios impactos en el nivel epistemológico: instrumentos mecánicos y otra genéticamente programada para que sea de una
una mutación capaz de informatizar o digitalizar a la naturaleza, convirtiendo a la determinada forma—, porque en la distancia entre ambas ilustraciones se aglutina la
vida en información manipulable. historia de esa relación, poniendo en evidencia los complejos lazos que atan a la téc-
Antes de que se desencadenara esta mutación que acabó generando la pre- nica con los cuerpos orgánicos. Si esas dos imágenes sintetizan el itinerario que
sente encrucijada histórica, abriendo el horizonte evolutivo de una manera inaudita, dicha relación ha transitado hasta el día de hoy, el abismo que separa ambos ejem-
las posibilidades combinatorias entre las diversas especies de seres vivos eran muy plos puede ser comparable a la grieta que aparta dos universos o dos regimenes
limitadas. Ya sea que ocurrieran naturalmente por obra del azar, o fueran provoca- epistemológicos distintos, además de dos bloques antropológicos y biológicos cla-
das artificialmente por las humildes proezas de la tecnociencia de aquel entonces, ramente diferenciables. En uno de ellos rigen los anticuados métodos mecánicos
todas esas mezclas tenían un requisito básico para poder ocurrir: los organismos vivos y analógicos que se utilizaban de forma exclusiva hasta hace muy poco tiempo,
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 146 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 147
mientras que el otro es el reino de los nuevos procedimientos que están surgiendo suscitará semejante reformulación de la vida, tanto para la especie humana como
actualmente: métodos bioinformáticos que, cada vez más, recurren a la lógica digital para toda la biosfera, aunque esos efectos todavía sean incalculables o incluso
para consumar sus ambiciosas metas. inimaginables. También es cierto que el arte tiene mucho para decir sobre esto, y
En virtud de esas intensas transformaciones, hay quien sostiene que las posi- que algo ya se está esforzando por musitar en una variedad de formatos y tenores,
bilidades inauguradas con el advenimiento de estas herramientas podrían, quizás, aunque más no sea en el sentido de depurar la formulación de las preguntas que
dar origen a un nuevo tipo de humanidad, inaugurando una clase de ser humano suscitan tanta perplejidad y desconcierto.
que sería más acorde con esta flamante naturaleza reprogramable. En consecuen- Una de las certezas con que contamos es que se trata de un nuevo campo
cia de esa metamorfosis, estarían surgiendo una humanidad y una biosfera rede- metafórico, un oleaje comparable al aluvión mecanicista que transformó impetuo-
finidas como post-orgánicas o post-biológicas, compatibles con un mundo que samente al mundo desde fines del siglo XVII y principios del XVIII, provocando una
se está volviendo post-natural e inclusive post-humano. Si estos diagnósticos son conmoción epistemológica cuyas repercusiones llegan hasta nuestros días. Ese
correctos, cabe suponer que las consecuencias de semejante mutación serán proyecto histórico tuvo, como uno de sus principales objetivos, la ambiciosa pro-
inmensas. Entre otros motivos, porque los métodos analógicos que intentaban puesta de mecanizar a los cuerpos humanos y la naturaleza en su conjunto. Pero
esculpir laboriosamente la materia humana —así como la materia orgánica que ahora un nuevo conjunto de metáforas informáticas crece solapando a su prede-
compone todas las demás formas de vida— eran mucho más ineficaces que estos cesor, lo empuja con el propósito de reemplazarlo por un nuevo tejido de imágenes
nuevos procedimientos. Además, funcionaban según otra lógica, no sólo tecnoló- y relatos, y amenaza con terminar imponiendo su propio orden y sus leyes, tanto
gica y epistemológica sino también biológica y antropológica. al universo en general como a todos los seres vivos y al organismo humano en par-
Aquella antigua materia orgánica que conformaba la planta torcida y, de algu- ticular. En vez de intentar mecanizar todas esas entidades, este nuevo sustrato
na manera, era compatible con las herramientas mecánicas y analógicas de los ya metafórico apunta a digitalizarlas.
envejecidos tiempos modernos, no sólo era rígida, opaca y resistente a la penetra- Esto no sucede apenas en el área de la genética, según se ha intentado resu-
ción técnica, sino que también era misteriosa. Guardaba en sus entrañas carnales mir en las páginas precedentes, sino que se expande por todas las “ciencias de la
el enigma de su funcionamiento: el secreto de la vida le pertenecía por entero, y vida” en su versión más contemporánea. En ese sentido, las neurociencias cons-
se creía que ese misterio incognoscible enmudecería en su seno por toda la eternidad. tituyen otro vector sumamente pujante: la intensa divulgación mediática de sus
Ahora, en cambio, la nueva materia orgánica —aquella que compone a la semilla investigaciones y descubrimientos suele mostrar de qué modo, hoy, los misterios
reprogramada para que sea de determinada forma— es mucho más flexible que del cerebro se descifran en imágenes pixeladas que plasman sus coloridos dictá-
su antecesora. Sobre todo, porque la gobierna un código cuyos enigmas están menes en las pantallas de los computadores. Al permitir la digitalización —es decir,
siendo descifrados, y el gran sueño de estos proyectos tecnocientíficos es que esa la conversión en información— de los “contenidos mentales” y la “carga genética”
especie de software biológico universal —ese sistema operativo que comanda todas de cada individuo, gracias al procesamiento de todos esos datos con ayuda de los
las formas de vida— se tornará transparente y, además, será cómodamente com- artefactos electrónicos hoy disponibles o en veloz desarrollo, se piensa que pronto
patible con nuestros artefactos electrónicos. Se apuesta, entonces, a que la materia podrían llegar a superarse algunas de las más persistentes limitaciones biológicas
viva pronto se volverá enteramente maleable, programable y reprogramable a gusto. del organismo humano. Podrían eliminarse, así, ciertas debilidades o restricciones de
ese cuerpo tozudamente material en su rigidez analógica —en ese sentido, com-
De la mecanización a la digitalización de los cuerpos parable a aquella vieja planta mencionada al principio, amargamente torcida por
A la luz de estas reflexiones, cabe reiterar la sospecha inicial que motivó la escri- su naturaleza imperfecta— y que, por tal motivo, se presenta como deficitario u
tura de este ensayo: es muy difícil determinar si todo esto implica una posible solu- obsoleto en la actualidad.
ción para la catástrofe que hoy asecha en el horizonte o si, al contrario, no es más Se cree que ese cuerpo debería poder “mejorarse” o reprogramarse con recursos
que una de sus causas. Aún no tenemos respuestas firmes para esa inquietud, técnicos. No sólo en el sentido más banal y evidente del embellecimiento o el reju-
pero hay algo sobre lo que no caben dudas: son innegables las consecuencias que venecimiento de la apariencia física, aunque ése es un componente fundamental
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y sumamente insidioso de la moral contemporánea. Además, se piensa que sería el cual nuestros cuerpos son cada vez más compatibles. Esas entidades son esqui-
posible ir mucho más lejos. Se cree que pronto se podrá, por ejemplo, preservar vas: jamás se dejarían penetrar por la parafernalia informática y digital que hoy
la información cerebral —o, en otras versiones de ese mismo relato, la información pretende descifrar nuestras esencias, cuya clave se considera arraigada en las
genética—, y transferir esos datos “esenciales” hacia otro soporte corporal: un clon, profundidades carnales de cada ser.
quizás, o algún sucedáneo técnicamente perfeccionado del vetusto cuerpo humano. Por todos esos motivos, aquellas entidades misteriosas que hoy parecen algo
Desde luego, no es solamente en el campo científico donde hoy se explora anticuadas, esas invenciones pesadamente analógicas de antaño —el alma, el
esta compatibilidad entre el cuerpo humano y los artefactos informáticos: también espíritu, la psiquis, el inconsciente—, son tan distintas no sólo de las instrucciones
son muy fértiles, en ese terreno, tanto la reflexión filosófica como la producción grabadas en el código genético, sino también de la información pixelada que tran-
artística y mediática. Los ejemplos son múltiples y sumamente heterogéneos, pero sita por los circuitos cerebrales, y que también puede ser leída y descifrada por
suele estar bastante clara la diferencia entre ese universo y esos cuerpos digitali- nuestras máquinas. Todas aquellas entelequias remiten a otro universo, remontan
zados que brillan en la actualidad —incluso por haber sido retocados con el cada a una cosmología previa a esta redefinición biológica y antropológica que acompaña
vez más popular “bisturí de software” del PhotoShop— y aquellos otros organis- al salto tecnológico y epistemológico más reciente. Basta con recordar que aquella
mos humanos que se soñaban mecánicos o mecanizables, tanto en su planifica- enigmática esencia subjetiva debía ser interrogada y interpretada con métodos que
ción de un progreso epifánico como en sus peores pesadillas de prometeica no demandaban necesariamente una mediación tecnológica, sino todo un conjunto
modernidad. Un mundo y un tipo de cuerpo, estos últimos, que ya hace algunas de procedimientos rituales que solían ser lentos, duros y penosos. Y, sobre todo,
décadas comenzamos a abandonar. Se trata, por tanto, de una ruptura histórica, esos métodos eran inciertos y falibles: se consideraban “subjetivos”, carentes de
marcada no sólo por una transformación en las técnicas que usamos para alterar la mágica objetividad que envuelve a la tecnociencia. Eran recursos poco eficaces
la materia viva, sino también en lo que ellas implican a nivel conceptual o episte- —inciertos, precarios, imperfectos—, entre los cuales figuraba el psicoanálisis y
mológico. Esa metamorfosis llega a afectar, inclusive, la propia definición de la sus terapias afiliadas, por ejemplo, pero también otras herramientas típicas de
condición humana: está cambiando lo que pensamos acerca de qué significa ser contextos históricos cada vez más lejanos, como el diario íntimo, la introspección
humanos; es decir, cuales son los sentidos e implicaciones de estar en el mundo y las diversas formas de la confesión intimista.
del modo en que somos y estamos, o cómo podríamos ser y estar. En cambio, las renovadas sustancias que componen nuestras esencias son
biológicas, y esa cualidad es válida tanto para los genes y el ADN como para los
flujos bioquímicos del cerebro, así como para las hormonas, enzimas, proteínas y
Un cuerpo y un alma compatibles con los computadores neurotransmisores que componen los cuerpos y articulan las subjetividades. Ese
Para profundizar en los diversos meandros de este quiebre de paradigma, vale la detalle no es menor: las nuevas entidades son carnales. Están inscriptas en el
pena efectuar otra comparación. En este caso, se trata de oponer el genoma organismo, aun cuando en las cristalizaciones metafóricas que se diseminan por
humano o el código genético de cada individuo —es decir, aquello que cifra nues- todas partes se las piense como vagamente inmateriales, como si fueran meras
tra esencia, según las definiciones más usuales de nuestra época, no solo como instrucciones informáticas o algo comparable al software de los computadores. Sin
especie biológica sino también como sujetos singulares— con otras entelequias embargo, todas ellas son encarnaciones de la materia orgánica en los formatos más
más anticuadas, tales como el alma o el espíritu, e incluso la conciencia, la mente diversos. Además, son —o muy pronto pretenden volverse— enteramente desci-
y el psiquismo de cada sujeto. Todas esas entelequias son obscuras y herméticas, frables, mediante un arsenal muy eficaz que es fruto del matrimonio entre la infor-
con características que hoy se podrían describir como “analógicas”. No sólo por- mática y las nuevas ciencias de la vida. Un buen ejemplo son los secuenciadores
que se trata de entidades opacas, turbias, nebulosas, sumamente difíciles de defi- de ADN, precisamente: aparatos capaces de leer los códigos genéticos de cual-
nir y conceptualizar, e inclusive de captar en una imagen visual o cualquier otro quier espécimen a partir una molécula orgánica. O los artefactos de resonancia
tipo de objetivación. Además, y sobre todo, porque ostentan una resistencia inape- magnética, PET-Scan y tomografías computadas: máquinas capaces de fotografiar
lable a las embestidas del nuevo arsenal técnico cuyo linaje es informático, y con en vistosas imágenes los cerebros que escanean.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 150 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 151
Gracias a esa compatibilidad entre los organismos vivos y las flamantes herra- semejante; inclusive, por qué no, alguno de los circuitos informáticos que componen
mientas electrónicas, toda la información vital que define la “esencia” de los seres los cuerpos humanos, especialmente en sus encarnaciones medulares como el
humanos podría digitalizarse. Esos datos no son solamente descifrables, porque lo código genético o el sistema nervioso central.
que se pretende no es tan solo leer para decodificar: el fin perseguido más fervien- Pues, por lo visto, tanto las metáforas maquínicas como los métodos analógi-
temente consiste en alterar esa información vital. Programarla, desprogramarla y cos tradicionales han quedado obsoletos. Y en ese conjunto no sólo se incluyen las
reprogramarla según un copioso menú de deseos, objetivos y voluntades humanas, disciplinas que ajustaban los engranajes corporales y la antigua moral del trabajo,
y no más según los incontrolables designios divinos o el inescrutable azar de la sino también las bellas artes de la cultura letrada. Es decir, todas esas viejas téc-
naturaleza. Esto es muy distinto de lo que se proponían hacer —y, sobre todo, de nicas de modelaje y orfebrería; tanto en términos biológicos como antropológicos,
lo que efectivamente lograban consumar— las viejas artes de modelar, rectificar, tanto de forma literal como metafórica. Esos métodos que se aplicaban desde el
cincelar y corregir mecánicamente la materia bruta, dura y muda que hasta hace exterior hacia el interior, y que pretendían penetrar —ya fuera de forma violenta o
algunos años solía componer los cuerpos humanos y la naturaleza en general. dulcemente— en la materia humana para enderezarla, disciplinarla y normalizarla.
Un proceso que solía ser difícil, parsimonioso y sufrido, cuya eficacia no ofrecía
Biologizar, patologizar y medicalizar garantías, era imprevisible y distaba mucho de ser total.
Son varias las iniciativas y proyectos tecnocientíficos que hoy sueñan con repro- Hoy, en cambio, pareciera más adecuado recurrir a otras tácticas y estrate-
gramar ciertas características humanas, tanto de cada individuo en particular como gias: procedimientos más precisos, capaces de operar una verdadera reprograma-
de la especie en su conjunto. Para poder llevar a cabo tales proyectos, estas ini- ción mediante técnicas más eficientes y limpias que aquellos rústicos métodos
ciativas tienden a biologizar ciertos comportamientos y disposiciones, en el sentido de analógicos de la era industrial. Las nuevas fórmulas tecnocientíficas que se ensayan
que los explican en términos anatómicos y fisiológicos. Además, en el mismo gesto en estos proyectos de punta traen la promesa de desactivar esas predisposiciones
suelen patologizarlos, al catalogarlos como rasgos anormales e indeseables, defi- criminales, por ejemplo, al reprogramar a los sujetos potencialmente “fallados”
niéndolos como atributos adscriptos al linaje de la enfermedad. Así, es cada vez más desde el núcleo interior que comanda sus cuerpos. Es decir, alterando su esencia
habitual que se postule un origen genético o neurológico para características como la informática para rescribirla en buena letra. Por eso es tan intensa, hoy en día, la
predisposición a la violencia, por ejemplo, o para la tendencia a cometer crímenes. búsqueda de entelequias como “el gen de la criminalidad” o “los neurotransmiso-
Y para solucionar esas “fallas de carácter”, para reparar esos errores inscriptos en res que inducen a la violencia”, o un elenco de enzimas y hormonas igualmente
los genes o en la química cerebral del sujeto en cuestión, se tiende a medicalizarlos. peligrosas. Lo que se desea descubrir es algún procedimiento técnico que permita
Para prevenir que alguien con esas tendencias genéticas o neuroquímicas se con- desactivar y reprogramar esos destinos fatales inscriptos en la carne, ya sea en el
vierta de hecho en un delincuente o un sujeto considerado peligroso, habría métodos código genético o en las redes neuronales.
capaces de desactivar esas fatídicas propensiones biológicas. Pero no se trata sólo de eso: además, estos nuevos procedimientos son alta-
Lo que se intenta ejercer sobre esos individuos es una suerte de normalización mente inclusivos, puesto que no se limitan a enfocar esos casos especialmente
técnica y preventiva, un proyecto apoyado en las nuevas herramientas tecnocien- difíciles, esos cuerpos indóciles o torcidos que habría que corregir porque están
tíficas: en ese instrumental que es compatible con el cuerpo humano y que pre- “fallados”. Al contrario, su principal lema es prevenir, ya que no todos los sujetos
tende digitalizar sus esencias informáticas para reprogramarlas. De hecho, este tipo detentan fallas obvias y flagrantes en sus códigos, tales como la propensión a
de propuestas suele presentarse como la única forma de apaciguar —y, por tanto, de cometer crímenes o a contraer alguna enfermedad. Cabe aclarar, a propósito, que
controlar— ciertos tipos de cuerpos especialmente indóciles o “torcidos”. Como si en este nuevo cuadro también las enfermedades se interpretan como errores ins-
bastase con presionar la tecla Delete de un computador para eliminar ese desa- criptos en los códigos informáticos vitales, aunque esas disfunciones sean poten-
gradable problema técnico enquistado en dichos organismos; y, quien sabe, con el cialmente corregibles a través de intervenciones técnicas. De cualquier modo, si
tiempo y el perfeccionamiento de los recursos, intentar extirparlo de la especie bien no todos tenemos esos terribles defectos grabados en nuestras células, es
humana. La metáfora predilecta, en estos caso, es el computador o cualquier aparato innegable que todos disponemos de ciertas propensiones. Absolutamente todos
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 152 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 153
los seres humanos detentan alguna propensión a enfermarse y morir, por ejemplo; expresión acuñada por Michel Foucault. Un proyecto histórico que deriva de esas
en mayor o menor medida, lo cual depende de diversas variables y factores que metáforas y que viene entrelazado a sus nuevas verdades, pero al mismo tiempo
idealmente también podrán medirse, evaluarse, cuantificarse, preverse y prevenir- contribuye a reforzarlas y reproducirlas. Solamente en este nuevo contexto cabe
se en su totalidad. Esto significa que, al igual que nuestras máquinas, estamos comprender esta posibilidad inusitada de reprogramar la vida orgánica y, particu-
condenados a la obsolescencia. No obstante, por la misma razón, debemos luchar, larmente, el creciente anhelo de reconfigurar los propios cuerpos como si se tra-
sin pausa, contra la culminación (¿todavía?) inevitable de ese declive siempre en tara de entidades post-orgánicas, post-biológicas e incluso post-humanas.
marcha. Para obedecer a dichos mandatos, hay que efectuar todas las actualiza- Esta nueva ambición se presenta como un proyecto más tecnológico que hu-
ciones necesarias y hacer reciclajes constantes: es así como opera la tiranía del manista; más técnico que político, cultural, social o económico. Y más digital que
upgrade y del update, bajo cuyas presiones hoy vivimos, no sólo en lo que se refiere analógico: un plan respaldado por una base epistemológica de un cientificismo extre-
a nuestras máquinas sino también a nuestros cuerpos. mo, o de un “mito tecnocientificista” que se pretende más objetivo, eficaz y verdadero
Por tales motivos, también, ahora todos los seres humanos deben redefinirse que todas las otras cosmologías posibles o siquiera imaginables. Pero lo más impor-
como virtualmente enfermos y, por consiguiente, como perpetuos consumidores tante quizás sea que este reduccionismo metafórico —una simplificación fisicalista,
de productos y servicios destinados al cuidado de la salud. En este nuevo contexto, que no por ser metafórica es menos real— termina despolitizando y des-socializando
la enfermedad se hace endémica: se convierte en una característica inherente a la los conflictos cuando los biologiza y medicaliza. Porque según estas explicaciones,
especie humana. Por eso se ha vuelto obligatorio abonar una tasa mensual a las el origen de todos los males y pesares que hoy nos aquejan parece ser individual:
empresas médicas: el triunfo de los sistemas de medicina pre-paga confirma que se trata de meras fallas en la programación de determinado organismo humano. Se
todos somos portadores asintomáticos de enfermedad y muerte, en mayor o menor cree que la naturaleza específica de ese ser vivo tiene un defecto, registra un error
grado, aunque en el momento presente todavía no presentemos los síntomas de de tipo informático en su constitución biológica, un desperfecto que eventualmente
esas disfunciones. Pero estamos siempre sometidos al riesgo de enfermarnos y podría corregirse con la valiosa ayuda de la tecnología. Pero son siempre explica-
morir, motivo por el cual es necesario auto-vigilarse sin cesar, como quien persigue ciones técnicas e intervenciones correctivas sobre organismos individuales: se trata
el sueño de ejercer un control total y constante sobre el propio destino corporal. de un problema puramente médico y no más político, social, cultural, moral o ético.
Hay que saber qué indican las tendencias biológicas individuales, para intentar Como se sabe, la técnica no busca elucidar un sentido o enunciar grandes pre-
prevenir la irrevocable fatalidad de sus veredictos. O, al menos, con el fin de man- guntas. En cambio, lo que pretende es producir ciertos efectos, su meta es ser
tenerla lo más lejos posible, para retardar su consumación que —por ahora— se eficaz en sus propósitos específicos: prever y controlar ciertos fenómenos muy con-
presenta como infalible. cretos y restringidos.
Sin embargo, resulta curioso que todo esto suceda en un momento histórico
Un nuevo proyecto de mundo: el triunfo de la técnica en el cual, de alguna manera, parece haberse decretado el fin de la Naturaleza.
Uno de los aspectos más curiosos de esta nueva visión del mundo es que, en este O, al menos, la superación de aquel viejo ecosistema que funcionaba mecánica-
gran movimiento de transformación de las lógicas vitales, en vez de librarnos de mente: una biosfera que era dura, opaca, misteriosa y, también, arduamente resis-
nuestra humana finitud podemos llegar a convertimos en una especie de esclavos tente a la penetración técnica. Esa naturaleza hoy se ve invadida por una suerte
auto-controlados de los imperativos de la salud, la juventud y la vida eterna. De de laboratorio tecnocientífico universal, cuyos muros estallaron y, entonces, su campo de
todos modos y como quiera que sea, es innegable que algo nuevo está surgiendo experimentación pasó a cubrir toda la superficie del globo terráqueo. Ese derrum-
junto con este conjunto de explicaciones y soluciones tecnocientíficas que proce- be se constata no sólo en el drama de la contaminación ambiental y en los temores
den de los fértiles campos de la informática y las nuevas ciencias de la vida, y que desatados por el calentamiento del planeta o por otras amenazas de igual calibre,
se aplican tanto al cuerpo humano como a la naturaleza en general. Un nuevo sino también en las dudas despertadas por las experiencias transgénicas o la
sueño está configurándose junto con este torbellino: un cambio de paradigma o la clonación de plantas y animales, entre otros asuntos polémicos que se ensayan
implantación de un nuevo “régimen de saber-poder”, para retomar una fecunda al aire libre. La vieja Naturaleza, que otrora supo ser avasallante y todopoderosa
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 154 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 155
—tanto en su fuerza brutal como en su infinita sabiduría y su belleza inimitable— Es probable que sea algo imposible de abarcar con el pensamiento en este
de repente se muestra desfalleciente: está agotada y requiere cuidados intensi- momento, pero en su seno se atisba una certeza: el hecho de que asuma el rostro
vos para no extinguirse definitivamente. Ahora exige que se la conserve en reservo- de la catástrofe o el de la redención dependerá, en buena medida, de todos nos-
rios especialmente protegidos para que pueda sobrevivir, demanda la realización otros. A la manera de los quizás ya anticuados sujetos de la historia, tal vez, o de su
urgente de programas de preservación e, incluso, de “revitalización”. más reciente encarnación en renovadas siluetas, pero no se trata solamente de los
Por todos esos motivos resulta tan inquietante que sea precisamente ahora, tecnócratas y de los científicos que hasta aquí nos han conducido, sino también
cuando buena parte de aquellos conflictos que hasta hace muy poco tiempo podrían —y, quizás, sobre todo— de los filósofos y los artistas que se atrevan a pensarlo,
haberse considerados de origen cultural, político o social, hoy se supone que tienen a cuestionarlo, a ponerlo en acción.
una raigambre natural o biológica. Aún cuando se los procese mediante la metá-
fora del software inmaterial, asociada a la información digitalizable a partir de las
instrucciones del código genético o los pixels de los flujos neuroquímicos, se supone Referencias bibliográficas
que su raíz biológica se hunde en las entrañas de cada organismo individual o de Deleuze, Gilles. “Posdata sobre las sociedades de control”, en FERRER, Christian (comp.), El lenguaje
libertario, vol. II, Montevideo, Ed. Nordan, 1991.
la especie en su conjunto. “Esa condición está motivada por una predisposición
Foucault, Michel. Vigilar y Castigar, México, Siglo XXI, 1976.
genética”, solemos escuchar o leer por todas partes, “esa característica es fruto de Foucault, Michel. Las palabras y las cosas: Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas, Buenos Aires,
una deficiencia neurológica”. Y la receta para solucionar todos esos inconvenien- Siglo XXI, 1998.
tes que afectan a los cuerpos y las subjetividades contemporáneas, la clave que Gould, Stephen Jay. La falsa medida del hombre, Barcelona, Ed. Drakontos, 2007.
supuestamente permitirá resolver dichos problemas, tampoco es cultural, política Martins, Hermínio. Hegel, Texas e outros ensaios de teoria social. Lisboa: Século XXI, 1996.
SIBILIA, Paula. El hombre postorgánico: Cuerpo, subjetividad y tecnologías digitales, Buenos Aires, Fondo
o social. Esa solución también suele ser técnica: con frecuencia es médica o infor-
de Cultura Económica, 2005.
mática, en efecto, porque su linaje es biotécnico.
Vale concluir, entonces, que esta mutación que actualmente atravesamos es
tan tecnológica como biológica y antropológica. Porque en su avalancha arrastra a
la mismísima definición del ser humano, además de reformular a la naturaleza y a la
totalidad de la vida bajo su impulso informatizante y digitalizador. Cabe a nosotros
descubrir, como diría Gilles Deleuze, “para que se nos usa” o a que proyecto his-
tórico se nos incita a servir cuando aceptamos ese destino aparentemente ineluc-
table: el de volvernos perfectamente compatibles con el eficaz instrumental de
la tecnociencia contemporánea y con este universo post-orgánico que tantas pro-
mesas parece vender y que, al menos, alguna saludable desconfianza también
debería suscitar.
Entre esas sospechas, una se yergue aquí y reitera su desafío: ¿esto es parte
de la catástrofe o aquí se delinea su posible solución? Aunque algunos aspectos de
este magno proyecto inciten cierta aprensión, no se puede olvidar que en su agenda
figura el virtual “resucitamiento” de animales y vegetales en extinción, por ejemplo,
mediante la recreación de su ADN en especímenes de laboratorio. O la posibilidad de
acabar con la desnutrición gracias a la inclusión de alimentos transgénicos en una
nueva generación de políticas públicas; o bien la de controlar y apaciguar la bruta-
lidad del azar natural con fines humanos hasta obtener, quien sabe, la inmortalidad.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 156 DÍA 2 | Tecnociencia, desastre y panacea 157
DÍA 3 Son incontables los ejemplos del interés que tienen los artistas por la destrucción ya
sea real o imaginaria, como tema narrativo o como hipótesis de un enunciado polí-
tico. Es evidente también la fascinación que despiertan la crisis en todos los rubros
imaginación de violencia extrema o de crisis generalizada, pero también pueden ser un lugar de
contemplación y reciclaje de los medios masivos de comunicación. En esta sesión,
investigaremos la elusiva y problemática posición del arte frente a la realidad con-
tundente e inabarcable de su contexto.
estética
frente
al caos
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 160 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 161
Me pareció interesante, fuimos a buscarlo. No encontramos petróleo pero si rastros
en la playa. Las fotografías que usé, la documentación, es de los mismos trabaja-
dores de estas plataformas que después se venden en Ciudad del Carmen como
postales, pero en realidad son fotografías tomadas por ellos porque son los únicos
autorizados a acercarse a estas plataformas. También hice trabajos en relación al
henequén que es, yo creo que antes que el petróleo, la otra gran industria de expor-
tación de México que generó esclavitud. Creo que podemos parar un momento aquí
para comenzar a discutir un poquito a partir de estas obras.
TJ D: Bien, entonces hay muchísimo material aquí en lo que nos has presentado.
Muchas conexiones que se intersectan. Diferentes geografías, Haití, México, Ghana,
Noruega… Hablaste de la ecología, la moralidad. Así que hay muchísimo con lo que
podemos comenzar a hablar. Y tu referencia a Gandhi y la moralidad. ¿Cómo la
introduces a tu trabajo?
MC: Cuando hicimos las instalaciones y particularmente este trabajo, acabas siendo
un juez. En algún momento de tu investigación, tienes que filtrar la información y
tienes que seguir tus propias creencias políticas y tienes que ver cuál es la infor-
mación visual y qué referencias vas a utilizar también. En algún momento referencias
con juicios, por ejemplo, respecto al gobierno australiano. Me preguntaba si no
caía en juicios morales al decidir yo qué era bueno y malo, y eso me causó pro-
blemas en mi interior. Me di cuenta que el observador y espectador es finalmente
el filtro final. Ellos deciden lo visual. Ellos deciden lo que están viendo y captan la
información del trabajo.
TJ D: Y en cuanto a tu trabajo, mucho tiene que ver con las crisis catastróficas y creo
que esto se liga al tema de esta conferencia. Hoy es muy importante hablar y pen-
sar sobre estos temas. Por ejemplo, en el caso de lo que es la catástrofe ecológica,
toda la implosión que estamos viendo todo lo que tiene que ver con la degradación
del ambiente, la contaminación por petróleo, etcétera. ¿Tu crees que se está cre-
ando una respuesta moral en los espectadores? ¿Crees que tu trabajo moviliza para
presentar una barrera de contención contra las catástrofes?
MC: No, yo creo que hay referencias hechas específicamente a información espe-
cifica, también. Por ejemplo, lo que les dije de la industria. A lo largo de la expo-
sición traté de hacer un ensayo. No era obvio o evidente que hubiese un juicio
alrededor de estos trabajos y el centro de la exposición era la ecología y la ecología
nunca separa el ambiente natural de los temas sociales.
Una cosa es la ecología en el sentido de la interacciones que tiene con todo
el planeta y subraya, que son las condiciones sociales las que están creando no Serie hidrocarburos (2007). Instalación.
solamente estas crisis (sociales) sino también las crisis medioambientales. Por Hydrocarbon Series (2007). Installation.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 164 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 165
y yo soy un actor político. Si fuera yo abogado o médico, creo que tendría el mismo hacia el otro. Estas situaciones se regresan y creo que es lo que está pasando con
tipo de motivación, una motivación política con respecto a mis trabajo, proyectos la crisis política, social y ecológica que es solo una. Creo que está bien si nos que-
y actividades. En el caso de los proyectos, reflejan este tipo de influencias. Hace damos ahí y seguimos comentando.
poco leí una cita de Einstein y decía precisamente que los problemas sociales for- TJ D: ¿Podrías decirnos que hay sobre la mesa en esta instalación?
man parte de una economía capitalista. Él estaba haciendo este análisis a través MC: Es sobre las sociedades de insectos. Incluyen dibujos bastante primitivos, una
de otros filtros de información pero acabo de alguna manera afirmando lo mismo. etapa temprana. Es mi colección de láminas microscópicas con diferentes segmen-
TJ D: Tal vez podrías presentar algo más de tu trabajo y podríamos después seguir tos de los insectos. Puede ser un ala, puede ser un ojo, el ojo de una araña. Y había
conversando. unos de expresión poética, por ejemplo, con el polvo. Era el polvo de un ala de mari-
MC: Este cartel está en lituano es parte de la exposición que presenté en la galería posa que lleva su etiqueta y para mi cobra ciertos aspectos poéticos porque hace
Kurimanzutto. La cita habla sobre el concepto de democracia. Básicamente dice referencia a lo que significaba la ciencia hace un siglo o aún en fechas anteriores.
que es violento cuando un hombre impone su voluntad sobre muchos hombres. Creo que tenía que ver con la curiosidad humana o este deseo de contar con
Lo cual sería una dictadura, una situación autoritaria. Pero que también es igual- más conocimientos. Por eso existen estas imágenes microscópicas, por eso utili-
mente violento y agresivo cuando muchos hombres imponen su voluntad sobre un zamos estos objetos de antaño, microscopios, láminas. Porque si utilizara equipo
hombre. Y eso lo pone en paralelo a la democracia, lo que me obliga a hablar de moderno, la investigación científica de este momento es guiada por la industria y
algunos conceptos como el de democracia que está filtrando la política y las deci- sería otro tipos de equipo con el que siempre tratan de lucrar. Creo que es una
siones económicas en el mundo. Conceptos como progreso, desarrollo, globalización gran diferencia con la ciencia de antaño. Tal vez me estoy volviendo muy román-
e infraestructura, empiezan a ser usados pero parece que pierden el significado. tica pero creo que no se lucraba con la ciencia sino que guardaba una relación
El concepto de desarrollo o de progreso, al final parece que significa lo opuesto: con la curiosidad del ser humano y de tratar de entender al mundo.
es represión, crisis o destrucción ambiental. Creo que es interesante analizar como TJ D: ¿Pero esta exposición es una vitrina, es vidrio, es una mesa, o…?
parte del discurso político se están manejando estos términos y lo que realmente MC: Es una combinación. La mesa es una serie de mesas realmente, algunos si son
significan u ocultan también. vitrinas. Estas ilustraciones de insectos son ya muy antiguas. Son libros hermosos.
Como parte de analizar estos conceptos llego al concepto de sociedad, ¿qué Un libro ilustrado por Covarrubias. Aquí hay lentes especiales para ampliar las imá-
es la sociedad? Y esta pieza se llama Social Entomology, (Entomología social). En genes. También hay algunos objetos que tienen que ver con el uso de insecticidas,
ella, lo que vemos son básicamente pequeñas muestras de microscopio que son libros que tienen que ver con plaguicidas. No estamos viendo nada más los aspec-
insectos y están también proyectados con proyectores microscópicos. Hay un audio tos bellos de las sociedades de insectos sino que tiene que ver también con la
como parte de la instalación que es un concierto de insectos en el que el sonido industria y no solamente porque quise hacer referencia a las insecticidas sino tam-
de los insectos es al principio salvaje y disperso, pero llega un momento en el que bién a esta otra industria que son armas químicas y que tiene que ver con productos
hay un ritmo. Del caos se pasa al orden. De repente suena un poquito como zamba comunes y corrientes.
pero se vuelve a perder y se vuelve a generar este supuesto caos en los sonidos y TJ D: Qué interesante que lo plantees. A mi me fascina esto. Realmente es una expo-
se vuelve de nuevo salvaje. La instalación en sí busca también hablar del individuo sición magnífica. Nos hace remontarnos al siglo XVIII o XIX. Es una información
y casi yo personalmente llego a la conclusión de la imposibilidad del individuo. enciclopédica y sí tiene que ver con la curiosidad humana. Pero también produce
A la hora en la que vemos que todo está compuesto de sociedad. Nosotros especímenes, y hay una relaciona con la muerte cuando la ciencia se vuelve más
somos sociedades de células, hay una sociedad humana. Hay distintas sociedades objetiva en el siglo XIX; esa curiosidad sobre la naturaleza era un intento por domi-
y ecologías en el planeta que al final forman una sola. Los planetas son parte del narla. Creo que hay una relación en este sentido, ya sea literal a través de los insectos
universo que es otra sociedad. Y parece que es imposible llegar a la idea de individuo o histórica gradual, menos pronunciada. Todas las crisis que han suscitado. ¿Cómo
y eso refuerza el concepto de ecología social. Básicamente todos dependemos de hablar de la muerte hasta la extinción de las especies? Para mí esto está planteado
todo y a la hora de generar situaciones violentas o de explotación, no solamente es en tu trabajo.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 166 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 167
MC: Si, llegué a la conclusión de que la investigación científica es un gran ejem-
plo de cómo el hombre quiere controlar lo anárquico. Hice un trabajo para esta
misma exposición que era una sola lámina. Se titulaba “Colonia” pero esta lámina
era la diatomea, un fósil marino. Y era una lámina muy especial porque traté de ir
formando una flor, una estrella compuesta de las diatomeas. Y eran cientos y cien-
tos así que fueron cobrando esta forma y aún así era un ornamento microscópico.
Y una vez más mi deseo también de poner orden en algo que normalmente es
silvestre y creo que lo mismo pasa con la música que produje para esta instala-
ción. El ruido de los grillos, de las abejas, de las moscas. No sé, de alguna manera
pude filtrar estos sonidos, pasados por una especie de tamiz cultural y cobra
estos tonos musicales y podemos reconocer la mano del ser humano. Pero si, eso
siempre está presente en mi trabajo. Y creo que tengo otras obras más específicas
y explicitas sobre estos aspectos que mencionaste de que queremos controlar a
través de la ciencia y hasta vestimos a los monos y a los perros. Estos experimentos
son interesantes.
TJ D: Bueno, en retrospectiva y para tomar en cuenta algunos de los temas. La natu-
raleza, convertirla en objeto, la relación con la extinción de las especies, crisis eco-
nómicas, catástrofes, capitalismo. Todo esto tiene que ver con la ecología social
pero yo me pregunto si hay una nueva terminología que podemos usar en las luchas
políticas. ¿Los desastres, las catástrofes cómo llegan realmente a explicarse?
Naomi Klein habló sobre el capitalismo del desastre. ¿Te interesan estos temas? No
me refiero a esta pieza pero en general, ¿te llama la atención?
MC: Si, ¿cómo no? Trato de analizar estos aspectos siguiendo los mismos lineamientos.
El problema no son los problemas ambientales o las catástrofes en sí sino el pro-
blema de fondo o la crisis de fondo… y muchas personas como Haiti vivían bajo
condiciones muy pobres y alarmantes y por eso sufrían tanto. Yo soy un poco
escéptica de estas ONGs y esta campañas contra el SIDA. Lo que está de moda,
digamos. Las tendencias en las noticias. Parece que empezamos a aprender la
geografía de acuerdo a las catástrofes ambientales o porque se presentó un tsu-
nami. Si no, creo que no sabríamos dónde quedan estos lugares. Ya los conocemos
después de su destrucción. Pero lo que rechazo es realmente la mediatización de
todo esto. Estas iniciativas que de alguna manera tienen que ver con la culpa
de ayudar al otro pero ya después del hecho o los donativos, sobre todo de dinero
para sacudirnos la culpa. Pero aun así estamos negando el hecho de que nosotros
somos actores políticos. Somos protagonistas políticos. Hay catástrofes en todo
Entomología social (2007). Instalación con sonido quadrofónico. momento y me parece que solamente les prestamos atención a las que salen en
Social Entomology (2007). Installation with quadraphonic sound. los noticieros.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 170 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 171
difícil de desaparecer o desvanecerse con el sol. Estas son muestras de lo que
había en ese relleno.
TJ D: Ahora, abriremos la discusión al público ¿tienen ustedes alguna pregunta?
Pregunta: Minerva, disculpa que haga unas preguntas muy básicas. ¿Alguna vez
instalaste más de una vez tus instalaciones? ¿No sólo en el lugar específico pen-
sado? Y esta pregunta va junto con otra. ¿Quién toma las fotos de tus acciones
y procesos que usas como documentación? Tres. ¿Tú haces la dirección museo-
gráfica de tus instalaciones en cada lugar? ¿Y qué peso tienen en la presentación
estética de tu trabajo?
MC: Bueno, es muy raro que exponga el mismo proyecto en dos lugares distintos
porque generalmente son de un contexto especifico y comúnmente me invitan a
desarrollar nuevos proyectos.
“¿Quién toma las fotos?” Generalmente tomo mi propia documentación, ade-
más los museos suelen tomar su propia documentación.
Tres. La parte visual de la obra creo que es fundamental. Para mí, es funda-
mental mantener los proyectos como un ejercicio estético… De hecho, siento que
mi trabajo en sí, no es la instalación sino toda la investigación que está detrás y
todo el ejercicio intelectual que se genera con todas estas pistas o referencias que
se incluyen en las exposiciones.
Creo que al final la parte visual, la solución formal es la entrada. Es el modo
de poder provocar este ejercicio intelectual y todas esas preguntas y filtrar cada
trabajo con nuestros propios filtros conceptuales y políticos. Pero es básico que el
trabajo tenga esta solución formal optima. No me acuerdo si había otra cosa.
Pregunta: Quisiera saber, cuando vendes tu obra, ¿qué es lo que vendes?
MC: Bueno, algunos museos han comprado obra mía y lo que se vende es la ins-
talación en la mayoría de los casos. No sé si eso responda la pregunta.
Pregunta: Claro, cuando vendes una instalación, ¿eso implica el derecho o posibili-
dad de reinstalarla? A eso me refería antes.
MC: Si, eso es una parte muy importante. Porque mantener mi trabajo como una
obra de arte pública es muy importante. Que tenga las condiciones de almacenaje
adecuadas. Que pueda ser instalada de nuevo y ser pública, es un privilegio. Es
muy importante…
Pregunta: Bueno, aquí estamos en la mañana un sábado. Estamos interesados en
ver cómo opera la industria del arte y de la comunicación, ¿sientes que el trabajo
de la catástrofe es más bien un trabajo de señalización como crítica a un sistema
o más bien crear nuevas ecologías que ayuden a mover hacia delante? ¿Nosotros Serie hidrocarburos (2007). Instalación.
somos la transformación más que una cosa de periodismo de crítica? Hydrocarbon Series (2007). Installation.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 174 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 175
ochenta y comienzos de los noventa. De cualquier manera me interesa la manera esta percepción de manera contundente es la Dialéctica de la Ilustración, escrita
en que algunas de estas propuestas curatoriales han revisado y reinscrito el trabajo por Theodor Adorno y Max Horkheimer en su exilio californiano durante la segunda
de artistas como Gego, por ejemplo, dentro de un contexto contemporáneo y fuera de guerra mundial. Para Adorno y Horkheimer “la ilustración, entendida en el sentido
las tradiciones donde existían de manera un tanto marginal y disonante. Pongo el más amplio como el avance del pensamiento, ha perseguido desde siempre el
ejemplo de Gego porque fue una figura que existió al margen de la tradición de la objetivo de liberar a los hombres del miedo y constituirlos en señores. Pero la tierra
abstracción geométrica en Venezuela y en exposiciones como The Structure of enteramente ilustrada resplandece bajo el signo de una triunfal calamidad.” Para
Survival, organizada por Carlos Basualdo en el marco de la Bienal de Venecia de Horkeheimer y Adorno, la promesa de emancipación del progreso y la ciencia de
2003, su obra es releída como perteneciente al imaginario de la crisis y la de ciudad repente se diluía en un mundo donde ese avance del conocimiento había contri-
informal, la estrategia curatorial de Basualdo efectúa la transubstanciación postmor- buido a crear una sociedad “dispuesta a aceptar la ideología fascista, practicar el
tem de Gego la artista moderna en Gego la artista contemporánea (sin querer entrar genocidio de manera deliberada y enérgicamente desarrollar armas letales de des-
en una debate sobre la flexible noción de lo contemporáneo en este contexto). trucción masiva” La razón, para ellos, se había vuelto irracional.
Similares revisiones han tenido lugar con otros artistas que ocupaban un lugar Éste parece ser el sentimiento compartido por estos artistas, en cuyas obras
digamos “incómodo” dentro de las tradiciones estéticas de la modernidad tardía. podemos leer las secuelas de la experiencia de la guerra, si bien no aluden a ella
Como parte de mi trabajo de investigación para Tate, que en ese caso particular se directamente. La pérdida, la dislocación, el desencanto y las visiones apocalípticas
ha circunscrito exclusivamente al ámbito de América Latina, me he interesado tam- del progreso tecnológico se manifiestan en sus obras a través de operaciones des-
bién por revisar y recontextualizar la obra de algunos artistas cuya obra además trucción, desterritorialización, disolución de estructuras, desjerarquización, e inde-
anticipa en muchos casos estos discursos curatoriales y críticos de la actualidad. terminación que analizaremos a continuación.
Pero no vine hoy a hablar de modelos curatoriales, sino del trabajo algunos artistas
que considero excepcionalmente pertinentes en el marco de esta discusión. Gustav Metzger. Un arte de la destrucción
En este simposio se ha hablado ya de la figura del artista global, el que tiene Tal vez la obra de Gustav Metzger sea la más emblemática en cuanto al tema que hoy
su base en varias ciudades del mundo; el nomadismo ciertamente se ha convertido nos ocupa, “la imaginación estética frente al caos”, en ella se pone constantemente
en requisito profesional del artista contemporáneo. Si bien esta condición nomádica de manifiesto la convicción de que la civilización está al borde de la extinción y que el
podría servir de denominador común a los cuatro artistas que quiero presentar hoy, progreso tecnológico justamente llevará a esa autoaniquilación. La obra de Metzger
no responde en el caso de ellos a un simple menester cotidiano de la vida profe- es demasiado extensa y compleja como para analizarla a cabalidad en el espacio
sional de artista contemporáneo. La dislocación, y por qué no decirlo, el exilio como de esta discusión así que me detendré solamente en algunos aspectos muy pun-
una forma muy particular de caos, son para estos artistas experiencias centrales y tuales. Metzger nació en Nuremberg, en 1928, hijo de judíos ortodoxos originarios
formativas pero también formas subsidiarias de un evento catastrófico más grande, de Polonia. Luego de la deportación de sus padres, abuelos y un hermano a
la segunda guerra mundial, que hoy quiero utilizar como una suerte de índice para Polonia, en 1939 Metzger y su hermano mayor lograron escaparse a Inglaterra con
analizar las diversas aproximaciones estéticas al caos en el trabajo de Gustav Metzger, la ayuda del Movimiento de Niños Refugiados (Refugee Children’s Movement).
Gertrud Goldschmidt (Gego), Mira Schendel y a manera de conclusión quisiera Sus padres, hermano, y otros miembros de su familia perecen en los campos de
dedicarle unas palabras al trabajo teórico y crítico de Luis Camnitzer. Todos ellos, exterminio. En 1948 Metzger asumió oficialmente la condición de apátrida, la cual
como judíos radicados en Alemania e Italia (en el caso de Schendel) en los años ha mantenido desde entonces. Desde su temprana adolescencia Metzger militó
treinta (aunque en distintos momentos de sus vidas respectivas) fueron de alguna activamente en diversos movimientos políticos pero en 1944 decide dedicarse al arte
manera marcados por la persecución y el exilio. Pero como dije antes, la experiencia y no a la “revolución”. En 1959 Metzger realiza una exposición en la que presenta
de exilio en esta discusión es contingente a aquella de la guerra. las partes de una caja de cartón correspondientes el embalaje de un televisor como
La segunda guerra mundial, más allá de la catástrofe que implica, marca, por obras abstractas. Para Metzger estas cajas desechables poseían cualidades esté-
así decirlo, el principio del fin de la modernidad. Si algún texto fundamental resume ticas equiparables a lo más excelso de la pintura moderna, además de ser un “arte
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 176 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 177
hecho por máquinas”. En la ocasión de esta exposición Metzger redactó la primera artistas como los destructivistas argentinos, Ralph Ortiz (Rafael Montañez Ortiz),
versión de su manifiesto para el arte autodestructivo, que propone como “princi- Charlotte Moorman, Jean Toche y Jon Hendricks del posterior Guerrilla Art Action
palmente una forma de arte público para las sociedades industriales” un arte que Group, Herman Nitsch, Al Hansen, Yoko Ono, quienes participaron en una y/u otra
puede hacer uso de la tecnología y ser realizado en colaboración con científicos e de las ediciones londinenses y neoyorquinas del Destruction in Art Symposium en
ingenieros, que puede ser producido mecánicamente y ensamblado en fábricas y 1966 y 1968. Más tarde en los noventa esta preocupación por la destrucción lleva
cuya duración y permanencia puede variar entre unos cuantos instantes y unos a Metzger a involucrarse cercanamente con la causa ambientalista y escribe en
veinte años pues el proceso desintegrador está imbricado en su propia estructura. 1992 su manifiesto Nature Demised Resurrects as Environment.
Esta primera versión del manifiesto pone de relieve algunos de los imperativos de
la alianza entre arte y tecnología que se da de manera notable en los años sesenta. Gego. Deshilvanando la retícula
Asimismo, prefigura el interés por la entropía y la desmaterialización que marcarían Gertrud Goldschmidt nació en Hamburgo en 1912 en el seno de una acaudalada fami-
de manera significativa las prácticas conceptualistas de finales de los sesenta y de lia de banqueros e intelectuales. En 1938, su familia deja su ciudad natal para exiliarse
los setenta. La colaboración entre artistas y científicos e ingenieros formulada por en Inglaterra, ella, recién graduada de arquitecto, parte poco después y un azar del
Metzger así como la precisión con la que enmarca el arte autodestructivo en colusión destino (un problema de visado para Inglaterra) la lleva a Venezuela en 1939, país que
ineludible con la tecnología, posibilitaría la inscripción de Metzger en el contexto en ese momento recibió de brazos abiertos a los judíos que huían de la persecu-
del arte cibernético, desde las esculturas “spatio-dynamiques”, “chrono-dynamique” ción nazi, y donde Gego se establecería definitivamente hasta su muerte en 1994.
y “lumino-dynamiques” de Nicolas Schoffer, hasta la posterior iniciativa de E.A.T. La obra de Gego emerge como una voz disonante en el contexto de la tradi-
(Experiments in Art and Technology), pasando por las experiencias participativas a ción de la abstracción geométrica en Venezuela, una voz que horada los cimientos de
través de la mediación tecnológica que fueron medulares para el GRAV (Groupe de la agenda unívoca del proyecto modernista en el país y propone un sitio de resis-
Recherche d’Art Visuel), así como otras agrupaciones del arte cinético y cibernético tencia desde donde se puede en efecto poner en entredicho la validez de dicho
de la época, con las cuales Metzger tuvo alguna cercanía (como por ejemplo con proyecto. Gego parece tejer un relato alterno del proyecto modernista en Venezuela,
Signals, la galería de Guy Brett y Paul Keeler, en cuya revista homónima, editada por resistiéndose a los imperativos de “orden y progreso” que parecían apuntalarlo y
David Medalla, Metzger publicó por primera vez en 1964 su quinto manifiesto, On que con el tiempo han demostrado su talante puramente cosmético, ya que jamás
Random Activity in Material/ Transforming Works of Art). En franca oposición a la acompañaron a un verdadero proyecto social, político y económico de país.
visión relativamente optimista y positivista de las tecno-utopías de la época las pro- Gego viene del fracaso de la utopía modernista Europea, de la incertidum-
puestas autodestructivas de Metzger, en su carácter de arte público y por ende con bre y sensación de fracaso general que produjo la segunda guerra mundial, difícil-
cierta carácter monumental, enfatizan el aspecto destructivo de la sociedad para la mente podía compartir el entusiasmo ingenuo de los artistas de la vanguardia
cual fueron concebidas. Metzger luego llevaría su concepto de auto-destrucción a modernista venezolanos, concentrados en salir del siglo diecinueve para sumergir-
otras estructuras sociales como el mercado del arte (“el artista debe destruir las se de lleno en un siglo veinte ungido por la bonanza petrolera, en un trópico donde
galerías de arte. Instituciones capitalistas. Cajas de la decepción” / The artist must des- los horrores de la guerra europea parecían una lejana pesadilla. El de Gego es un
troy art galleries. Capitalist Institutions. Boxes of Deceit, en Manifesto World, cuarto desencanto con la lógica de la modernidad, que expresa a través de un distancia-
manifiesto, 1962) y la propia noción de producción del artista en sus posteriores mani- miento de la racionalidad de las formas puras y de la geometría Euclidiana, lo cual
fiestos y acciones como su Huelga de 1977-1980, mediante la cual pretende poner se pone de manifiesto en sus primeros trabajos escultóricos en los que experi-
en marcha la caída del sistema comercial del arte, imaginando el colapso de galerías, menta con la geometría no-Euclidiana, las superficies topológicas, y los juegos de
quiebra de museos, cierre de revistas, “haz daño en una parte y el efecto se sentirá pliegues donde la indeterminación pareciera, aunque paradójicamente, ser un
alrededor del mundo / damage one part —and the effect is felt world-wide). En este principio organizador.
sentido el llamado a la acción de Metzger tipificado en el panfleto “Act or Perish” De nuevo quiero concentrarme en un solo aspecto de la obra de Gego que ya he
(actúa o perece) encuentra un contexto más propicio en las acciones radicales de tratado anteriormente y que tiene que ver con ese alejamiento de las formas puras y
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 178 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 179
de la racionalidad estructural de la retícula para adentrarse resueltamente en un uni- esta ponencia pero no quiero dejar de mencionarla. Quisiera, en este sentido,
verso de formas abiertas, contingentes, de aparente precariedad estructural que detenerme por un momento en un aspecto de su obra, por lo demás prolífica, y
prefigura y luego refleja el desarrollo urbano de su contexto más inmediato, Caracas, que encuentro arraigado en su experiencia de la guerra. Schendel nació en Zurich
una ciudad que creció de manera informe, caótica y desjerarquizada a partir de una en 1919, de padres de origen judío. De niña se fue a vivir a Italia con su madre y
trama reticular inicial impuesta por los conquistadores sobre la topografía accidentada durante la guerra sufrió la persecución nazi llegando a Sarajevo donde se casó con
del Valle de Caracas. Las Reticuláreas de Gego ponen en escena una implosión de la un yugoslavo con la esperanza de obtener una visa para emigrar, llegando final-
retícula, que se produce justamente por su propio peso, aunque fabricada con mate- mente a Brasil en 1949. Schendel ocupa un lugar un tanto al margen de la tradi-
riales flexibles y livianos como el alambre. Las Reticuláreas como experiencia espacial, ción del neoconcretismo Brasileño, su trabajo, a diferencia del trabajo de Lygia
operan sobre la base de lo contingente y lo incidental, y despliegan las posibilidades Clark y Hélio Oiticica, no se orientaba hacia el aspecto fenomenológico de la obra.
espaciales de una retícula en crisis. Se puede leer en las Reticuláreas de Gego por un A mediados de los años sesenta emprende uno de sus cuerpos más extensos de
lado la crítica de la caraqueña modernidad ornamental de pretendida vocación trabajo, las Monotipias, allí comienza su exploración del lenguaje, y donde lleva a
monumental pero también y tal vez de manera más importante una afinidad discreta cabo una disolución del mismo, donde las frases y oraciones dan lugar a balbuce-
con el caos de su ciudad adoptiva y sus aglomeraciones informales. Caracas, una ciu- os, a juegos tipográficos. La experiencia de la guerra y del exilio sin duda son trans-
dad que no tiene centro sino centralidades, donde la definición del espacio público mitidas de manera hermética en estas obras que parecen articular un orden
obedece al flujo constante de la autopista o de la avenida y no a la espacio estático y dentro del caos de la palabra desarticulada, aquella que habla de la imposibilidad
permanente de la plaza o el parque. Sus Dibujos sin papel no hacen sino confirmar de construir sentido después de la tragedia. A partir de 1966 Schendel establece
esa vocación por la contingencia, la precariedad y el caos. Son esculturas de alambre una relación intelectual con el filósofo Max Bense, y tal vez a partir de esta relación
que desafían la autonomía espacial de la escultura, subordinándola a la pared, y en comenzamos a entender las condiciones bajo las cuales lleva a cabo esta disolu-
las que la marginalidad se expresa a través de la precariedad y pobreza de los mate- ción de la estructura del lenguaje. Bense proponía la autonomía de los componen-
riales que emplea, que en ocasiones nos recuerdan las antenas improvisadas que tes del lenguaje, una autonomía que podemos apreciar en los Objetos Gráficos, el
proliferan sobre los techos de los ranchos (chabolas) de Caracas, conectadas por un cuerpo de trabajo que Schendel emprende a partir de 1967, en los que la palabra,
amasijo de cables de electricidad robada que una vez más nos remiten a los enredos la sílaba, la letra, cobran entonces la dimensión del objeto pero haciéndose más
y nudos de Gego. Guiados por el azar y la oportunidad, por la belleza del equilibrio ilegibles en una estructura caótica que puede ser vista al revés y al derecho,
encontrado en lo evidentemente inestable y los nuevos espacios que pueden surgir de haciendo estallar el lenguaje desde su propia estructura.
las soluciones improvisadas, la humilde selección de materiales —de desecho, cables
oxidados y torcidos, tornillos, botones—y la resolución formal de los Dibujos sin papel Luis Camnitzer. Reterritorializando lo postcolonial
parecen hablarnos de la precariedad de la arquitectura más emblemática de la ciudad. La presencia de Luis Camnitzer en esta discusión es más a manera de conclusión
El asentamiento informal; arquitectura sin programa, ciudad sin agenda, producto del y no voy a analizar su obra como artista sino su producción extensa y lúcida como
azar y de la necesidad, pero dotado de una fuerza, resistencia y adaptabilidad que de- escritor, historiador y crítico. Camnitzer vivió la experiencia de la guerra y el exilio
safía las políticas urbanas y los imperativos de la gobernabilidad. La obra de Gego, de manera retroactiva, tenía sólo un año cuando sus padres, judíos, emigraron a
única entre aquellos de su generación en Venezuela comprometidos con las búsquedas Uruguay en 1938, escapando de lo que probablemente habría sido el exterminio
formales de la abstracción geométrica, fue capaz de capturar los efectos secunda- seguro. Por motivos profesionales Camnitzer se trasladó a Nueva York en 1964, lo
rios de nuestra modernidad y el ulterior resultado de su fugaz utopía de progreso. que él define como “free-trade diaspora” o diáspora del libre comercio. En Nueva
York fundó junto con Liliana Porter y José Guillermo Castillo el colectivo The New York
Mira Schendel, disolviendo la palabra Graphic Workshop, y estando allí, durante los setenta vive, involuntariamente un
Las limitaciones de tiempo me obligan a hacer una mención muy corta de la obra segundo exilio que es el de la dictadura de Uruguay, que estando ya fuera no le
de Mira Schendel que me gustaría desarrollar más en una versión extendida de pertenece sino por afiliación ideológica pues cómo él dice su formación en Uruguay
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siempre apunto hacia la consolidación de su identidad como “intelectual uruguayo”
y como intelectual uruguayo probablemente habría salido en el exilio durante la dic-
Ceci n’est pas une biennale
tadura militar de los setenta. Sin embargo estos dos exilios indirectos le ocasionan
cierto desasosiego. Como él mismo analiza su experiencia en un ensayo titulado JOSÉ ROCA
“Exilio”: “al dejar Alemania a la edad de un año, por definición comencé a crecer
como un exiliado. Dejar un país bajo la amenaza de una pena de muerte, aún a
tan temprana edad, debe tener algún tipo de influencia en cualquier desarrollo 1. Reglas y posibilidades. Bernard Tschumi decía en The Pleasure of Architecture:
posterior”. La dualidad y el bilingualismo, ese no pertenecer a ningún lado pero a la “si quiere seguir la primera regla de la arquitectura, rómpala”. Algo similar podría
vez a ambos, hacen que sus grabados tempranos fueran vistos en Alemania fuera decirse de la curaduría. No hay parámetros que apliquen a todos los casos, solo
como “muy sudamericanos” mientras que en Uruguay más bien eran considera- intenciones y deseos. Es mejor ser consecuente con el desarrollo del proyecto que
dos como “expresionistas alemanes”. En Nueva York deja atrás el expresionismo consistente con un hipotético deber ser.
para interesarse en los vínculos entre pedagogía y arte, y en el proceso se distancia
más de Uruguay. Pasados los trece años de la dictadura que no vivió en carne pro- 2. Una exposición no es una enciclopedia. Contrario al enciclopedista, un curador no puede
pia sino a la distancia Camnitzer concluye “veo que estoy flotando entre dos cul- incluir todos los ejemplos que ilustran un concepto; sólo aquellos que encuentra y
turas, una que se me hace extraña aún cuando no lo quiero, otra que es extraña que están disponibles. La curaduría crea una ficción a partir de esos fragmentos.
porque quiero que lo sea, y no lo concibo de ninguna otra manera. Son ya trece Al reconocer la imposibilidad de completitud, sólo queda intentar suspender la
años que paso por aquí en un estado provisional. Son trece años que llevaron al incredulidad del visitante frente a un conjunto de pequeñas piezas de un rompe-
resto de la intelectualidad uruguaya a la cárcel o al exilio, que, aparte del complejo cabezas sin modelo. Como dijo Douglas Crimp citando a Eugenio Donato en On The
de culpa o los pretextos, es la misma cosa. Mi país ya no existe más en ningún Museum’s Ruins, “el museo se basa en la ficción acrítica de que es posible repre-
lado, excepto en mi memoria. Soy un ciudadano de mi memoria, que no tiene sentar el universo a partir de sus fragmentos”. Una exposición crea una ficción vero-
pasaportes o habitantes. Sólo tiene distorsiones.” símil, o al menos una en la que queremos creer.
El conflicto de identidad que expresa Camnitzer en este ensayo y otros escri-
tos, y que de manera sucinta comunica en esta obra titulada “Paisaje”, lo lleva a 3. Una exposición no es una biblioteca. Si quiero leer me voy a la biblioteca, en donde
diseccionar de en sus escritos y curadurías la historia del arte en América Latina, puedo informarme en profundidad, y además no tengo que hacerlo parado.
a renegociar las genealogías del conceptualismo y a reclamar el discurso de la
diáspora como propio y no del dominio exclusivo de una teoría postcolonial formulada 4. Una exposición no es un archivo. Si quiero hacer investigación, voy de nuevo a la biblio-
sobre la base de los legados imperialistas Británicos, Franceses y Belgas en Asia, teca del punto anterior. Los archivos en el contexto expositivo o se vuelven pura imagen
África y el Caribe, estructuras coloniales que estaban en pie hasta bien entrada la (lo que a veces está bien, aunque no tener acceso a los documentos es frustrante),
segunda mitad del siglo veinte. Podemos leer en su revisión historiográfica un llamado o se vuelven pura retórica curatorial (lo que está mal, y también es frustrante).
a la especificidad perdida en la lógica del multiculturalismo y de las subsiguientes
estrategias curatoriales que menciono al comienzo de esta ponencia. Camnitzer, 5. Una exposición no es un cineclub. Si quiero ver una película voy a una sala de cine,
por ejemplo, ubica los comienzos del arte conceptual latinoamericano en la figura en donde estoy sentado, hay oscuridad, y el ruido proviene (casi siempre) de lo que
de Simón Rodríguez, maestro del Libertador Simón Bolívar. Un gesto seguramente está siendo proyectado. Salvo contadas excepciones, las películas de larga duración
audaz pero afirmativo de esa búsqueda de especificidad. En este sentido su obra no pertenecen al ámbito expositivo.
propone a la vez un sitio de resistencia y un antídoto contra los modelos (por lo
demás bastante difusos y a menudo insustanciales) armados por las estrategias 6. Una Bienal no es un museo. El Museo, basado en la ortodoxia de la Historia del Arte, aspira
curatoriales de la era del vacío (intelectual). a la verdad. La Bienal no tiene los pies plantados en una montaña de hechos, es pura
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 182 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 183
especulación. No aspiremos a La Verdad, solo a bellas verdades-a-medias o a mentiras 12. Una Bienal no es una feria de arte. Los artistas no deben estar aislados cada uno en
con apariencia de coartadas: verosímiles, útiles, y ornadas de un velo de sospecha. su espacio como si se tratara de un stand de feria comercial. Sus obras deben estar
en un diálogo espacial; ese texto resultante es lo que denominamos curaduría.
7. Una Bienal no Documenta. Si la obra sucede en el tiempo, o fuera de los límites físi-
cos del recinto expositivo, hay que dejarla vivir (y morir) allí. Nada más frustrante 13. Dramaturgia. Tanto el recinto expositivo como el teatro muestran una obra para
que una exposición de material que documenta performances, acciones, obras efí- un público. Sólo que en el teatro los espectadores están inmóviles. Una exposición
meras y obras en el territorio, que se nos presentan como un recordatorio de lo que no es una lista de obras o artistas, sino una experiencia corporal: la forma como
no pudimos experimentar. A menos que haya sido concebida como obra, o que tenga se da esta experiencia en el espacio debe ser estudiada. ¿Por dónde entro? ¿Qué veo,
un valor contextual especialmente significativo, la documentación pertenece al qué oigo? ¿Cuál es el remate visual de cada movimiento? Una exposición memorable
archivo, no a la exposición. se concibe en la mente, se compone en el espacio, y se experimenta con el cuerpo.
8. Crónica de una muerte anunciada. Toda bienal es un combate perdido de antemano, 14. Ecología. ¿Cuál es el carbon footprint de una bienal? Si tomamos en cuenta los via-
pues es imposible incluir todos los países, todas las regiones, todos los medios, todas jes de artistas y curadores y los materiales utilizados en la producción y el montaje,
las orientaciones sexuales, todas las etnicidades, etc. No importa lo que uno haga, la mayoría de las bienales no pasarían un proceso de certificación por su sustenta-
siempre se queda alguien por fuera. Partiendo de esta imposibilidad ontológica, a bilidad ambiental. Si bien algunos de estos males son inevitables (nada reemplaza la
lo que se aspira es a un hermoso fracaso: este último, como bien lo señalaba relación directa con el artista; nadie quiere curadores-skype o curadores-blackberry,
Harald Szeemann, es una de las dimensiones poéticas del arte. Apollinaire decía que curan de oído y no visitan talleres, etc.), la aproximación al montaje puede tratar
que la arquitectura a lo que debía aspirar era a darle al tiempo una bella ruina… de ser responsable y consecuente. Hay que abandonar la pretensión de tener sis-
temáticamente un cubo blanco para la obra bi y tri-dimensional y una caja negra
9. Multiculti. Pongan en un container a 20 inmigrantes recién llegados de diferentes para los videos; cada obra debe ocupar lo estrictamente necesario para que pueda
países y pídanles que establezcan una conversación productiva. Eso es a lo que ser experimentada sin pérdida. No es necesario esconder las bambalinas y pintar
aspira una Bienal. Y a veces lo logra. todo de blanco: la museografía puede ser Brechtiana en su planteamiento. Prefiero
una interferencia creativa a un diálogo de sordos, cada uno en su torre de drywall.
10. Una Bienal no es una Exposición Universal. Por lo tanto, no debe tener el imperativo
de una equitativa representación geográfica. Tanto más cuando hoy en día la 15. Una Bienal no es una feria de tecnología. A donde se va a ver lo más nuevo, lo más
noción de lo regional tiene muchas veces más sentido que una borrosa y contes- avanzado, lo nunca visto. Una bienal, sobre todo en el Tercer Mundo (que gene-
tada idea de nación. ¿Un artista vasco se siente bien representando a España en ralmente carece de museos con grandes acervos de arte contemporáneo o lugares
Venecia? ¿A qué estado representa un artista de Ramallah? que exhiban el arte de vanguardia) debe presentar una mezcla de proyectos nuevos
y obras existentes. El público local puede apreciar obras importantes que al espec-
11. Una Bienal no debe ser solo bienal. La mayoría de las bienales se preocupan por hacer tador blasé del mundillo artístico le parezcan trilladas. Una bienal no es un show
un evento espectacular, concentrado en el tiempo y en el espacio, y cuando ter- de nuevos talentos, ni el lugar en donde los curadores de otras bienales puedan
mina la Gran Exposición entran en una especie de hibernación por los siguientes venir a la caza de talento periférico.
dos años. Una bienal debe encontrar maneras de extender su acción en el tiempo
y así contrarrestar la depresión post-bienal que aqueja a las ciudades que las acogen; 16. Una Bienal no es una escuela de arte. Y no puede pretender reemplazarla. Pero sí
una forma de hacerlo es entenderse como una instancia de creación de infraestruc- puede cumplir un papel muy importante en la educación de la mirada, función de los
tura, estableciendo polos de acción que activen las escenas locales en los periodos museos (y una bienal es una especie de museo temporal). Desde su temporalidad,
en los que no hay bienal. una bienal puede cumplir la función de familiarizar al público de un lugar dado con
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las imágenes y discusiones del arte de su momento. La Bienal de São Paulo presentó
en 1953 el Guernica de Picasso, y cada dos años ha familiarizado al público Paulista La visión del último hombre…
con los movimientos artísticos de su tiempo. Una bienal es un museo temporal que
beneficia especialmente a la inmensa mayoría que no puede viajar a los centros del
El paisaje apocalíptico en la obra
arte. Una bienal construye un repertorio visual en el tiempo, un acervo de memorias
que son el patrimonio artístico de la comunidad en la cual se inscribe.
de David Alfaro Siqueiros
17. Educar/aprender. Una bienal puede intentar trascender la tríada interpretación- ITALA SCHMELZ
mediación servicio que caracteriza el trabajo educativo en museos involucrando la
idea de lo pedagógico desde su propia formulación curatorial. El museo siempre
intenta mediar entre el arte y el público, trata de facilitar esta relación proponiendo
mecanismos que ayuden a comprender lo que está siendo presentado. Pero el arte 1. David Alfaro Siqueiros (1898-1974), fue entre sus contemporáneos, un hombre
es en sí mismo una instancia de conocimiento que no siempre pasa por lo racional: moderno, apologista de la tecnología y de la ciencia; su convicción política lo llevó a
también se aprende con los sentidos. En ocasiones, una imagen vale más que mil vislumbrar un futuro donde irían de la mano el progreso y la justicia social, y que lle-
palabras, un sonido vale más que mil imágenes, y un aroma vale más que mil sonidos. garía tras la Revolución Comunista. Pasadas las devastadoras guerras mundiales, su
No sabemos cual será el dispositivo que desencadene los procesos de conocimiento. generación vivió los años cincuenta con la esperanza de un futuro promisorio. En esa
década, el artista realizó varias ciudades vistas desde el aire. Los arquitectos de su
18. Emergencia. En la oficina de Diane Karp, directora del Santa Fe Art Institute, vi un tiempo fantaseaban con las ciudades superlativas, Siqueiros las retrató en prospec-
aviso que decía “No hay emergencias artísticas”. El trabajo en el arte, por más impor- tiva. En estas pinturas las líneas de fuga de la composición pictórica evolucionan
tante que lo consideremos, no salva vidas (o tal vez lo haga de manera metafórica). Hay hacia la figuración de híper-ciudades vistas desde el aire. “Creo que el hombre de
exposiciones exitosas cuyo resultado hace olvidar que el proceso fue una verdadera la época del avión no puede tener, respecto del paisaje, la misma lírica, el mismo
tortura. Esto está mal: en el arte, el fin tampoco justifica los medios. Hacer una expo- romanticismo que tuvieron los hombres de las épocas en que aún no se dominaba el
sición no puede terminar siendo una experiencia angustiante, frustrante o dolorosa. espacio” —escribió Siqueiros, para quien dimensionar la curvatura estratosférica de
la Tierra, era una manera de agudizar la percepción de nuestro planeta como “plata-
19. Responsabilidad. Una curaduría no se firma por vanidad, sino de la misma manera forma universal del hombre”. La visión desde el aire, la conciencia cósmica, es quizá
que se firma un cheque al portador: una vez que entra en lo público, cualquiera uno de los aspectos más interesantes de este artista. Es poco sabido que Siqueiros
puede cobrar, y el curador debe estar allí para responder. estaba interesado en la ciencia ficción, sin embargo, en el mural de San Miguel
Allende (1948), aprovecha la bóveda convexa del techo para sugerir un cohete en
20. Comunidad. Se hacen exposiciones para tener experiencias de vida memorables. marcha, que cobra gran motricidad con el paso del espectador, y en 1956 pintó una
Entiendo la curaduría como la creación de una comunidad temporal. Artistas y “Nave atómica” que podría haber inspirado a Kubrick para su odisea en el espacio.
curadores entran en un diálogo que se da por una convivencia prolongada y una Así pues, al afamado muralista mexicano le inquietaba la visión del porvenir,
meta más o menos común. Considero exitosas aquellas exposiciones de las que y así como imaginó futuros promisorios, se le dio por la creación de una plástica
salí con amigos entrañables. No es que aspire a que la bienal sea una agencia de la catástrofe tan rotunda como el pregón delirante del Apocalipsis bíblico.
matrimonial, pero sin duda debe ser un momento de empatía. Casi nunca se puede El artista prefiguró sus escenarios más catastróficos en Nueva York (1935-36),
trabajar con los amigos; el arte puede proveer esta posibilidad. poco antes de partir a la Guerra Civil española y en un momento determinante para
sus hallazgos técnicos. Es el periodo donde forma su Experimental Work Shop,
al que acude Jackson Pollok. Dedicados a generar un arte de propaganda para el
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Partido Comunista Norteamericano. A su vez, el joven artista vive momentos de
intensa exploración con sustancias pictóricas industriales y descubre los efectos
de la piroxilina, que siempre será su material predilecto para pintar. Las mezclas y
las absorciones de la pintura y solventes sintéticos, choreados y aventados sobre
el panel, motivan a su imaginación creadora y más que pintar, Siqueiros invoca a
la efervescencia biológica del origen de la vida. En un momento de lúcido desvelo
Siqueiros le escribe a la bella María Asúnsolo: “Se trata del uso de lo accidental en
la pintura. Absorciones de un color en otro produciendo las fantasías y formas más
mágicas que pueda imaginarse la mente humana. Algo solo parecido a la forma-
ción geológica de la tierra, a las betas policromas y multiformes de las montañas.
A la integración de las células. Esa cosa organizada que surge del misterio de
quien sabe qué leyes temibles, en su profundidad… Y sobre todo un dinamismo
tumultuoso, de tempestad, de revolución física y social que a veces causa pavor.”
Al reunir la obra de este periodo, se completa un fastuoso escenario apoca-
líptico que, dada la catastrófica alborada del sigo XX, podemos entender como una
respuesta a su tiempo. El primer cuadro que realiza en este tono es “El Nacimiento
del fascismo” (1936) , donde pinta a la estatua de la libertad hundiéndose entre
agitadas olas. En el “Fin del mundo” (1936), un único sobreviviente se levanta entre
las ruinas de una batalla, en cambio en “Caos y desastre” (1936), tras una explo-
sión portentosa ya no se ven huellas de vida, nada ha quedado en pie. Siqueiros
pinta varias explosiones, la más espectacular es “Explosión en la ciudad” (proba-
blemente iniciada en 1936 pero finalizada en 1945). Además, Siqueiros pintó otras
explosiones en esos años, que podrían verse como premoniciones de la explosión
atómica. El imaginario catastrófico continúa, una figura yace en escorzo sobre un
charco negro, son fierros y tornillos los que cubren como textura contaminada la
superficie del cuadro “Escorzo negro” (1936) y en el “Eco del llanto” (1937), un niño
parece tragar su propia angustia, solitario sobre las ruinas de la guerra.
Para pintar estos cuadros, Siqueiros se dejó influir por las visiones que llegaban
de los acontecimientos europeos, pero fundamentalmente, los accidentes provo-
cados por la piroxilina le inspiraban un gran lirismo cáustico. Poco después, el artista
pasó de la teoría a la práctica y en 1937 viajó a España, donde se puso a las órde-
nes del Ejército Republicano. Desde el frente manda cartas a su esposa Angélica
Arenal: “Te escribo después de mi primera participación militar… Viví una mañana
espléndida en medio de los duelos de la artillería, bajo los temibles aeroplanos que
bombardearon nuestras columnas en marcha… Esto es maravilloso como hecho
histórico, como espectáculo y como problema. Ya cerca, se ve la lucha como cosa
humana sin el lirismo que le damos desde lejos.”
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La visión de la destrucción total será la más bella de todas, clama Siqueiros el anuncio del fin final. Necesidad escatológica de la psique humana que, en el
en plena sublimación mesiánica, más no habrá nadie para contemplarlo. Eso es lo fondo, comenta Derrida, se trata de una farsa, en tanto supone un saber imposible
que está obsesionado en representar, la mirada del último hombre. Fechado en y confunde por abundancia al entendimiento claro: “Una visión exaltada promete
enero de 1960, Siqueiros escribe al reverso de un cuadro: “proyecto escenográfico un suplemento, un subrogado del objeto cognoscible” Lo cual es una tergiversación
para la obra teatral “Brasa viva” (Acto II después de la Guerra atómica ¿Qué?)”, y del sentimiento de lo sublime, en tanto que promete un conocimiento extra sensible.
también de su puño y letra: “Se calcinó la Tierra en toda su redondez—un nuevo “Los mistagogos fabrican una escena…entran en escena, incluso en trance. ¿En
astro muerto— su belleza fue infinita… Pero ya no la vio nadie ¡absolutamente qué momento comienzan a hacerse los misteriosos… Estas gentes se sitúan fuera
nadie!” El pintor mecanografió su propio guión para poner en escena esta obra de de lo común pero tienen en común lo siguiente: se dicen en relación inmediata e
teatro, un drama audiovisual en el que las fuerzas de la naturaleza se baten cual intuitiva con el misterio.”
dioses griegos haciendo de la creación una efervescencia luminosa. En otro cuadro, Siqueiros en la cárcel pinta como un mistagogo, augura plásticamente un
denominado por el artista detalle para mural de Chapultepec y fechado en Julio de amenazante infierno en la tierra. El artista incendia sus pequeños y rectangulares
1962, apunta: “pararon en seco la vida de los seres y las cosas” Y en otro reverso caballetes con una visión de la naturaleza conmocionada por su creador, al borde
se lee: “Admonición: Un fuego muerto cubriría toda la Tierra”. o tras la catástrofe. En algunas de sus obras, el artista hace en el reverso anota-
Sobre la tierra convulsionada, avanzan multitudes desarrapadas en una diás- ciones que describen su ánimo y sus visiones. Siqueiros parece haber perdido su
pora sórdida. Respecto a estas misteriosas migraciones, apunta en el anverso de otro ideología dialéctica y su laicidad comunista, se perfila en él un milenarismo religioso;
cuadro “Nativos y negros largos años torturados por encomendadores y Gobierno, una mística se ha colocado en su horizonte plástico. Es el crepúsculo de la huma-
escaparon cruzando desiertos, selvas, ríos, rumbo a la costa de la tierra caliente…” nidad, Siqueiros literalmente anuncia siglos de destrucción y muerte: “El redentor
Y detrás de otro que obsequiara al Presidente Nehru, el artista escribe. “Pero sabe vencido: Su doctrina de “paz en la tierra” fue sepultada en la sangre y las cenizas de
alguien—ellos mismos—a dónde van? Carrera sin rumbo”. Visiones de seres dramá- dos mil años de guerras cada vez más devastadoras”, apunta en septiembre de 1963.
ticamente desposeídos, realizando gestualidades francamente dantescas. ¿Memoria Este universo dramáticamente caótico, trató de llevarlo a los muros cuando
de los campos de batalla?, ¿reminiscencia del infierno inculcado en la educación finalmente se vio liberado y se consagró a la realización del Poliforum Cultural
cristiana de su niñez? En la cárcel se debate ante si mismo, y es inevitable el miedo Siqueiros, donde realiza su último mural: “La marcha de la humanidad hacia el
a la muerte. Siqueiros, el hombre con energía de tormenta, se topa ante la impo- cosmos”, que parece representar la bíblica llegada del gran final, anunciada por
tencia del encierro, y en esas noches solitarias cobra conciencia de su finitud. el apóstol Juan. En una entrevista de 1967, Tibol le comenta: “En la marcha de la
La obra de prisión es completamente escatológica, sus vociferantes tierras humanidad hay una notable cantidad de elementos de violencia: hay monstruos
calcinadas, sus migraciones y éxodos, a través de atardeceres violentos, cuyas ma- que agreden al ser humano, hay seres humanos que avanzan poseídos de temible
gentas en el horizonte se confunden con erupciones volcánicas, tienen un tono angustia, hay paisajes que oprimen o paisajes que se abren de manera descon-
apocalíptico como el que describe Jaques Derrida en su interesante ensayo: “Sobre certante ante el ser humano. ¿Por qué está usted reuniendo esa serie de elementos
un tono apocalíptico adoptado recientemente en filosofía” . Ahí, Derrida analiza un de violencia en su mural?” Siqueiros responde: “Es resultado de mi estado mental,
texto de Emanuel Kant, quien juzga que algunos filósofos gustan en adoptar un tono y político, porque estoy viviendo un mundo de violencia, de tragedia, de principios
apocalíptico cuando anuncian la muerte o el fin de la filosofía (la historia, el sujeto, de tragedia, de principios, ni siquiera de culminación de tragedia.”
la pintura, etc.) Esa muerte va asociada a la idea de una revelación sobrenatural: Siqueiros fincó en la imagen del porvenir sus ideales de justicia y de huma-
“Una visión que provoca una exaltación mística o al menos una pose de visionario” nismo, sin embargo el ritmo de los acontecimientos lo dejó ver que las más grandes
Esto es el fin del fin “Yo os lo digo”. utopías de los hombres de su tiempo declinaban ante el capitalismo triunfante y las
El tono apocalíptico es una inflexión en el habla que supone la ostentación de cíclicas pulsiones de guerra. El arte tomaba rumbos muy distintos a su desiderá-
un saber oculto. El poder de la develación de lo que otros, la mayoría, ignoran, tum, el presente se desdibujaba en las horas y horas de encierro ¿Dónde quedaba
genera sin duda un goce. Siqueiros adoptó el rol del profeta a quien corresponde el futuro que había anhelado y que pintó en sus murales y cuadros más optimistas?
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 192 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 193
Al final de su vida, la visión apocalíptica se impuso sobre sus odas al progreso. Algo
fundamental cambió en el tono de sus pinturas, ya no hablaba el líder sindical o el
La imaginación estética frente al caos
agitador de masas, sino el profeta. Sus pinturas abordan al espectador con el tono
exacerbado de quien anuncia los días del juicio final. La visión del horror, la destruc- FELIPE EHRENBERG
ción final como infinitamente bella, se apodera de la mente del prisionero y en este
estado genera un periodo muy peculiar en cuanto a su lírica y estilo; ya no pinta
el paisaje como experiencia externa sino como su horizonte interior.
In bello parvis momentis magni casus intercedunt.
JULIO CÉSAR
El Sismo del ’85 arrasó con Tepito. Aquel 19 de septiembre como a las 3 de la tarde,
varios hijos, sus amigos y yo, llevamos tres carros cargados de ropa, medicinas,
agua embotellada. Azorados por los destrozos que tuvimos que esquivar, nos esta-
cionamos en la esquina de la calle de González Ortega y la Cerrada Díaz de León.
Ahí me quedé esa noche. Y la siguiente y la siguiente… Esa primera noche, bajo
una ligera llovizna, fundé el punto de socorro que algunos días después se conver-
tiría en el “Centro de Enlace Díaz de León / Tepito Indómito.” Para el 21 ya había-
mos tendido tres tiendas de campaña, para almacenar provisiones y donativos,
ofrecer primeros auxilios, funcionar como base administrativa y de información.
Y también se convirtió en mi albergue. Oleadas de damnificados deambulaban por
calles intransitables. Algunos se apresuraban hacia sus trabajos o a buscar y
rescatar sobrevivientes en el Centro, en Tlatelolco. Perplejos, los tepiteños vagaban
entre los escombros con miradas perdidas, removían cascajo para sacar un mue-
ble, algo de ropa, documentos, retratos de familia. No había energía ni teléfonos.
No había suministro de agua y los refrescos valían oro. No había cómo mezclar la
fórmula del biberón, cómo preparar el arroz, la sopa… ¡No había cómo bañarse!
¡Y el olor de la muerte! Hedor terrible a carroña que nos envolvería durante sema-
nas enteras… Nos enfrentábamos a un futuro totalmente imprevisto. Precario. Nos
acechaba el caos. El caos acechaba al país entero. Y asumimos el luto.
La mañana del lunes 23 recordé antes del alba. Había que organizar con los
voluntarios la distribución de comida y cobijas, separar medicamentos caducados,
redireccionar reclamos a la subdelegación. Desamparados, los vecinos se apelma-
zaban frente a las tres tiendas de campaña. Salía el sol cuando de repente, desde
la distancia, distinguimos un sonido delicado y dulce. El sonido de un violín. La
gente cesó sus tareas y calló, los niños se soltaron de la mano de sus mamás, todo
mundo volteaba para ubicar el sonido de aquel violín que se acercaba. Y entonces,
por la boca de la cerrada, entró un hombre muy alto y delgado, con una piocha
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 194 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 195
negra y los ojos entrecerrados, tocando su violín. ¿Una fuga de Bach, tal vez? Y nadie
se movió durante la breve eternidad que duró el paseo del violinista por aquella cerra-
da sin salida. Y él salió, llevando su apacible brindis rumbo al corazón de Tepito.
En la cerrada, Tepito Indómito reunió casi 60 voluntarios y pasó a enlazar a
los damnificados con el gobierno de la ciudad. Había que celebrar. Un mes des-
pués, los voluntarios y yo decidimos armar ahí mismo una gigantesca pachanga.
Llamamos a todos los grupos y combos soneros que tocaban en los tugurios, clu-
bes y bares a 3 kilómetros a la redonda. La fiesta fue abierta por Botellita de Jerez.
Y a mediados de octubre, nuestro centro de enlace invitó a los vecinos a crear una
ofrenda colectiva a las víctimas del sismo. Quedó enorme, como de unos 30 metros
de largo por 4 metros de fondo, llena de frutas, flores, toda decorada con ofrendas,
fotos y papel picado ¡Linda!
La angustiosa falta de agua en nuestra zona duró 54 agitadísimos días, días en
que todo cambió. Cambió la correlación de fuerzas sociales, cambiaron las jerar-
quías de poder, cambió el color de mi cabello. Encanecí mientras reacomodaba en
mi corazón las piezas que había estado yo recogiendo a lo largo de mis 42 años
de vida. Iba y venía semanalmente de Xico a la Capital. Algunas veces viajé para
exhibir dentro del país y al extranjero. Y me fui enfrascando en la vida cotidiana
del centro de la ciudad. Un día me di cuenta que la atmósfera artística capitalina,
cada vez más distante de mi realidad, empezaba a sofocarme. A los conocidos se
les hacía curioso, hasta pintoresco, que viviera yo ahí. Ya no pude ‘hallarme’ entre
ellos. Me mudé a Portales una década después, pero mantuve mi estudio en el
barrio hasta 1998.
En la zona devastada pre-grafiti de Tepito y colonias anexas, las pocas pare-
des que habían quedado en pie fueron cubiertas y recubiertas por murales por
pintores desconocidos en la cultura establecida… Parvadas de poetas y escritores
fundaron toda una serie de ‘peñas’ y asociaciones, en Peralvillo, en la Bondojito,
en Tepis, en la Morelos. Publicaban minúsculas ediciones fotocopiadas y mimeo-
grafiadas sobre la experiencia y la vida post sísmica. Surgió una multitud de hoyos
‘fonkis’ y los roqueros fueron una importantísima válvula de escape para una juven-
tud agobiada. El sur de la ciudad no supo cómo registrar este fenómeno. Cuando
mucho, cundió una obsesiva curiosidad por el Barrio Bravo. En 1998, el Museo de
Culturas Populares presentó una facsimilar de Tepito, con calles, puestos, vivien-
das y marisquerías. El museo queda a escasas cuadras de la Calzada de Tlalpan,
la misma vía que te lleva directo al Tepito real ¡por el precio de un boleto del metro!
Un año después, el 10 de octubre de 1986, me encontraba yo en San Diego.
Empezaba yo a retomar el oficio y había aceptado construir una gran instalación
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 198 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 199
más ‘acriollados’, más descastados. Motorizados y sin necesidad de trabajar mien- político y lo económico a ritmo caótico, en lo social ya atravesamos el umbral de lo
tras estudian, son hijos de gente que desconfía del arte y que los induce a estudiar catastrófico. Nos acosa la salvaje polarización de nuestras clases medias, cuyas
diseño en vez de arte. Víctimas de una educación deficiente, desconociendo la his- izquierdas y derechas se odian con enconos pocas veces antes vistos. Perciben la
toria de México y de nuestras artes, los jóvenes emergentes responden cada vez precariedad de su futuro inmediato, pero se empeñan en rechazar cualquier ini-
menos a la realidad actual del país. Sus fuentes ahora son revistas especializadas, ciativa a favor de una reconciliación nacional.
caras y en inglés. Los más responden en última instancia a la ciber-realidad del Controlada la distribución de la riqueza para favorecer a un puñado de la
Internet. Se mantienen atentos a la industria galerística internacional con sus familias poderosas, la pauperización aflige más que a nadie a nuestras primeras
museos privados, sus ferias y sus fundaciones. naciones, a los pueblos originales, al México profundo que describe Bonfil Batalla
Perciben noticias de catástrofes y situaciones caóticas en sound-bits, en y que supo acompañar tan de cerca el finado Carlos Montemayor. Hoy, la violencia
inglés el 80% y el 20% restante en pésimas traducciones: la muerte por lapidación campea por el país entero y nuestras ciudades viven prácticamente asediadas, la
de una iraniana, tsunamis en Asia e inundaciones en Alemania, la masacre de pobreza en favelas, la riqueza en ghetos amurallados.
focas, la depredación del Amazonas, la causa de los palestinos y demás conflictos Nada fácil, contabilizar el número de víctimas, la mayoría desposeída y morena,
en los Medio y Lejanos Orientes, Al Gore y el calentamiento global eclipsan el acon- que han caído en esta cruenta guerra que desgarra la totalidad del tejido social de
tecer en su entorno inmediato… Todo superpuesto con atractivos como la 1ª Trienal México, trama, urdimbre y envés, a sus gobiernos y sus instituciones, a su econo-
Internacional de Aichi (tema predeterminado: ‘Artes y Ciudades’); Art Basel Miami mía y sus religiones, a nuestra cultura entera. Pero la música (y no sólo los narco-
Beach (“the favorite winter meeting place for the international art world”); o a la 7ª corridos) y el cine (no sólo los Almada) ya llevan años de delantera, procesando,
Bienal de Taipei (cuyo tema es cuestionar la infraestructura de la institución ‘bienal’). interpretando, ponderando (comparemos las dos pelis más recientes, “El Infierno”
Los gritos de auxilio se funden y confunden con los gritos de la moda y nos de Luis Estrada y “Machete”, de Robert Rodríguez son un binomio extraordinario.)
conducen al caos. Se exacerban los ciberniveles de nuestras ciberangustias. ¿Cómo Más difícil, acaso imposible, es prever las secuelas de este catastrófico conflicto
priorizar tantas urgencias, cómo digerirlas para transformarlas en arte? Sufrimiento cuando ni siquiera sabemos quién está contra quién, quiénes son ‘los buenos’ y ‘los
y compasión ya no se comparten, se privatizan, se interiorizan. Incapaces de res- malos’. Lo único que queda claro es, como dijera Ramón de Campoamor, que “en
ponder a la realidad real, cotidiana, los artistas exploran angustias existenciales este mundo traidor, no hay verdad ni mentira: todo es según el cristal con que se mira.”
particulares, con títulos en inglés. El hermetismo se abre al caos. Ante la pregunta, ¿qué de nuestra imaginación estética frente el caos? Sólo
puedo responder que el único artista contemporáneo mexicano de calibre y enver-
* gadura que conozco, el único que ha mantenido la vista puesta en el caos que se
desprende de una catastrófica realidad, soportada por él y por todos sus antepa-
Caos nos viene del griego χάος, abertura. Describe confusión, desorden. Es “el esta- sado, es un modesto pero extraordinario grabador, pintor y activo miembro de
do amorfo e indefinido” que se supone anterior a la ordenación del cosmos. La RAE su comunidad, a quien el MUAC, allá en el sur, sur de la Capital, jamás invitará.
nos dice que en matemáticas significa “el comportamiento aparentemente errático Ilustre desconocido en México, es cada vez más reconocido en Dinamarca, Francia,
e impredecible de algunos sistemas dinámicos, aunque su formulación matemáti- Indonesia, Alemania. Hablo de Nicolás de Jesús. ¿Alguien se interesa en conocerlo?
ca sea en principio determinista.” Por su parte, Google nos brinda un pluricultural Basta picarle a la compu.
y multilingüe maremagno de ejemplos de artistas que lidian con caos y catástrofes.
Busqué y procuré dentro del tema en varios idiomas; en todos los que aparecieron *
en mi pantalla, no hallé a un solo artista mexicano…
Veamos con lupa, pues, lo que sucede en la actualidad en México, en la era
del llamado ‘arte actual’, en estos momentos que tan certera y enfáticamente resu-
mió Denise Dresser ante el Congreso hace unos meses. México se despedaza en lo
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 200 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 201
Exhibí por 1ª vez en 1960. Recurren de manera obsesiva en mi obra temprana 3 signos,
señales —¿glifos?—: El Huevo, La Flecha y El Bufón. Diego Velázquez me llevó a descubrir
que los artistas somos los bufones de la corte. Algunos confunden bufón con payaso. Me
cuenta Google que el oficio “data de la más distante antigüedad. Hubo de crecer en Roma
a compás que las costumbres se corrompían y que aumentaba el amor al lujo y al desenfreno
por la ostentación, causando cada vez mayor deleite y siendo buscadas con mayor empeño
las monstruosidades físicas, morales e intelectuales: enanos, gigantes, deformes, etc. La cos-
tumbre creó el tráfico y éste llegó a ser tan enorme que se hizo en Roma un mercado espe-
cial para esta clase de mercancías. Cuando los provechos de dicha industria aumentaron de
modo considerable, los orientales se dedicaron a la confección de monstruos y enanos.”
Esta película es una crónica sobre los secuestros aéreos mediante un montaje dinámico de fragmentos
y documentos tomados de diferentes fuentes, principalmente de programas de televisión. Grimonprez
analiza la relación que tienen los eventos catastróficos en el imaginario colectivo y el uso que hacen
de ellos los medios masivos.
1
Groening, M., Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life: A Wee Handbook for the Perplexed (London: HarperCollins,
5
1996). Bellamy, R.V. & Walker J.R. The Remote Control Device: An Overlooked Technology; ver también Bellamy,
2
La adaptación de la novela de H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, fue dirigida y narrada por Orson Welles. R.V., Walker J.R. &Traudt, P.J., “Gratifications Derived from Remote Control Devices: A Survey of Adult
Se transmitió el 30 de octubre de 1938 a través del sistema CBS como episodio de Halloween en la serie RCD Use”, en The Remote Control in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport:
radial Mercury Theatre on the Air. Praeger, 1993).
3 6
Bellamy, RV. & Walker, J.R., Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland (New Benjamin, L, “At the Touch of a Button: A Brief History of Remote Control Devices”, en The Remote Control
York/London: The Guilford Press, 1996), 16; Cantril, H., The Invasion of Mars. A Study in the Psychology in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport: Praeger, 1993), 15-22. Ver también
of Panic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947). “Kill that commercial!”, Newsweek(20 de noviembre de 1950), 95-6; Walker, C.L. “How to Stop Objectionable
4
“Radio listeners in Panic Taking War Drama as Fact”, en el periódico The New York times (31 de octubre TV Commercials”, en Reader’s Digest (noviembre, 1953), 72.
7
de 1938). Ver tambien, Hand, R.J., Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America 1931-1952 (Jefferson: “Remote Controls for Radio and TV” en Consumer Reports (marzo, 1956), 165-6.
8
McFarland & Company, 2006). Johnson, S, “Zap!”, en Chicago Tribune (27 de agosto de 1986), 1, 7.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 204 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 205
Los años cincuenta: Algo nuevo está en el aire La tele no solo insertó a los superhéroes en los hogares —las primeras señales
Para 1950 la televisión había empezado a reemplazar a la radio como el medio de de televisión transmitidas al éter también atrajeron la “atención foránea”. En enero de
comunicación masiva más importante. “¿Estás listo para la Televisión?”, preguntaba 1953 los medios informaron que dos misteriosos “Hombres de negro”, que no eran
uno de los primeros anuncios televisivos de Dumont. No del todo. Al principio el de esta tierra, habían aterrizado con su platillo volador en el desierto de Mojave,
nuevo miembro de la familia no fue bienvenido. Con su señal proveniente de los 200 millas al este de Los Ángeles. Ellos afirmaban haber aprendido el idioma inglés
cielos la televisión era considerada como una presencia algo alienante en el hogar, al escuchar las transmisiones televisivas.12 Ya en 1947 el piloto civil Kenneth Arnold
así que el aparato era frecuentemente escondido o disfrazado en el mueble que lo había observado nueve vehículos elípticos con forma de disco viajando en forma-
contenía. Un modelo llamado Hillsborough presumía un estilo de escondite que ción sobre el monte Rainier en Washington, a una velocidad extraordinaria. El des-
permitía que la televisión se deslizara dentro de una mesa regular de salón, como cribió los objetos como “un platillo deslizándose y rebotando sobre el agua.” Los
si el nuevo medio no existiera.9 Incluso en Hollywood—o más bien especialmente periódicos bautizaron a las naves con el nombre de ese utensilio doméstico, así fue
en Hollywood—la televisión fue considerada como un elemento de utilería hostil en como los platillos voladores llevaron las miradas a los cielos. Definitivamente algo
los escenarios cinematográficos. A la compañía Warner Brothers le molestaba la estaba allí arriba en el cielo.
aparición de un aparato de TV en las salas de estar de sus películas y rápidamente
las mandaba retirar. “La suposición”, escribe Erik Barnouw, “parecía ser que si la Terror del espacio exterior
televisión pudiera prohibirse en las películas no podría sobrevivir.”10 Pero esto no Los nervios de la Guerra Fría habían causado paranoia en las filas del Servicio
sucedió por mucho tiempo. Warner firmó un contrato para producir Westerns para Secreto norteamericano, que estaba siempre temeroso de un plan de ataque por
la compañía de televisión ABC y para 1958, había más de treinta series de este parte de los comunistas soviéticos. George Adamski, un individuo que supuesta-
género programadas para el horario estelar. Pronto la “tele” reimaginaría lo que mente había contactado con los OVNIs, alimentó sus miedos con su comentario de
significa la sala de estar. que una raza superior del espacio tenía un “gobierno de tipo comunista”.13 La CIA
Al mudarse de Hollywood para aprovechar el auge de la producción televisiva conformó un panel de científicos de primer nivel, encabezados por el doctor H. P.
en Nueva York, Lucile Ball se convirtió en la primera estrella de cine en lograr una Robertson. Ellos concluyeron que descalificar los reportes de OVNIs sería sabio en
mayor fama como actriz de programas cómicos. En I Love Lucy ella aparecía como términos de estrategia, ya que había miedo de que la Unión Soviética los usara
una mujer permanentemente al punto de escapar la trampa familiar, que finamen- para inducir histeria pública en los Estados Unidos. Incluso el Mágico Mundo de
te fallaba de manera adorable. La semana siguiente empezaba otra vez lo mismo. Disney se involucró en una campaña de desinformación televisada. Los grupos
En un episodio de enero de 1957 para la ocasión del cumpleaños de su hijo, la de investigadores de OVNIs fueron monitoreados para descubrir actividades sub-
heroína porta un traje de Superman y hace su entrada a través de una ventana del versivas, y los que afirmaban haber tenido contactos extraterrestres fueron carac-
tercer piso. Sin embargo la “súper mamá” queda atorada en la canaleta del muro terizados como espías soviéticos.14
y el “verdadero” Superman, el actor George Reeves, tiene que venir como actor En octubre de 1957 los Sputnik inauguraron la Era Espacial. El primer saté-
invitado a rescatar a Lucy del desastre doméstico. Los héroes de la pantalla chica lite lanzado en órbita por los soviéticos dio un golpe serio a la autoestima de los
habían llegado para quedarse.11 Estados Unidos, causando una crisis mediática mayúscula. Las cadenas de televisión
9
Ver www.zapomatik.com : HILSBOROUGH WITH NEW HIDEAWAY STYLING, Jam Handy Organization for
12
RCA Victor, 1956, 2:30’, USA (cortes’ia de Prelinger Archives: www.prelinger.com). Redefern, N., The FBI Files, the FBI’s UFO Top Secrets Exposed (Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 1998).
10 13
Barnouw, E., Tube of Plenty, The Evolution of American Television (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Admski, G. & Adamski, L., Flying Saucers Have Landed (London: Werner Laurie, 1953).
14
Press, 1990). Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Ithaca/London: Cornell
11
Lucy y Superman, epidodio 166 de I Love Lucy (transmitido por primera vez el 14 de enero de 1957, EUA). University Press, 1998), 190-1. Ver también, Haines, G.K. “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A
Ver también Mellencamp, P., High Anxiety. Catastrophe, Scandal, Age & Comedy (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Die-Hard Issue”. Consultado el 26 de diciembre de 2010: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-
Indiana University Press, 1990). of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 206 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 207
quedaron anonadadas al descubrir que en vez de quedarse pegado al televisor su Ampex en una cocina modelo en la American National Exhibition en Moscú de
público cautivo corría al patio con la esperanza de ver al Sputnik volando por los 1959. Durante el álgido debate—que tocó temas tan variados como las máquinas
cielos nocturnos. La prensa comparó el lanzamiento del Sputnik con el descubri- lavaplatos, los arsenales nucleares o el papel de las mujeres—Nixon presumió
miento de América por Cristóbal Colón. “De algún modo, de alguna nueva manera, acerca de la maravilla de la televisión que daba a los Estados Unidos la ventaja tec-
el cielo parecía casi ajeno,” escribió el líder de la mayoría en el senado y futuro nológica sobre la Unión Soviética. Mientras que Nixon presumía sus 50 millones
presidente L.B. Johnson.15 de aparatos de televisión para 46 millones de familias, su enérgico interlocutor
Como respuesta los Estados Unidos trataron de despegar con el cohete reviró el argumento con una respuesta rápida, mostrando con ironía una verda-
Vanguard I, pero el “Flopnik” o el “Kaputnik”, como fue bautizado, se había ele- dera maestría de la televisión en vivo. Con un desdén rimbombante, el showman
vado apenas cuatro pies del suelo antes de que una gran explosión lo hiciera caer Krushchev declaró que las empresas espaciales soviéticas eran muy superiores.
a la tierra estrepitosamente frente a los televidentes de todo el mundo. Cuando los En junio de 1961 los soviéticos pusieron en órbita exitosamente al cosmonauta
soviéticos pusieron en órbita a un perro la paranoia llegó a su punto más alto en Yuri Gagarin, convirtiéndolo oficialmente en el primer hombre en el espacio. Mientras
las filas estadounidenses. Después de todo la perrita Laika podía estar cargando el programa de los estadounidenses perdía terreno, su máquina mediática azuza-
una bomba de hidrógeno. Para los Estados Unidos el can era un indicio de una ba el espanto comunista de “Marte, el planeta rojo” atacando al país.17 Ya para
guerra que se ejercía desde el espacio. “Lo que está en juego no es nada menos entonces el inmenso arsenal nuclear del mundo creaba un contexto ominoso que
que nuestra propia supervivencia,” advertía el Senador Mike Mansfield, mientras que puso a la humanidad en la antesala de la aniquilación. El subconsciente, políticamente
Edward Teller, “el padre de la bomba de hidrógeno”, salió en televisión para sugerir reprimido, hechizó a los Estados Unidos tomando la forma de un poder invisible pro-
que el futuro ahora les pertenecía a los “rusos”.16 En los tiempos del Sputnik un veniente de un universo hostil que invadía los hogares. Los superhéroes y las crea-
nuevo furor por los platillos voladores se apoderó del público estadounidense. Las turas del espacio exterior colonizaron el horario estelar televisivo. Los programas de
salas de noticias fueron sobrepasadas por la cantidad de personas que afirmaban ciencia ficción como The Outer Limits y The Twilight Zone tomaron el control de las
haber visto un OVNI. La leyenda “¡TERROR TOTAL DEL ESPACIO EXTERIOR!” se podía transmisiones: “No hay problemas con su aparato de televisión. Repito: no hay pro-
leer en un trailer de la película hollywoodense La tierra contra los platillos voladores, blemas con su aparato de televisión. ¡Has entrado a la dimensión desconocida!”
de 1956. Pero entonces en septiembre de ese año la realidad sobrepasó a la televisión: en un
viaje de regreso de Canadá a través de New Hampshire la pareja interracial Barney
La industria del miedo y Betty Hill fueron capturados por un platillo volador—que venía evidentemente del
Durante la Guerra Fría la televisión fue explotada ansiosamente para perpetuar una sistema estelar Zeta Reticuli—viraba suspendido sobre sus cabezas.18 La primera
cultura del miedo en aras de un mayor control político. Las transmisiones en vivo abducción extraterrestre registrada de manera oficial en los Estados Unidos abrió la
se volvieron particularmente ideales para dar forma a la retórica política, como se caja de Pandora. ¿O quizá era más bien una lata de gusanos?
hizo evidente en la primera cumbre televisada en vivo, que acabó en una negocia-
ción estancada entre el premier soviético Nikita Khrushchev y el vicepresidente Los años sesenta: No cambie de canal
norteamericano Richard Nixon. El momento histórico, llamado “El debate de la Al principio de los años sesenta otra Guerra Fría agarraba fuerza: la batalla de la
cocina”, fue grabado utilizando la recién inventada cinta de videograbación a color televisión amenazando con liquidar a su hermano mayor. La industria fílmica estaba
perdiendo ante la pantalla chica y muchas salas de cine locales se vieron forzadas
15
Dickson, P, Sputnik, The Shock of the Century (New York: Walker & Company, 2011), 117-28.
16 17
Los comentarios de Edward Teller y otros comentarios similares de parte de los senadores y periodistas Spiegel, L, “From Domestic Space to Outer Space: The 1960s Fantastic Family Sit-Com”; y Sobchack,
estadounidenses pueden oirse en el film Sputnik Mania (2007) de David Hoffman, así como en el filme V., “Child/Alien/Father: Patriarchal Crisis and Generic Exchante”, en Close Encounters. Film Feminism and
Double Take (2009) de Johan Grimonprez. Ver también Dickinson, P. Sputnik: The Shock of the Century Science Fiction, eds. C. Penley et al. (Minneapolis/Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
18
(New York: Walker & Company, 2001), 117-28. Fuller, J.G. The interrupted Journtey (New York: Dial Press, 1966).
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 208 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 209
a cerrar sus puertas. Mientras que Hollywood luchaba por redefinirse ante la apa- la idea de llenar estas charolas con el pavo y anunciarlas como una TV Dinner por
bullante presencia del nuevo medio Alfred Hitchcock, como delegado del cine asu- 98 centavos la pieza. Así se introdujo otro ícono cultural a la sala de estar, trans-
mió el ambivalente reto del formato televisivo. Como ciudadano inglés desplazado formando los hábitos alimenticios de millones de norteamericanos.22 Con la con-
a Hollywood, Hitchcock tomó diligentemente el papel de doble agente, escabullén- veniencia de una charola de comida, uno podía estar fácilmente estacionado en
dose en las salas de estar norteamericanas como un maestro de ceremonias con frente de la tele sin la necesidad de correr a la cocina y así el arte de la conversación
la finalidad de burlarse de ella. Sus sarcásticas introducciones a su serie de TV, durante la comida fue rápidamente sustituido con los “sappy sitcoms”, programas
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-62), estaban condimentadas con la paranoia cómicos salpicados con interrupciones comerciales.23
doméstica que reflejaba a una cultura de la catástrofe en construcción. La crecien- Otro elemento adicional a las comidas pre-cocinadas fue la maravilla de la “risa
te tensión entre los Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética y su terror ante la amenaza enlatada”. Las audiencias en vivo no siempre se reían en el momento adecuado,
nuclear siempre se veían sobre el horizonte. Así que cuando el “maestro de lo o se reían demasiado fuerte o por demasiado tiempo. Así que la Laff Box (caja de
macabro”, como se llegó a conocer a Hitchcock, decidió cruzar del cine a la tele- risas), un aparato usado tras bambalinas con una variedad de botones para gene-
visión, tomó todas las oportunidades para burlarse de este hermano gemelo malvado rar risas, sustituyó al público en vivo para “endulzar” los programas con risas gra-
del cine, que se había transformado en una “caja de propaganda”: “La televisión badas.24 De manera similar, la industria de la publicidad estaba endulzando su
es como el tostador americano,” afirmó, “aprietas el botón y sale lo mismo todas imagen de un consumidor feliz para una emergente sociedad de la televisión.
las veces.” Pero la verdadera obsesión de Hitchcock recaía en los comerciales que
habían infectado el formato de la narrativa. Después de todo, “la historia puede ser Los años ochenta: El pánico de la industria de la publicidad
mala, pero esos comerciales son pura poesía,” bromeó, añadiendo que “impiden El control remoto no ganó ningún terreno realmente hasta que llegaron los años
que te involucres con exceso en el relato”. Provocando el horror de sus patrocina- ochentas, ya que previamente el hecho de saltar de un canal a otro se limitaba a
dores, Hitchcock denunciaba ceremoniosamente los malditos anuncios y con mal- unos cuantos canales solamente. Para mediados de la década, sin embargo, la
dad sardónica conminaba al televidente de antaño a cambiar de canal para evitar vasta industria de la televisión por cable y la videograbadora de cassettes habían
“estos mortíferos y aburridos comerciales: No me importa que salgan del cuarto hecho del control remoto una necesidad. Acostumbrada a dirigir sus contenidos a
durante el comercial, ¡pero espero que ustedes estén en sus asientos para mis partes audiencias específicas, la industria de la publicidad se alarmó ante el comporta-
del programa!”19 La revista Media and Marketing Decissions apuntó que el hábito de miento de los televidentes, que inauguraron un patrón radicalmente diferente en
evitar los comerciales para ir al baño o ir por una cerveza era practicado por entre su uso de la televisión. Los espectadores, tradicionalmente vendidos por la industria
30 y 40 por ciento de los espectadores.20 En un punto Hitchcock había abogado de los medios como simples estadísticas para los ingresos por publicidad, fueron
por cortes comerciales más largos: “¡son tan cortos que uno debe ser muy ágil para ahora tomando el control eludiendo los comerciales.25
ir a la cocina y de regreso!” Pero una solución práctica ya empezaba a entrar en esce-
na: muy a tono con la creciente sociedad televisada, Swanson and Sons anunció 22
Shapiro, L., Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America(New York: Penguin Books,
su primera TV Dinner en 1954.21 La historia cuenta que el ejecutivo Gerald Thomas 2004). Ver también Mingo, J., “How TV diners became tray chic”, en How the Cadillac got its fins and other
no sabía qué hacer con un sobrante de 270 toneladas de pavo para Día de tales from the annals of business and marketing (New York: Harper Business, 1994), 197-200; Shwarz, F.D,
“The epic of the TV dinner” en American Heritage of Invention and technology, vol. 9 (Spring 1994), 55.
Gracias. Inspirado por las charolas de aluminio utilizadas por las aerolíneas, tomó 23
Una investigación realizada en 2000 por el Colegio de Medicina de Baylor (EUA) mostró que más del
42 por ciento de las cenas comidas en el hogar implicaban ver televisión. “The History of TV Dinners”
acceso el 26 de diciembre, 2010: http://facts.trendstoday.info/food-and-drink/the-history-of-tv-dinners
19 24
Grams, M. Jr. & Wikstrom, P., The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion (Maryland: OTR Publishing, 2001) Sacks, M., “Canned Laughter: A History Recontructed. An Interview with Ben Glenn II, Television Historian
20
Funtas, A. “Commercial Audiences: Measuring What We’re Buying”, en Media and Marketing Decissions and Expert on Canned Laughter”, en The Paris Review Daily (julio 20, 2010), consultado el 26 de diciem-
(enero 1985), 75-6 bre, 2010: www.mcsweneys.net/links/sacks/5sacks.html
21 25
Phipps, R.G., The Swanson Story: When the Chicken Flew the Coop (Omaha: Carol and Caroline Swanson Meehan, E., “Commodity Audience, Actual Audience: The Blindspot Debate”, in Illuminating the Blind Spots:
Foundation, 1977). Essays Honoring DallasW. Smythe, eds. J. Wasko, V. Mosco & M. Pendakur (Norwood: Albex, 1993), 105-16
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 210 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 211
En este punto el hábito de brincarse los comerciales alcanzó niveles de epidemia. remoto: Beavis y Butthead. En su búsqueda obsesiva por videos que no apestaran
El 80 por ciento de los usuarios de televisión lo practicaba. La amenaza de la devas- satirizaban el acto mismo de cambiar de canal. Los críticos la denunciaron como
tación del comercial puso en guardia a la industria publicitaria.26 La prensa del gremio una “Sesame Street (Plaza Sésamo) para psicópatas” pero el programa tuvo éxito
declaraba que “la publicidad como profesión está realmente en crisis”.27 Aterrorizada, en hacer que MTV fuera menos vulnerable al zapping al mantener a los espectadores
la industria empezó a exigir canales a prueba de zapping para diluir el poder de los pegados a la “caja idiota” como se le empezaba a llamar.32 La arena política, siempre
cambiadores compulsivos para evitar su producto.28 Las agencias de anuncios clama- hábil para influir en nuestra percepción de la realidad, siguió la pauta. Un ejemplo
ban por encontrar ángulos nuevos en la investigación para entender de manera rápida claro de esto fue la invasión norteamericana a Panamá en diciembre de 1989, que
la epidemia de cambio de canales.29 Emergieron algunas estrategias para enganchar fue cuidadosamente planeada para transmitirse durante el Gran tazón, un evento de
al público y hacer que se quedara durante todo el corte comercial. Los spots comer- “bajo nivel de zapping”, asegurando de que la guerra fuera consumida sin dema-
ciales se redujeron de 30 segundos a 15 segundos. Esta disminución del tiempo siado escándalo del público.
llevó a un “hot switching” (cambio en caliente) para reducir las interrupciones de los De manera incoherente, la realidad misma se estaba convirtiendo en una zona
programas, que fueron movidas del final del programa a la mitad del mismo. Los temas de zapping. Los cambios de canal de los espectadores también forzaron a la indus-
del comienzo de los programas fueron reducidos o simplemente eliminados. Algunas tria de la televisión para que rediseñara los noticieros para hacerlos un a serie ace-
superestrellas como Michael Jackson y Madonna fueron reclutadas para aparecer lerada de pedazos de información al estilo de MTV. La transmisión de las noticias
entrelazados con algunos anuncios. Los spots se empezaron a disfrazar como pro- se estructuraron de manera parecida a los canales de venta por televisión, con un
gramación regular y apareció la inserción de productos en el programa. video programado detrás de otro en un flujo repetitivo constante. CNN adoptó estra-
Ya no había necesidad de zapping, la cadena de televisión lo hacía por nos- tegias similares al repetir cortes pequeños de infotainment —la combinación de
otros.30 Una edición densa, a la manera de MTV, con entradas fuertes y finales en información y entretenimiento— durante las veinticuatro horas del día, los siete días
suspenso aseguraba que los globos oculares se mantuvieran pegados a la pantalla. de la semana. Así los espectadores no se perderían de nada en su viaje por los
El Short Attention Span Theater (literalmente, el teatro del periodo de atención diferentes canales. Este estilo permitía que la gente fuera por una cerveza al refri-
corto, N. del T.) del Canal Comedy Central, tácitamente animaba a los televidentes gerador en cualquier momento, para obtener una dosis doble de gratificación ins-
a cambiar a otros canales, sabiendo que volverían al programa sin perder el hilo tantánea.33 Y no solo eso. La televisión transformó el espacio público de adentro hacia
de la narrativa.31 El canal MTV describió los nuevos hábitos de los televidentes en afuera: los ejecutivos de las cadenas empezaron a sustituir los dramas por los llama-
una serie animada que estelarizaba a dos vagos que eran adictos a su control dos Reality Shows, la realidad como entretenimiento, y finalmente el espectador como
protagonista, con todo y cerveza. La realidad misma fue víctima del zapping…
26
Kostyra, R., “Zapping—a modest proposal”, en Media and Marketing Decisions (March 1985), 94-5.
27
Stewart, D.W., “Speculations on the future of advertising research”, en Journal of Advertising, vol. 21, Una fuerza alienígena entre nosotros
no.3 (1992), 1-18. Mientras que las redes mediáticas secuestraron la realidad a cambio del entrete-
28
Bellamy, RV. & Walker, J.R., “Zapped into Action. Advertising industry Response to RCD Diffusion”, en nimiento, el juego de la política global fabricaba un factor de miedo a cambio de
Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland (New York/London: The Guilford Press, la realidad. El 21 de septiembre de 1987, en un discurso ante la Asamblea General
1996), 49-69;
29
Advertising Age (30 de julio, 1984).
30 32
Gleck, J., “Prest-O! Change-O!”, en Living in the Information Age (2005), 147; “Advertisers Are Getting Gleick, J., “Prest-O! Change-O!”, en Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader, E.P. Bucy
Worried”, en Rolling Stone (20 de febrero, 1985); Ferguson D.A., “Channel Repertoire in the Presence of (Florence: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004), 147. Ver también, Young, C.M., “Meet Beavis! The Last Word
Remote Control Devices, VCRs, and Cable Television”, en Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media From America’s Phenomenal Pop Combo” en Rolling Stone (24 de marzo, 1994). La serie fue creada por
(invierno de 1992). Mike Judge para el canal MTV y fue transmitida de 1993 a 1997.
31 33
Eastman, S. T. & Neal-Lunsford, J., “The RCD’s Impact on Television Programming and Promotion”, en Eastman, S. T. & Neal-Lunsford, J., “The RCD’s Impact on Television Programming and Promotion”, en
The Remote Control in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport: Praeger, The Remote Control in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport: Praeger, 1993):
1993): 189-209. 189-209.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 212 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 213
de las Naciones Unidas, el actor de Hollywood transformado en presidente, Ronald a los secuestrados que fueron aventados adentro de los OVNIs, con la intimidad de
Reagan, sugirió la posibilidad de una amenaza extraterrestre para el planeta Tierra: sus cuerpos violada. Los ETs, obsesionados con el aparato reproductor humano, tenían
“Tal vez necesitamos alguna amenaza universal externa. Nuestras diferencias globa- sus manos llenas cultivando óvulos y esperma para crear una raza híbrida en el
les se esfumarían si estuviéramos enfrentando una amenaza alienígena fuera de este espacio.37 En mayo de 1987, un par de meses antes del infame discurso de Reagan
mundo. Y aún así, les pregunto: ¿no tenemos ya, ahora, una fuerza alienígena entre ante las Naciones Unidas, el recuento alienígena titulado Communion (Comunión)
nosotros?” El había usado la misma analogía en 1985 como un razonamiento para escrito por una víctima de abducción, el escritor Whitley Strieber alcanzó el número
que los gobiernos hicieran a un lado sus diferencias en la cumbre de Ginebra con uno en la lista de libros más vendidos del New York Times.38 La portada del libro
Mikhail Gorbachev, el presidente soviético. Sin embargo la aspiración de Gorbachev con la imagen de un alienígena gris con ojos de insecto repentinamente se catapultó
era salir de la partida de póker nuclear, que ya tenía 1.5 millones de fichas tamaño al mainstream. “Las víctimas de secuestro alienígena evocan una nostalgia por un
Hiroshima en la mesa de juego. Cuando sugirió una movilización sin precedente futuro que parecemos haber abandonado,” escribe Jodi Dean, “como el lado oscuro
para liquidar todos los arsenales nucleares en el mundo Reagan contrapuso seca- del espacio oficial, como el retorno de las dimensiones reprimidas del heroísmo de
mente con su Iniciativa de Estrategia de Defensa (SDI). La iniciativa Star Wars, los astronautas. Ellas apuntan al cambio del espacio exterior al ciberespacio, y la crisis
como fue bautizada en los medios, se publicitó como un “escudo de defensa pla- generalizada de la verdad, mientras empezamos a lidiar con las realidades virtuales
netario” en contra de los misiles balísticos soviéticos. Pero muchos de los investi- de la era de la información.” Las narrativas de las víctimas de secuestro alienígena
gadores del fenómeno OVNI defendían otras hipótesis. De hecho Star Wars era solo parecían reflejar la alienación sentida hacia una realidad crecientemente compleja
una operación de encubrimiento para la verdadera misión: destruir naves estelares e incierta, una realidad de una tecnocultura que toma el control del mundo. “Ellas
en el cielo para hacer ingeniería en reversa de su tecnología desconocida.34 son los testigos de la falta de control, la inseguridad y la violación, de la falta de
Los aplastantes gastos militares habían logrado postrar a la súper potencia sovié- respuesta de aquellos que supuestamente protegen y se preocupan.”39
tica, desmoronado su poder y dejándola al borde de la bancarrota. De un modo similar, El psiquiatra de Harvard John E. Mack, que junto con el físico David E. Pritchard
la militarización de la economía norteamericana, que casi se duplicó durante la dirigió la Conferencia del estudio de la abducción en 1992 en MIT40, observó que
administración de Reagan, había dejado a los Estados Unidos con “ciudades en la epistemología restrictiva de un paradigma científico prevaleciente quizás no era
ruinas, puentes rotos, escuelas fallidas, pobreza arraigada, expectativa de vida adecuado ni completo para dar cuenta de lo que estaba sucediendo. En el centro
declinante y un estado de seguridad nacional amenazante y hermético que tenía del fenómeno de la abducción, los que la habían experimentado estaban tratando de
como rehén al mundo entero”.35 Un rasgo sintomático de este contexto fue el pro- sobrellevar un “shock ontológico”41 que cambiaba fundamentalmente la “realidad
ceso decreciente del programa espacial norteamericano: la flota de transbordado- del consenso” de una concepción científica occidental del mundo. A un tiempo trau-
res espaciales de la NASA permaneció inutilizada en las postrimerías del desastre máticas y transformativas, las víctimas elaboraban una narrativa de ecología radi-
del Challenger, de 1986. Repentinamente, en vez de explorar el espacio exterior, cal conectada al destino de la Tierra, que había sido destruida por el racionalismo
el espacio exterior estaba colonizándonos a nosotros.36 El E.T. de Spielberg (ET: The material y la avaricia. En una entrevista después de la conferencia Mack clama-
Extraterrestrial, 1982) ya se había acurrucado cómodamente en los suburbios nor- ba por una “política de la ontología”42 para lograr un viraje en la concepción del
teamericanos, revisando el refrigerador, emborrachándose mientras cambiaba los
37
Hopkins, B., Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987).
canales de la TV buscando películas de OVNIs. Mientras tanto las olas de secuestros 38
Strieber, W., Comunion, A True Story (New York: William Morrow, 1987).
alienígenas invadieron las recámaras norteamericanas. Los medios ahora retrataban 39
Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace. (Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press, 1998), 100-3, 122-3.
34 40
Corso, P.J., The day after Roswell (New York: Pocket Books, 1997). Ver también, www.drboylan.com/ See Pritchard, A, et al., Alien discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference (Cambridge:
así como www.disclosureproject.org/ Cambridge University Press, 1994).
35 41
Rhodes, R, Arsenals of Folly. The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Random House, 2007), 308. Mack, J.E., Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 12,52
36 42
Penley, C., Close Encounters: Film, Feminism and Science Fiction (Minneapolis/Oxford: University of “Post-conference Interview with John E. Mack, M.D.” en Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien
Miinnesota Press, 1991). Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at MIT, C.D.B. Bryan (New York: Knopf, 1995), 254-78.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 214 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 215
mundo que pueda expandir nuestra comprensión de la realidad—o más bien de En el transcurso de los noventas la aldea global se vendió barata a una socie-
las realidades, en plural. Una exploración de las posibilidades de las posibilidades dad de medios corporativa. Algunos jugadores mundiales como Rupert Murdoch,
de la conciencia humana debería reconectar con “cuestiones profundas acer- dueño de News Corporation y 20th Century Fox, se tragaban miles de casas de
ca de cómo experimentamos el mundo a nuestro alrededor y cómo, en nuestra publicación y estaciones de radio. Con su nueva capacidad de vender audiencias
sociedad decidimos qué es real”.43 Las narrativas de redención ecológica que globales a sus anunciantes estos empresarios, acentuaron el espectáculo político
contaron estas víctimas parecen estar a años luz de la intención de Ronald Reagan para perpetuar su avaricia económica, alteraron la percepción histórica del público
con Star Wars. La realidad en sí estaba ahora en pugna y con ella un planeta y manipularon la realidad. La guerra se transformó en un montaje, un reality show
en peligro. amañado, cuando en enero de 1991 el bombardeo de Bagdad llegó a CNN en vivo.
Los efectos especiales no eran ya el monopolio de Hollywood. Lo real se transformó
Los años noventa: Políticas de la patata en el sillón en una parodia de mal gusto de un video juego, mientras los misiles inteligentes
Geller and Williams concluyeron que para los noventa había más hogares estadou- zumbaban hacia sus blancos. Los anuncios de “únete a la marina” se cancelaron,
nidenses con televisión que los que había con refrigerador.44 Por lo tanto debió ya que las noticias mismas eran un comercial de 24 horas de duración para las
haber algunas personas que no pudieron ir por una cerveza al refrigerador durante fuerzas armadas. La “guerra quirúrgica” casi parecía haber sido pre-empaquetada
los comerciales. Pero no había ya ninguna necesidad urgente de “zapping físico”, por los noticieros como una mercancía que se promocionaba con la tecnología de
es decir manual, ya que para entonces el control remoto se incluía normalmente los misiles inteligentes. El espectáculo reemplazó la distancia crítica y oscureció la
con todo aparato de televisión. Los controles remotos se volvieron tan omnipresentes realidad de la guerra que se gestaba en el Golfo. De repente la industria de las noti-
que los hogares confundían su control de video por el del aparato del sonido y vice- cias se había transformado en un centro comercial surrealista al servicio de un
versa. La utilidad se volvió inmanejable, la falta de algunas guías de interfase acepta- mundo corporativo que beneficiaba a una industria bélica global: aparte del punto
das por todos garantizaba que los botones se seguirían reproduciendo. La anarquía privilegiado para entender la realidad que afirmaba tener la televisión, lo que los
del control remoto era omnipresente.45 La publicación TV-Guide notó que el control medios estaban vendiendo era la historia misma. Pronto la realidad sería confun-
remoto había entrado a la política de la couch potato46 como “el invento usado más dida con un anuncio comercial.
ávidamente y el más disputado en la cabaña electrónica.”47 Howard Markman, Para 1993, CNN en vivo era una opción para el zapping en 200 países, su pro-
cabeza del Centro para los estudios Maritales de la Universidad de Denver, identi- grama más visto, el show de Larry King en vivo se transmitía alrededor del mundo,
ficó el channel surfing (deslizarse por los canales) como uno de los dos asuntos invitando a presidentes y víctimas de secuestro alienígena por igual. Un episodio
maritales de los noventa, siendo el otro la falta de tiempo en común”.48 tuvo como invitado al investigador en abducción extraterrestre, David Jacobs, junto
con Whitley Strieber, autor de Communion, para discutir el fenómeno. “¿Por qué
no vienen aquí ahora mismo? ¡Dios mío, qué jaleo sería eso!” espetó Larry King.49
43
Mack J. E., Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (New York: Crown Mientras que sus ratings se desplomaban después de la guerra del Golfo el pre-
Publishers, 1999), 46-50. sidente George Bush Sr. se preparaba para su campaña contra Bill Clinton y por
44
Geller, M. & Williams, R. (eds.), From Receiver to Remote Control: The TV Set (New York: The New Museum ello decidió aparecer en Larry King. Para entonces la confianza del público en los
of Contemporary Art, 1990), 7.
45
poderes al mando había decrecido drásticamente. Al parecer ahora era más
“Jakob Nielsen Alertbox, June 7, 2004: Remote Control Anarchy” consultado el 3 de enero de 2011:
www.useit.com/alertbox/20040607.html gente creía en la existencia de extraterrestres que la que tenía fe en el presidente:
46
En español, literalmente, “patata en el sillón”. Así se le llaman los estadounidenses a la gente que hara- una encuesta Gallup temprana, de 1990, realizada por el Center for UFO Studies
ganea excesivamente frente a la TV, (N. del T.) Journal encontró que los creyentes en alienígenas eran más que los votantes que
47
Arrington, C., “The zapper: All about the remote control”, en TV-Guide (15 de agosto, 1992), 8-13.
48
Valeriano, L.L., “Channel Surfers Beware: There’s a Channel-Surfer Zapper Afoot” en The Wall Street Journal
(24 de noviembre, 1993): 8; “How Americans Watch TV: A Nation of Gazers”, en Channels Magazine
49
(New York: C.C. Publishing, 1989). Ver: http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 216 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 217
dieron al poder a Reagan, Bush Sr. y Clinton.50 Repentinamente la política parecía
haber sido tomada por los alienígenas, como sugería la historia principal del tabloi-
de Weekly Workd News del 7 de junio, 1994: “¡Los senadores de los Estados
Unidos son alienígenas!”51 Un mes después la película Día de la independencia
mostró como la Casa Blanca explotaba en pedazos.52
50
Cousineau, P., UFOs: A Manual for the Millenium (New York: Harper-Collins West, 1995). En Aliens in
America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace, Jodi Dean hace una referencia a una dis-
cusión de 1994 acerca de la desilusión norteamericana: “La gente habla como si nuestro sistema político
hubiera sido tomado por seres alienígenas.” Ver “Antipolitics’ 94”, en The New York Times Magazine (16
de octubre de 1994), 37.
51
Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Ithaca/London: Cornell
University Press, 1998), 156-7.
52
El episodio de Los Simpsons, Radio Bart escenifica una transmisión a los locales de Springfield donde
Bart se hace pasar por un líder de una invasión marciana que se ha comido al presidente de la nación.
En esta sátira obvia a la historia de la versión de Orson Welles de La guerra de los mundos, el padre de
Bart entra en un ataque de pánico (Matt Groening and James L. Brooks.)
53
The X-Files, (Los expedientes secretos X): una serie de ciencia ficción que se transmitía en la cadena
FOX del 10 de septiembre de 1993 al 19 de mayo de 2002.
54
“Is the Government Hiding Facts On UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life?; New Roper Poll Reveals that More
than Two-Thirds of Americans Think So”, en la revista Business Wire, accedido el 8 de agosto de 2010:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mimoEIN/is_2002_OCT_15/ai_92843602/
55
Hopkins, B., “The Roper Poll on Unusual Personal Experiences”, en Pritchard et al., Alien Discussions:
Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference Held at MIT Cambridge, Ma., A. Pritchard et al. (Cambridge:
North Cambridge Press, 1995), 215-16.
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 220 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 221
distópica.64 El episodio le gustó mucho a la verdadera NASA y mandó una copia en comandante retirado de la Fuerza Aérea Táctica de Francia y consejero militar del
DVD a la Estación espacial internacional, donde los astronautas ahora disfrutan de Primer Ministro Mitterand, y Andre Lebeau, antes director del National Center for
las calamidades de Homero.65 Space Studies (el equivalente francés de la NASA) publicaron el Reporte COMETA.
Homero Simpson no era la única calamidad que cambiaba de canal a alta En él, ellos criticaban a los Estados Unidos por su política de desinformación y por la
velocidad. En 1997 la lucha por el control remoto empezó a volverse catastrófica. regulación militar que prohibía la difusión pública de los avistamientos de OVNIs.
En la parte rural de Illinois una estudiante destacada de trece años apuñaló con En mayo de 2001, el Disclosure Project, con el fin de persuadir al congreso norte-
un cuchillo de carnicero al padre de su padrastro cuando éste cambió de canal americano para que revelara el encubrimiento de los hallazgos extraterrestres,
para ver el partido entre las Aguilas de Philadelphia y los Vaqueros de Dallas. Ella convocó a una conferencia de testigos en el National Press Club de Washington DC,.
quería ver el noticiero. Un niño de siete años que veía RoboCop (1987) mató a tiros a
la muchacha de la limpieza cuando cambió el canal para ver Young Love, Sweet Love. 2001: Lo desconocido desconocido69
En noviembre un oficial de policía en reserva de Detroit mató a tiros a un paciente Entonces ET regresó con una nueva cara. En esa terrible noche del 11 de septiembre
deficiente mental de veintiún años al creer que éste le apuntaba con un arma. Era de 2001, la imaginación de Hollywood regresó a embrujar el inconsciente político de
el control remoto de la videograbadora.66 Pero 1997 también fue un año ocupado los Estados Unidos: los síntomas (platillos voladores saliendo de ningún lugar) se
para los expertos en extraterrestres: Roswell, Nuevo México, celebró el 50 Aniversario encontraban con la realidad (el oscuro revés de las políticas globales reprimidas
de la Ufología, para marcar el infame accidente de un platillo volador en julio de se vengaba del centro simbólico de su poder económico).70 Pero esta vez no hubo
1947 cerca de ahí. Ya el 13 de marzo, antes en ese año, las llamados Phoenix Lights una redención al estilo hollywoodense. Cambiar de canal se volvió inútil ya que
(las luces de Phoenix) fueron avistadas extensivamente sobre Arizona y Nevada todos los canales estaban mandando una y otra vez exactamente las mismas imá-
por miles de personas. El ex-gobernador de Arizona, Fife Symington III, después de genes de los “infiernos en la torre” que se desplomaban. Los media ya no tenían
negarlo públicamente, finalmente confirmó que él también había visto una “nave que seguir a la realidad, más bien la realidad tenía que seguir a los media.
de origen desconocido”.67 Mientras tanto, el éxito rotundo de Men in Black (Los Justo después de los ataques, el alienígena se transformó en el “terrorista árabe”,
hombres de negro), estrenada en julio, mostró una ciudad de Nueva York habitada mientras que la política tejió una red de mentiras para vender la guerra en nombre
por hordas de residentes alienígenas. Y en el mismo mes, cuando el personaje de la democracia. Hollywood, por otra parte, se sintió implicado en los actos del
de Jodie Foster descifra una señal del espacio exterior en la película Contact,68 el 9/11. “A los pocos días los estudios estaban cambiando de títulos, recortando
locutor de CNN Larry King hace una aparición como nada más y nada menos que y cancelando películas.”71 Un hecho simbólico de este cambio drástico: convo-
el locutor de CNN Larry King. cados por el Ejército de los Estados Unidos en octubre del 2002, los expertos en
Mientras terminaba el siglo XX la gente del ejército y las comunidades de inte-
ligencia y los científicos salieron al frente para exponer el secreto de los OVNIs. En 69
Alusión al Ex-Secretario de Defensa de los Estados Unidos, Donald Rumsfeld quien en un reporte del
1999 un comité de expertos franceses, incluyendo al General Bernard Norlain, un 12 de febrero de 2002 en los cuarteles de la OTAN en Bruselas: “...hay lo conocido conocido; hay cosas
que sabemos que sabemos. También hay cosas que son conocidas desconocidas, es decir que hay algu-
nas cosas que sabemos que no conocemos. Pero también existe lo desconocido desconocido, aquello que
64
En realidad Springfield puede encontrarse en treinta y cuatro estados de la Unión Americana, de tal no sabemos que desconocemos.” Ver: www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2636
manera que sugiere una reflexión de una sociedad común como la conocemos. Ver Brown, A.S. & Logan, (acceso el 5 de enero de 2011).
70
C. (eds.), The Psychology of The Simpsons: D’oh! (Dallas, BenBella Books, 2006). Esto es paradójico dado que el número de víctimas del 9/11—trágicas como son—totalmente oscurece
65
D. Mirkin,en The Simpsons, temporada 5: comentario en DVD al episodio Deep Space Homer, 20th el número mucho mayor de muertes en Irak desde la invasión, no digamos ya del número total de víctimas
Century Fox, 2004. See also, Turner, C., Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era de la injerencia directa e indirecta de los Estados Unidos en la caída de 50 regímenes, así como el ataque de
and Defined a Generation (New York: Random House, 2004). 30 países desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ver Kealy, S., “Maneuvering in the Shadows of Absolute War”,
66
The Village Voice, 1997, www.villagevoice.com en Signals of the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War (Toronto: Justina M. Barnicke Gallery & Blackwood
67
Kitei, L., The Phoenix Lights...We Are Not Alone (84min, color, 2008), basada en el libro del mismo nombre. Gallery, 2008), 61.
68 71
Zemekis, R., Contact (150min/color, 1997), adaptada de la novela de Carl Sagan del mismo nombre. Hoberman, J., “The New Disaster Movie”, en The Village Voice (17-23 May, 2006), 62-4
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 222 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 223
inteligencia del gobierno se reunieron con los más importantes cineastas y escri- 9/11, la fiebre porcina, el derrame de BP en el Golfo y la crisis económica compo-
tores de Hollywood en el Institute for Creative Technologies de la Universidad del nen nuestro nuevo sublime contemporáneo. El debate político se había reducido
Sur de California. Su misión: imaginar posibles escenarios terroristas. Finalmente, hasta ser una simple administración del miedo. No más consumidores felices e
la historia de “La guerra de los mundos” cerraba todo el ciclo. La nueva película inocentes de una era de la televisión desaparecida, ahora éramos consumidores
de desastre estaba re-imaginando los eventos del 9/11. “La guerra de los mundos” ávidos de miedo75 y los protagonistas de una creciente ubicuidad de los sistemas
(2005) de Steven Spielberg, deliberadamente evocaba el trauma colectivo. de supervisión.
Lo virtual fue sobrepasado al remplazar nuestra “realidad del consenso” con una
You Tube Me and I Tube You realidad de la plusvalía. El mundo y la vida en él ya estaba siendo modificada genéti-
Poco más de un año después de que el primer video se haya subido al sitio camente y retocada por medio del Photoshop. Las corporaciones abducían nuestra
YouTube en abril de 2005, el número de videos subidos a la red estaba creciendo esencia misma. El DNA, los bloques de construcción de la vida, se estaban convir-
a un ritmo de 65,000 videos por día.72 Facebook, cuyos aproximadamente 500 tiendo en su propiedad, patentadas y privatizadas con fines de lucro. En su variante
millones de miembros equivalían a 7.6 por ciento de la raza humana, se convirtió transgénica la comida se hizo alienígena.76 De lo que digeríamos a lo que ingeríamos,
en el emblema en línea de la sociedad virtual en la aurora del siglo XXI. Más de Big Pharma, (como se le llama ahora a la industria farmacéutica) invadió la intimidad
tres billones de teléfonos móviles—uno por cada dos personas en el planeta—pre- de nuestros cuerpos con el interés de propagar la epidemia de fiebre porcina; los
sagiaba la convergencia de los media en un solo aparato portátil.73 Con este nuevo sistemas inmunes ofrecían la promesa de un mercado multimillonario. De los virus
control remoto ya estábamos perpetuamente en línea, conectados y cumpliendo biológicos a los digitales, los anunciantes investigaban la posibilidad de “digimercia-
tareas múltiples, viviendo en un mundo que padece del Desorden de Déficit de les”, por medio de los cuales los virus diseminarían logos en el entorno electrónico.77
Atención y no duerme. El individuo, firmemente ubicado en el centro de la red, ¿Hasta dónde nos va a llevar esto? Veamos un ejemplo: a sus 24 años Matthew Nagle,
podía ahora “tocar”, “pellizcar” y “deslizar” los touchpads, navegando y brincando un cuadripléjico paralizado permanentemente del cuello hacia abajo, se sometió a la
a través de su hora estelar personalizada con la vida de otras personas. Si el lan- inserción de un chip de silicón de 4mm. de ancho en la zona de su cerebro que
zamiento de MTV en 1981 cantaba Video Killed the Radio Star,74 entonces los You coordinaba la actividad motora. Usando solo el poder de su mente, Nagle aprendió
Tubes y Facebooks estaban transformando quién o qué era la “estrella de video”. en un día una serie de habilidades computacionales totalmente nuevas, tales como
Plenamente instalados dentro de la lógica del consumismo, estos sitios en red pro- cambiar los canales de su TV, ajustar el volumen, mover un cursor de una compu-
movían la idea del contenido generado por el usuario, para después tragárselo tadora, jugar un video juego e incluso leer su correo electrónico.78 Añada unas nuevas
para sí mismos bajo una ley de derecho de autor obsoleta. Atrapada dentro de conexiones corticales con un DNA recombinante a un nivel nanométrico y en lugar
unas bases de datos privadas, la realidad ahora se definía por medio de máquinas de confundir la realidad con un corte comercial la vida será literalmente un anuncio,
de búsqueda y tags, conectividad y tiempos de descarga. la mercancía por excelencia. En su novela Nymphomation, Jeff Noon habla de unas
Navegar la red redefinió y magnificó nuestra adicción al cambio de canales. moscas genéticamente modificadas para transmitir eslóganes comerciales en su
La ubicuidad de la tecnología del botón permitía un click contínuo y un pop-up vuelo.79 Cuando esto suceda, cambiar de canal será inútil.
incesante. En un estado de distracción perpetua, esta ilusión de abundancia por
la tecno-magia escondía la fea cara de la info-dystopia. Las imágenes de Abu Graib, 75
Klein, N., The Shock Doctrine (New York: Knopf, 2007).
76
Smith, J.M., Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the
Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating (Darington: Green Books, 2003).
72 77
Lovink, G. & Niederer, S. (eds.), Video Vortex Reader, Responses to You Tube (Amsterdam: Institute of Schrage, M., et al., “Is Advertising Really Dead? Part II: Advertisers, digimercials, and memgraphics: The
Network Cultures, 2008), 34 future of advertising is the future of media,” en Wired (febrero de 1994), 71-4.
73 78
Jenkins, H., Convergence Culture (New York: Routledge, 2006). El chip, llamado el “BrainGate”, fue inventado por John Donoghue, un neuro-científico de la Universidad
74
MTV fue lanzado el 1 de agosto de 1981 con el video clip “Video Killed The Radio Star” de la agrupación de Brown. Ver Kaiku, M., Physics of the Impossible (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 95-6.
79
The Buggles. Noon, J., Nymphomation (London: Corgi Books, 1997).
SITAC IX | Teoría y práctica de la catástrofe 224 DÍA 3 | La imaginación estética frente al caos 225
¿Encuentro cercano?
La condición contemporánea de lo que significa ser humano trae a colación la rele-
vancia de la política y la realidad. Una realidad que se ha colapsado bajo el peso
de una sobrecarga de información y de engaño en masa. La paranoia de repente
parece el único estado razonable de ser, donde es más fácil pensar en el fin del
mundo que imaginar alternativas políticas viables. J. Allen Hynek—la persona que
acuñó la frase “encuentros cercanos”—ha señalado que desde la perspectiva del
siglo XIII, nuestra sabiduría del universo puede aparecer muy diferente: “Sufrimos,
quizá, de un provincialismo temporal, una forma de arrogancia que siempre ha irri-
tado a la posteridad.”80 La pregunta entonces no debería ser ”¿Hay vida inteligente
allá afuera?” sino “¿Hay vida inteligente en la Tierra?” Después de todo, ¿no será
que nosotros mismos somos los alienígenas?
Enero 2011
Este ensayo está basado en un texto publicado originalmente como Grimonprez, J., “Remote Control. On
Zapping, Close Encounters and the Commercial Break”, en la publicación digital Are You Ready for TV?,
disponible en www.macba.cat/uploads/TWM/TV_grimonprez_cat.pdf
80
Hynek, J.A., The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry (Chicago: Henry Regenery, 1972).
SITAC IX
¿Cómo producir nuevos agenciamientos de singularización que trabajen
por una sensibilidad estética, por la transformación de la vida en un plano más
cotidiano y, al mismo tiempo, por las transformaciones sociales a nivel
de los grandes conjuntos económicos y sociales? 1
1
Suely Rolnik y Félix Guattari. Micropolítica. Cartografía del deseo. Traficantes de sueños, serie mapas.
Madrid, 2006. P. 35
1 3
Jean-François Lyotard, Economía libidinal, Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, p. 9. Véase, Baudrillard, Jean, “El cuerpo o el osario de signos”, en El intercambio simbólico y la muerte,
2
Jean-François Lyotard, Ibid., p. 11. Caracas, Monte Avila, 1993.
GONZALO SOLTERO
Sede: SOMA
2. Lo mismo sucede con las representaciones de la ficción, así sea una obra de
Shakespeare, una serie de televisión o una telenovela: para involucrarnos con los
personajes y su historia necesitamos que les vaya mal. Aristóteles resaltaba en su
Poética que la tragedia funciona cuando logra mostrarnos la desgracia de gente
como nosotros. Denis de Rougemont dictaminó que el amor afortunado no tiene
historia: Romeo y Julieta tomándose la mano al principio de la obra, sin obstáculos
por delante, cancelan por completo la posibilidad de la obra. Cuando el futuro forma
parte de la trama tiende a ser distópico, apocalíptico o inexistente, como lo muestran
las mejores obras de anticipación. Resulta evidente en los escenarios literarios plan-
teados por Huxley, Orwell, Zamiatin o McCarthy. En el cine es casi un requisito para
cualquier cinta de ciencia ficción, como Cuando el futuro nos alcance, Terminator,
Matrix, Wall-e y un cada vez más largo etcétera.
3. Tal vez el mejor ejemplo sobre cómo recurrimos a la narrativa para explicar la rea-
lidad sea la catástrofe misma. A la sombra de la debacle surge un caudal de
historias generalmente contradictorias. Pongamos como ejemplo la epidemia de in-
fluenza A(H1N1) que cimbró principalmente a México en 2009. Durante el acmé
4. Es posible que nuestra fijación por el conflicto en recuentos fácticos y ficticios tenga
bases biológicas: en nuestro largo pasado evolutivo entender el conflicto y sus causas
ha tenido un impacto considerable para nuestra supervivencia. Evitar la muerte y
buscar reproducirnos son las pulsiones humanas más fuertes. De ellas depende el
imperativo vital de mantener nuestros propios genes en el mundo tanto como sea
posible. En La Biblia el tránsito humano sobre la Tierra comienza en el Jardín del
Edén y termina con el Apocalipsis, lo que resulta significativo para mostrar nuestra
tendencia por idealizar el pasado y temer al futuro; imaginarlo feo. Esta tendencia
puede ser un recordatorio de lo evidente, la catástrofe individual y colectiva que
nos aguarda, el mismo conflicto primordial que inspiró al Gilgamesh, la narrativa
más antigua que conservamos: al final, todos vamos a morir.
Participantes
María Amaro, Eusebio Bañuelos, Carmen Cebreros, José Luis Contreras, Cecilia Delgado, Beatriz Ezban,
Edgardo Gambo Partida, Julio García Murillo, Fabiola Iza, Dafne Jiménez, Alejandra Labastida, Dany Lieja,
Angélica Martínez, Víctor Martínez Díaz, Gabriel Mestre, Gibrán Morales Carranza, Begoña Morales, Evelyn
Moreno, Agustín Peña, Carmen Razo, Naomi Rincon Gallardo, Rodrigo Sastre, Miguel Rodríguez Sepúlveda,
Violeta Solís Horcasitas, Nahum Torres Rivera, Edgar Yepez.
Participantes
Georgina Arias, Maurcio Badillo, Elizabeth Casasola, Alonso Cedillo Mata, Gilberto Esparza, Mauricio Esquivel,
Carmen Flores, Juan Cristobal García Garrido, David Gutérrez Castañeda, Emireth Herrera, Alejandra
López-Yasky, Israel Meneses Vélez, Benedeta Monteverde, Joana Moreno, Jazael Ogluin, Eduardo Ortiz
Ramírez, Marcelo Rangel Velenzuela, Alejandro Rinón Gutiérrez, Diego Teo, Daniele Zoli.
DAY 1. A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 258 DAY 2. Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 318
Accident School. “Please push: door opens inward” 260 Critical Events 320
JUAN VILLORO MANUEL DELANDA
Under Discussion (2005) 277 Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (2004) 326
JENNIFER ALLORA & GUILLERMO CALZADILLA CYPRIEN GAILLARD
Disaster Response by Any Means, Methods, Materials Necessary 278 Superflex & Patrick Charpenel – Conversation 327
CONVERSATION MEL CHIN AND CHRISTIAN VIVEROS-FAUNÉ
Finales 334
A Map is not the Territory (2011) 288 PABLO VARGAS LUGO
JOSÉ JIMÉNEZ ORTIZ
Panel 2
Panel 1 SARINA BASTA, DR. AMY SARA CARROL & RICARDO DOMINGUEZ AND PAULA SIBILIA
ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS MODERATOR: TOM VANDERBILT
(HELENA PRODUCCIONES), GEORGE OSODI AND RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES
Oceanomania. Managing the Unknown, from Wonder to Depletion 342
Catastrophe, Protectionism and Exploitation SARINA BASTA
Or, these same words but in another order 290
HELENA PRODUCCIONES (ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, Dislocative Media, A Ghost Story (or how to rub two stones together in the name
CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS) of trans_bodies to be/come) 346
DR. AMY SARA CARROLL & RICARDO DOMÍNGUEZ
308
GEORGE OSODI Dreams of Corporal Reprogramming (To technically subdue the catastrophe…
to instigate it, perhaps?) 363
Earthquake 85. Art, Architecture and Disaster 312 PAULA SIBILIA
RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES
DAY 3. Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 378 Clinics SITAC IX 438
Panel 2 Clinic 1
Corporality and catastrophe 442
JULIETA GONZÁLEZ, JOSÉ ROCA, ITALA SCHMELZ AND FELIPE EHRENBERG
FABIÁN GIMÉNEZ GATTO
MODERATOR: EDUARDO ABAROA
Thank you all for being here, and welcome to the Ninth International The title we have chosen for this symposium is Theory and Practice of Catastrophe. The
Symposium on Contemporary Art Theory [SITAC]. I’d like to thank the Board phrase itself is our starting point. I found it quite ironic to think about delineating
of Conemporary Art—Patronato de Arte Contemporaneo A.C. a theory of ‘catastrophe’. But, as we’ll soon learn, there is most certainly such a
(PAC for its acronym in Spanish), its board of directors and its SITAC committee theory, and as a mater of fact it’s very important. But it hardly makes sense for
members: Patricia Sloane, Osvaldo Sánchez, Mariana Munguía, Ery Cámara, someone to conscientiously propose a practice of catastrophe, and if it does make
Sol Henaro and Aimée Servitje, for their vital work in enriching the dialogue any sense then it’s only under the guise of irony, the absurd or the profoundly
about contemporary art. I’m very thankful for having been given destructive. And yet, with a second moment of reflexion about the world and our
this fantastic opportunity to collaborate with all of on such an important current situation, I found this title appropriate.
event for the cultural life of Mexico City. I extend my admiration and give By the end of 2010—which was so full of every type of disaster—this issue
a strong thanks to all of the artists, writers, philosophers and curators gained relevance, especially in places like Mexico, which now finds itself immersed
who through their work and talent gave life to this edition of the Symposium, in an array of serious problems whose solutions seem increasingly further from our
and its complementary clinics program, which Sol Henaro so brilliantly reach. It’s from this point, and in an unorthodox, almost affective way, that I want to
put together. I also want to mention the great work of María Bostock and of the generate a discussion that, given the magnificent participants at this event, I know
team at SITAC who worked extensively to coordinate and give shape to this event. will be fruitful. First, it’s necessary to outline the material we’re working with. A catas-
The years-long effort of many extraordinary people is going to crystallize trophe, broadly speaking, implies change. It implies a crisis or disaster after which
in these next three days. I’m compelled to express my recognition and gratitude nothing will be the same, an event of the utmost significance for the life or system
to all of them. Finally, on behalf of SITAC, I want to give a special thanks to the from which it came, precisely because it promises an inevitable and irreversible
far-reaching generosity of the people, companies and institutions that sponsored transformation of this life or system. A great variety of implications spring from that
and facilitated this valuable collaborative effort. simple definition, which will help us combine areas of study that in another context
(outside of the realm of art) should rightly be kept separate. With that in mind, I look
for a plurality of approaches and topics, creating a spiralling dialogue that I’m sure
will accommodate disparate voices and, even, contrasting moods and states of mind.
I don’t think, though, that this will lead to any trouble in treating our topic with the
seriousness it demands.
The purpose of this symposium is to invite philosophers, artists, curators and
writers to discuss the scope of an ancient and elusive word that, in its history since
Aristotle, has denoted a dramatic or tragic element, that is to say, a ‘theatrical element’.
Catastrophes are chiefly imaginary. They have long flooded so many cultures’
Sampler of been able to channel the cultural and material resources of the institutions dedi-
cated to contemporary art towards the recovery of disaster zones, in clear defiance to
usual distancing between high culture and broader sectors of the population. In this
day and age there seems to be an ever increasing will towards action amidst a seemingly
unending list of pending problems. In any case, it remains valid, indispensable
Catastrophic
even, to reflect about the meaning and reach of our strengths as a society and as
a species. It is not possible to consider the role of art as privileged form of knowl-
edge, if its practitioners avoid researching those very episodes of crisis that affect
a growing number of people around the globe.
Events
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Building design has become progressively mild and transparent: it prefigures Airports are still created with links to an old conception of nature, such as
an aerial destiny on earth. In 1930, Tempelhof airport in Berlin was built by the Nazi Santiago Calatrava’s airport in Bilbao. Nonetheless, these are decidedly exotic
government to glorify terrestrial power. It imposingly places in stone what the traveller places. Calatrava’s low, curved ceilings suggest the insides of a whale. After Jonah’s
leaves behind, what is “lost” by taking flight. myth, after Moby Dick and Pinocchio, arriving there leaves us with the feeling of
From 1956 to 1962 Eero Saarinen built another construction that was emblem- being shipwrecked (our only consolation is that our luggage also landed there).
atic of old aeronautics: the TWA terminal in New York. Although the curves on the roof Summary of the world, the modern airport negates the notion of “local colour,”
resemble futurist aircraft fuselage, the interior remits to a primordial past, an immense offering products from globalized franchises, and reducing destinations to letters
grotto, a spectacular version of the maternal uterus. Airborne is the adjective that and numbers. Standardization zones where race is dissolved in codes: when the
Saarinen’s placenta truly merits. boarding call comes, being male, Caucasian and catholic is the same as being an
Appropriately then, the building was described as the Grand Central of aviation. Islamic woman also heading to gate 37-B.
The vaults created not only a terrestrial, but a submarine illusion as well. The risk At times, this citadel that negates difference and individuality is humanized by
of flying was conjured through a cavern, a tunnel, a telluric shield. disaster. A snowstorm, an attack, or a mechanical failure suspends routine. An offense
Saarinen’s imagination was directed to a sedentary species, nostalgic of a lost to the religion of haste appears on screen: DELAYED.
underworld. Aztec culture is also familiar with this idea of belonging: all Prehispanic Putting an airport on the map is as problematic as administering it. In devel-
cosmogonies see the earth as womb and tomb—the alpha and omega of the life oped countries, airplanes usually encounter the opposition of environmentalists;
cycle. Chicomostoc, the place of seven caves, is our mythical origin. It wouldn’t in poor countries they encounter that of people who distrust a modernity that
gave been surprising that in the last century, during the sixties, an architect influ- excludes them.
enced by Félix Candela’s domes would have proposed an airport like Chicomostoc It’s no coincidence that in Mexico, in the past thirty years, the most severe
to climb to the heavens, with seven caverns for take off. conflict surrounding public works had to do with an airport project. The failure of
Saarinen’s terminal received the battering of its time, and in 2001 it was bought former president Vicente Fox to find an alternate venue to the capital’s air traffic in
by American Airlines. By then, a cultural displacement had occurred: terminals are Texcoco or Atenco represented a clash between the needs to a globalized country and
no longer used to comfort earthlings fearful of leaving, but rather to tend to millions a sector of the population for whom the benefits of the twenty first century are alien.
of vocational deserters. Revealingly, it was thought that the TWA terminal merited The Doorway to the Skies was supported by transnational cosmogonies, but didn’t
the museographical destiny of a restaurant and convention centre. Then they pre- take into account vernacular factors, or only took into account the landowners in
ferred to adapt it to contemporary uses, which required vast spaces for travel. The order to expropriate their lands. The nomadic ambition was unfamiliar with sedentary
ensconced walls had to be opened. This singular clam suffered a natural death. demands. In 2001 and 2002 two historical times collided: peasants armed with
Transformations in travel culture have brought symbolic changes causing the machetes stopped the international airport project. Atenco is the place where flow-
abandonment of architecture that presupposed the preeminence of the sedentary ers are cultivated for the different rites of our life cycle—from birth to death. The
to move on to the supremacy of transience: the hangars for people in transit. clock belonging to that market follows paused biographies that every so many years
Paul Andreu, who has built airports in China, Dubai and Jakarta, conceived require roses or gladioli. On the contrary, diverging clocks rule the airport where the
terminal 2-E in Roissy, Paris, as the most elegant hangar: a cyclopean tube covered in common time-zone is jetlag. Two completely opposite conceptions of space and
fine woods. Richard Rogers covered the ceiling of Barajas’ terminal 4 in Madrid time entered in collision. There wasn’t the least precaution taken to synch clocks.
with undulating wings (the waiting room as a ship), and Renzo Piano created a sort Fabrizio Mejía Madrid perfectly summarized the situation in his book, Salida de
of superwarehouse to wait for planes in Kansai, Japan. Old airparks, belonging emergencia (Emergency Exit): “a small dusty town combats the State of global, million-
to a civilization of space, calmed us with their terrestrial metaphors of perma- aire investments for one reason only: to be taken into account. This is San Salvador
nence. Contemporary airports, representatives of a civilization of time, calm us with Atenco’s demand to the authorities who announced the construction of a new airport
metaphors of transience. on television, who where never present to dialogue—not even when the elected
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mayor was removed from office, or when geological measuring machines and con- It is even less anticipated that people will behave as accidents, as during the
struction workers were taken hostage—and who never reacted to their demonstra- “savage strike” in Spain. This event reveals two handicaps in a modern society:
tions with machetes held high. It’s not that they wanted to bring the machetes with that of anticipating a contingency, and that of facing it. The army occupied airports
them, but rather that only the blade of a weapon could create an impact and allow efficiently, but this did not settle the air traffic controller’s problem, a problem created
them to be heard, that is, ‘televised’.” during years of abusive syndicalist policy. Under similar circumstances, Ronald
A large part of the planet cannot conceive life without airports; another part Reagan resorted to massive layoffs. Did Spain have recourse to a different contin-
only becomes visible when they rise in opposition to an airport, that is, when they gency plan? Facing a lack of alternatives, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government
place a local bolt on global expansion. prolonged the state of alarm, transforming the emergency into a norm—human
How necessary is it to take off from the earth’s crust? Most airports are satu- accident was faced by converting crisis into habit.
rated. At the same time, most airlines present losses. How have we arrived to an In what way is it possible to foresee the unexpected and guarantee rescue
economy where overbooking leads to bankruptcy? The society of movement’s illu- options? It is impossible to eradicate the possibility of an accident. Weather, societies
sions feed on jet fuel. Both technological expansion, where means often become ends and machines break down. What is left over are the red numbers—the notion of error.
in themselves, and the travel imperative, have created an intoxication that is hard
to sustain—an economic doping that subsists on overdose. To confront the crisis, Publicity stunt: triumph feeds on failure
one airline fuses with another and an airport bankruptcy is resolved with the creation While air traffic controllers opted for technological blackmail as a pressure tech-
of an alternate airport: the problem is not solved; instead, to diminish its scale the nique, an ad for Sabadell Bank covered the streets of Spain. On it, Pep Guardiola,
framework within which it happens is broadened. trainer for the F.C. Barcelona soccer team affirmed that, “what makes you grow is
During the spring of 2010, the Eyafjallajöjull volcano revealed the lack of rationality defeat, a mistake.” Praise of the fall coming from the only trainer who has con-
of contemporary civil aviation. The ashes floated right at the height at which airplanes quered six titles in one season. An ulterior result—absolute triumph—justified that
fly and winds weren’t blowing enough. This atmospheric alteration had immense effects. eulogy of failure. No doubt there are mistakes of high pedagogical value: they serve
The airplane hiatus revealed that Europe had given up on transportation alter- as warnings to overcome future challenges. At times, an artist corrects a problem
natives that had previously proven effective. Commercial navigation had been sup- in a work in his or her following piece, in the same way that a doctor betters his
pressed and trains no longer sufficed. A world without a Plan B. In this quandary, treatment in his next prescription.
aeronautics experts gave a proof of technological fundamentalism: they asked for Accident does not completely annihilate: to speak of it, there is the need for
more flights, more planes and permission to circulate at different altitudes. By ram- external survivors or witnesses. But it’s not a defect that is easily overcome (such
ifying variables, partial damage is supposed to diminish, but this does not discard as the failure of a soccer team that will have other opportunities). On one side is
another chain reaction of even more dire consequences. The accident demands an life; on the other, death; in the middle is the accident. The failures that lead to that
essential change in order not to present itself again. border are neither invigorating nor publicity stunts.
Virilio has explained that each technology creates its own accident: electricity A pedagogy based on this class of mistakes would lead to radical learning.
produces blackouts. In societies that abandon their previous faculties this causes Accident admits no repetition—it is by nature unique. The lesson it teaches is defin-
serial misfortunes. Lack of electricity at a stationary store in Mexico City means the itive, it questions the chain of causality that lead to that point of no return. This means
end of all activity: employees don’t even know how much an item costs because the end of the process that made it possible. The supersonic Concord flew for 27
prices are on the computer. Before we get to know them, machines generate the years. It was the top technological display of civil aviation. In a way that is typical of
superstition that they work. It is rarely anticipated that they will not. On the other a doped-up economy, it was also bad business until it was in an accident on July 25th,
hand, error correction is delegated to the machines themselves (or to the next gen- 2000. Then, on November 26, 2003 it broke the sound barrier for the last time.
eration models) with the risk that self-regulation might signify further breakdown, On January 16th of that same year, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded as it
as happens with HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. made its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Everyone in the seven-person crew died.
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In the case of the Concorde, its routes were kept up for three years after the Even though the book collects commonplaces, it also sheds new light on cer-
accident. In the case of the Space Shuttle Columbia, its next flight was postponed tain subjects that dominate the news. Taleb created the “black swan” theory to
year after year, until in 2010 the program was cancelled. define events that have three characteristics: they are unexpected, have massive
As opposed to the postman, who always rings twice, accidents do not offer repercussions and generate explanations in hindsight destined to suggest they
second chances. Studying them does not help to face the same thing under different could have been expected. World War I, the attack on the twin towers, or influenza
conditions, but rather to get rid of or modify the mechanism that allowed for them A are examples of “black swans.”
to happen in an extreme way. In this sense, they are a resounding option for self- It is worth thinking further on the third characteristic Taleb mentions: the acci-
criticism. They teach us to be better, if not different. dent gives rise to unfounded calming explanations. In order to not face the appar-
How to enter Accident School? I don’t mean the admittance tests or require- ent lack of meaning that the unexpected brings with it, we accept a diffuse but
ments, but the physical situation: the gateway. Every threshold symbolizes a border incriminatory responsibility: danger was in full view and could have been prevent-
and the way of crossing it anticipates what will be found on the other side. Security ed. Sharing a feeling of guilt helps dealing with the accident as an “oversight” and,
checkpoints inhibit not only weapons transportation but also spontaneous conduct. therefore, as something that would not have happened if we were paying attention.
Conversely, revolving doors suggest a continuum—entries and exits without begin- Most stories that give meaning to disasters in hindsight are warnings for the future:
ning or end. Others yet encourage access even more: they open with an electric eye “we committed a mistake that we must not repeat.” The internal logic of the accident
at the very presence of the newly arrived, generating the feeling that we possess a is rarely recovered. What is decisive, what is sedative is to think that the partial fault
special power to be admitted. has a palliative: when five cyclists break their skulls, law forces us to use helmets.
Doors that open to the outside waken the suspicion of haste. Voracious thresh- This is how social atonement is created (“we learn from our mistakes”) and
olds, they hit your nose in their urgency to be crossed. destiny is granted a statistic difficulty (a helmet corresponds to each cyclist).
The Accident School deserves a solid door, uncomfortable to a certain extent, a Taleb’s sworn enemy is precisely statistics. In his opinion, there is no way to
door that summons will and strength to be pushed and that opens to the inside as an predict or explain events that are distinguishable for not complying with the norm.
example of what is housed within. Many things have broken here. What burned and The tide of opinion polls, flow sequencing, trends and other measuring instruments
plummeted and cracked and was charred has a story to tell. Its mystery is always suggests we dominate our surroundings. Nonetheless, one of the paradoxes of data
an “inside.” Someone was in the midst of that twisted mortar. The accident matters abundance is that it becomes hard to distinguish amongst them. The volume of
because of that. Haloed in dust and detritus, the body suffered an unrepeatable information hinders communication.
circumstance. Accident is the armour of chaos. Seeking what is inside is an act of To avoid the mere study of reiteration, Taleb proposes a fractal approach to
introspection. Accident students are delayed victims. As survivors or witnesses, they Black Swans. Instead of accumulating data of what happens in the same way,
understand that they too could have succumbed. Realizing what they just missed, exceptions must be foreseen. It’s not about guessing the future but about admitting
they discover their loss: they know they are vulnerable. The first impact of a catas- its unexpected condition.
trophe is physical; the second is psychological. What happens as cataclysm comes Notions of error and failure are usually not much studied in the era of technical
back as an examination of one’s conscience. reproduction. Since technology is not keen on finding solutions in a previous era,
Accident School: door opens inward. there is no “classical” reserve that serves as a permanent source of solutions.
On the contrary, art benefits from its previous resources and admits error in its
creative process. Subject to interpretation, the perfect work of art does not exist. “Fail
Accident as aesthetics or “the black swan doesn’t use a safety belt” better,” Samuel Beckett suggests as a way to improve in an always-tentative activity.
The stock markets have become privileged centres for accident contemplation. It’s no Accident has had a fecund artistic career. The history of aesthetics has been
coincidence that one of the most popular texts on the subject came out of them: The that of a shift. If the Pythagorean ideal judged things to be beautiful in themselves
Black Swann, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese expert in erratic money flows. and responding to a natural harmony, in his philosophy of composition, Edgar Allan
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Poe considers beauty to be an attribute of the gaze. The world before art was not not pose for eternity of her own will or that of the photographer but by that of chaos.
beautiful, we discover its beauty through art. The exercise has undergone all kinds If the protagonist of “Un sueño realizado” (“A Dream Come True”) by Juan Carlos
of bragging and whims. Onetti seeks to stage a real death, the woman captured by Metinides’ camera cap-
Once it investigated the possibilities for order, modern art concentrated on tivates with the ambiguity of she who, without knowing, was done up to die.
disorder. In The Golem, Gustav Meyrink writes: “the world exists so we can think it J.M. Servín has called Metinides “the paparazzo of hell.” This expression is
to tatters.” All of the artistic genres of the twentieth century used fragmentation, exact. We face a voyeur of unlikelihood. He does not necessarily like what he sees;
appropriation, trash, crevices, the possibilities of everything that comes into shock he likes to see exceptionally what could remain unseen.
and falls apart—accident—as resource. This grammar of disaster reaches singular moments in a Mustang that sinks in
The gaze adopted new ways of enjoying the unexpected. Lautréamont canonized a lake; the girl who cries next to her dead boyfriend in Chapultepec park; a body
the new beauty as “the chance meeting on a dissecting table of an umbrella and throwing itself into the void from the Latinoamericana Tower; the woman hung in a
a sewing-machine.” park; the Hotel Regis turned into a pile of debris after the 1985 earthquake; a subway
It would be impossible to sum up the ways of accident in art. For now I stop on car cut in half. In all of these cases, the gaze’s opportunity is surprising—unlikeli-
an example that is closer to testimony than to the deliberate search for the aesthetic. hood at the moment it happens. Even though Metinides arrives on the scene after
For over sixty years, photographer Enrique Metinides has created a unique the event, his camera gives it the illusion of the present. His merit is not that of a
registry of the accidents that take place in Mexico. His more than 100,000 images sum (the added gaze of the artist) but rather of a subtraction (by avoiding any ges-
offer a documentary archive of catastrophe. According to an urban legend, when ture alien to the catastrophe, Metinides preserves the instant before it has history
ambulances and fire trucks drive in front of his house, they turn on their sirens to and is normalized by interpretation: we face the unusual that doesn’t stop being
salute their biggest witness. unusual). The “aura” of these images emanates from the accident itself—what
Walter Benjamin warned on the loss of “aura” in the work of art through nonsense that which incoherence communicates by putting reality in doubt.
mechanical reproduction. This became more acute with digital processes and the It is absurd to understand these images exclusively as an aesthetic project.
ubiquitous cell phone cameras. The immense majority of photographs are neutral Even though they are sold in galleries and are the object of critical snobbery, they
testimonies: they lack aura, the invisible presence of the artist who modifies the also belong to the realm of criminology: they are evidences of the gaze.
real by registering it in a subjective way. Enrique Metinides’ photographs combine the gruesomeness of the real with
Since he began photographing at the age of 12, earning the nickname of El impassive testimony: clashes, intersections, accidents of sight.
Niño, Metinides saw disasters in a particular way. His images put into play what
Milan Kundera calls “beauty by mistake,” i.e. elements that are destined to reject Edifying catastrophes
taste but instead generate a strange attraction. And yet, to solely underscore the “All blondes have their points,” wrote Raymond Chandler. He then compiled an inven-
aesthetic of these forensic images is to distort them. tory of all the dangers they provoke. With disaster, the opposite occurs: danger makes
It is obvious that morbidity and perversion can play a role in the contemplation difficult the understanding that each accident has its own thing and can seduce.
of corpses. So, is Metinides’ collection of atrocities the work of a sybarite of tragedy Routinely Hollywood has filmed photogenic catastrophes (we Mexicans can’t
or that of someone who gazes with childlike candour? In a deep way, the photog- forget Earthquake, the 1974 superproduction with sensaround sound that prefig-
rapher has not stopped warranting his El Niño nickname: collector of miniature ured the fall of our capital city eleven years later). The planet has ended numerous
ambulance and police cars, he stages toy accidents to photograph them. But his times on the screen without killing the cameraman. Rarely do those expensive con-
photographs do not depend on an aesthetic composition. One of his most well flagrations serve to explore the positive lessons of fright.
known photos is that of Adela Legarreta Rivas. The journalist was leaving a beauty The recording of catastrophe has had more generous interpretations in literature,
salon when she was run over by a car. She remained crushed under a lamppost where fractures generate resilient accounts. Daniel Defoe makes shipwreck into a bap-
with the serene attitude of a mannequin. With her fresh make-up, this victim does tism that makes possible the start of a new life in a desert island (Robinson Crusoe).
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While wandering across the battlefield in Borodino, Tolstoy’s characters realize that fly into shatters; the gear stick penetrates the driver’s flesh. The grammar of desire
shrapnel does not interrupt the torrential flow of everyday life (War and Peace). In a is not alien from media temptations: in the society of the spectacle, fame is an
city devastated by an epidemic, Camus discovers unthinkable links of solidarity in extension of eroticism. There are famous accidents that others try to recreate. To
moments of health (The Plague). In Auschwitz, Primo Levi finds moments of indelible die following a code of gest is a cultural fact: accident as quote, high-impact mon-
dignity (If This is a Man). John Hersey minutely recovers the testimonies of six survivors tage as tradition, prior victims as precursors.
of the atomic bomb: six ways of surviving in the charred air (Hiroshima). Ballard con- Danger can be an essential component of attraction. In Japan, the fugu fish
jectures that the total suppression of violence in the gated communities of the rich attracts because its venomous bladder is lethal: an expert chef extracts it, but what
leads to aggression as recreation (Millenium People). Heinrich von Kleist takes advan- is interesting is he could fail. This gastronomic Russian roulette combines pleasure
tage of a seism to sound the paradoxes of destiny by bringing down the walls of two with death, or rather, allows pleasure to emanate from death’s proximity. The same
prisons: the earthquake frees two lovers who were unjustly imprisoned; they under- occurs with a number of extreme sports, or with the hobby of breeding venomous
stand this is a sign of providence and they believe they have been forgiven yet they spiders. Crash associates speed’s failures with delight; characters are attracted to
ignore that the trials of men does not cease their thirst for vengeance and that the each other because of their wounds. They are the counterfigures of another techno-
earthquake can be seen by others as divine punishment for the sins of the couple who logical obsession: eternal youth through the use of collagen, liposuction and scalpel.
procreated outside marriage (The Earthquake in Chile). Cormac McCarthy invents a Ballard finds a rare technological humanizing in broken bodies. Botox freezes homog-
posthumous ecology and narrates what happens when the world ends (The Road). enized faces, conversely, injuries singularize. A wound is a proof of character. In the
Surviving tragedy can waken the guilt of not having followed the ways of others, eighteenth century, Lichtenberg wrote that, “It is enough for someone to have a
or, on the contrary, the vanity of feeling chosen to go forth. Is that second chance a physical defect for them to have an individual opinion.”
demand for self-criticism and amends, or a prize that arrives like a blank check? Crash deploys the alphabet of hurt flesh: each scar tells a story. Ecstasy is shared
Literature has explored the complex and contradictory reactions of those who accident. Eros and Thanatos above the speed limit.
discover, amazed, that they are still alive. In some cases, once it is written, the horror Revealingly, Ballard praised his novel’s pornography, not its eroticism. His
transforms into a source of pleasure. J.G. Ballard scrutinized the pleasures of the characters submit to a mechanical exhibition: bodies like “soft machines,” to use
predator. His main contribution to science fiction consisted in placing it in the present, Burrough’s expression. Slaves of speed and technique, they court their annihilation
suggesting that modern technology is more haunted than a Victorian mansion. In rela- until they achieve it. In his narrative survey, Ballard criticizes fetishism of machin-
tion to this, he commented that, “The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to ery—the spectres of status and sensuality that emanate from it.
invent the reality.” The same critical effort lead Mexican artist, Teresa Margolles, to elaborate jew-
Convinced that Homo sapiens require a certain amount of functional violence, ellery with glass from vehicles that had been riddled by bullets. The frost from the
Ballard revised the aseptic illusions of wellbeing, security, and a “perfect” life. shattered windowpanes can enter the victims’ bodies or remain on the asphalt as a
Millennium People deals with gated communities where the absence of fears trans- violent shine. By transforming it into necklaces and bracelets, Margolles reveals the
forms violence into sport. In Cocaine Nights, this idea expands into a luxurious obscenity of violence: horror as luxury, its possibility as fetish. How many pleasures
community in the South of France. In this well-manicured ecosystem, everything is that we enjoy come from opprobrium?
agreeable; there’s only the need for a touch of cruelty so that it remains human. Accident can be the subject of a work, but also its method. Hunters of fate have
In Crash, Ballard crosses a decisive limit in the literary imagination. The plot created combinatory devices to escape the censorship of consciousness—from
reveals little of the interior life of the protagonists: marionettes of technique, they Ramon Lull’s thinking machines, in the thirteenth century, to the twentieth century
are over determined by an essential desire—to have accidents. The author noted avant-garde: from Dadaism to surrealism through OuLiPo and William Burrough’s
that in these pages he had accomplished the first narrative encounter between Cut-Up.
technology and pornography. Crash describes the erotic possibilities of injured Each technology enables chance appropriation of previous material. In 1986,
bodies. Auto bodies compress like luxury wrappers of the industrial era; windshields The Beastie Boys recorded “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” a videoclip that announced a
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new recycling. In it, the musicians arrive to a club and the manager asks them How do accident stories operate? A curious fact serves as an anecdote. An
“Where are your instruments?” They show him an LP: “This is our instrument.” DJ anecdote that has a sense of consequence (things happen for a reason) qualifies as
sampling had become an art. a story yet not all stories qualify as “incidents” or events.
Digital photography has allowed flat sculpture on Photoshop, cell phones film Roland Barthes studied the structure of news facts. How to define those plots
on a microscreen and blogs are a one-person newspaper. Each new device makes of the real? Firstly, by their truthful character and the impact they provoke. The more
an accidental appropriation of an older craft. In a simultaneous act it consumes it absurd, improbable or degraded the motivation for an “incident” the greater awe
while giving it prestige. Digital transformed analogue into a classic method, in the it will cause: “the cause revealed is, in a sense, poorer than the cause expect-
same way that plastic gave prestige to steel, brick and stone. ed […]; paradoxically, causality is all the more notable in that it is frustrated,”
Agustín Fernández Mallo, author of Nocilla Dream, has proposed the creation explains Barthes.
of an exonovel: a plot whose skeleton is outside the book (on twitter accounts, social Fiction also takes advantage of this disproportion between the immensity of a
networks and blogs created by the characters). The first effect of this multi-articulation fable and the fragility of the motivation: at the end of the day, The Odyssey is the
of stories that progress in real time consists in remembering that Don Quixote achieves story of a man who wants to go back home; The Cherry Orchard arises from the sale
the same thing, without electricity. Fernández Mallo allows for an interesting play in of an estate; The Metamorphosis is the literal version of a cliché: the protagonist
perspective, an exercise in parallax where the object observed changes due to the feels like an insect.
spectator’s movement. His proposal of a future causes an accident in the past: News items that become “incidents” depend on a cause that fascinates due
innovation discovers something new in Cervantes. to its mundane, weak or outlandish nature. The plot’s impact doesn’t stem from
In the milieu of visual appropriation, Carlos Amorales has proposed the creative the spectacular consequences but rather from its tenuous pretext. Based on a true
use of copy and piracy. The artist makes circular designs in the hopes that they will be fact, Sidney Lumet’s film Dog Day Afternoon represents a good example of the
exploited by others, and that fate will allow him to recover them once they’ve been effect that caused an unexpected motivation for an “incident.” Revelation comes
modified. Thus, he collectivizes designs. The process depends on accidental associ- when Sonny, the protagonist, played by Al Pacino, explains that he wants to pay for
ations. Such is the case of his black butterflies created as a plague, ready to escape a sex-change operation for his lover. He needs a fortune for his lover to become a
from the gallery and to invade other spaces. Amorales’ butterflies have been copied woman—the unusual motive exacerbates the plot.
to decorate boutiques around the world and even made up a lingerie line. The artist When causalities are extremely fragile, they can always be attributed to that
incorporates these echoes and distortions into new pieces. The ebb and flow is inces- inconstant demiurge: chance.
sant: a simple design (and therefore appropriable) is sent to the ocean of images in An attack is a tragedy but not an accident because it has a discernible
the hopes that it will come back to the shore with another castaway’s contribution. cause (even though it might be irrational or reprehensible, it grants meaning to an
The examples of the creative use of chance are endless. As an aesthetic means, extreme action).
violent and fortuitous shock is a bloodless process. As a life experience, if causes On occasions, a violent death is attributed to a fortuitous circumstance in order
discourses of permanence. Catastrophe demands phrases that utter it. We only to avoid political implications. On November 4th, 2008, Juan Camilo Mouriño, Mexican
know that we truly survive once we find a way of saying it. Secretary of State, died while his plane plummeted right into Mexico City. He was
at the forefront of the internal politics of a government whose principal and almost
Accident as ethics: carnival, apocalypse, attack (the difference lies in the cause) unique strategy has been the War against Drugs. The suspicion of an attack was
“Perhaps we only have words for states of extremity.” Wrote Nietzsche. Each tragedy, almost immediate. Official versions maintained the accident thesis.
each exacerbated moment creates its own rhetoric. In “The Writing of Disaster” If a plane falls due to human or mechanical failure, the threat that it might
Maurice Blanchot further formulates this: “The question concerning the disaster is a have been brought down by enemies is dispelled. At first sight, the intervention
part of the disaster: it is not an interrogation, but a prayer, an entreaty, a call for help.” of coincidence in a political context is calming. Nevertheless, every accident has a
Nonsense sets off a search for signs—emergency literature. political dimension in itself: it represents the failure of an established model, and of
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the community that trusts in it. This becomes more acute if the airplane passenger To have fun, Mexicans mix pain and pleasure. Receiving electric shocks; eating
happens to be in the upper echelons of government. It defies reason that the Secretary chillies that perforate the duodenum; drinking two gallons of pulque; or spending all
who is responsible for exerting control died due to a lack of it. In this case, the acci- of one’s savings on a sheep are nuisances that excite us. Distinguishing the moment
dent hypothesis offers a metaphor for misgovernment. In the same way that the when the party degrades into tragedy is as complex as hearing the sound of one
political explanation of an attack foregoes it from being an accident, an accident in hand clapping. The cycle of decay and resistance of a Mexican celebration: first,
a political environment becomes a self -attack. you run out of ice; then, mineral water; then, soft-drinks; two friends pick a fight
to annihilate each other; the end is imminent when you discover, with a redeeming
Motivational Apocalypse illusion, that there’s still alcohol left.
Let’s get back to chance as a constitutive part of life. If Ballard investigated the In the episode that Carlos Reygadas shot for the collective film Revolution,
hedonistic and necrophilic aspects of catastrophe, Carlos Monsiváis finds in Mexico he records a colossal party, that is, a joyous version of catastrophe. During the climax,
City and its rituals of chaos a strange conception of disaster. One of his most impor- a car burns up in flames while one of the partygoers (the typical party crasher)
tant formulations is that of “post-apocalypse.” What does the vitality of this prefig- pees with satisfaction.
uration of the underworld called Mexico City explain? Traffic that won’t budge, too Here, apocalypse, which only exists in other cultures as the augury of an unques-
many people, pollution, lead in our blood, crime, earthquakes and the progressive tionable end, is an experience from which you come back with souvenirs. We flirt with
sinking of the subsoil all suggest a place all too worthy of being abandoned. Has no annihilation and at the same time we assume we’ve overcome it. The levels of lead in
one informed its inhabitants what goes on there? our blood; the cases of placenta praevia; the recurrence of crime; the traffic jams that
It’s not ignorance that keeps the inhabitants of the Anahuac Valley from leav- compete with eternity do not alarm us because they are perceived as proof of our sur-
ing. The average Chilango is an advantageous specialist in calamity. If you tell him vival, signs that in another moment, something worse happened. Decline has become
you were stuck in traffic for three hours, he was there for six. If you speak of a mug- environmental conservationism: what stops working serves as ornament, ruins are
ging, she’s had three. If you show him your rash, he exposes a good-sized chancre. a tourist opportunity, bad news wakens the optimism of not having been there.
A sybaritism of atrocity leads us to show off the city’s defects as reverse-patriotism. This ecology of calamity has created a culture of resistance—or, more precisely,
Let no one say there are worse places! What makes this monsteropolis attractive of endurance—that defies traditional notions of urban chaos.
—dramatically inhabitable—is that urban disasters are not perceived as an omen
of things to come, but rather as the result of what’s already happened. An effective The moral of that which is destroyed
collective deceit allows us to feel on the other side of tragedy, in the ruined yet for- In Discourse on the Horror of Art, a book of conversations with artist Enrico Baj,
tunate situation of post-apocalypse: “It was fucked up, but we made it.” Paul Virilio makes the distinction between apocalypse and accident. In its rigorous
In this territory of accidental survival, no custom is more deeply-rooted than par- application, apocalypse imposes the end of the world. Accident, on the other hand,
tying. He, who was saved by a hair’s breadth, uncorks a bottle. In his Fenomenología suspends the flow of time without annihilating it. Thus it reveals something of its
del relajo, Jorge Portilla comments that the least important thing about a Mexican epoch: its unexpected obverse, the error that constituted it while not manifesting
party is its cause. Partying needs no origin. Any date—religious, civic—serves as itself. Accident allows us to understand the logic of a system from its moment of
insinuation. Once the get-together is managed, the pretext that motivated it is erased exception. It dazzles, surprises and begs for an explanation. This is why it could be
to give free rein to the operative dynamics of fun. seen as an “inverted miracle.”
In Chilangopolis, news of the end of the world is compensated with the jubi- Accident unleashes new and disruptive energies: it defies the mind and stim-
lation of being together. Apocalypse and carnival are assumed as simultaneous ulates art, but also, and above all, it requires ethical reflection. There is no accident
—and in some ways indistinguishable—activities. Monsiváis created a neologism without loss, no collapse without victim.
to fuse both categories, today’s dialectic of heaven and hell, ying and yang: Virilio proposes a significant cultural shift: after centuries of spiritualizing the
Apocalipstick—the sensuous kiss of the end of time. matter through art, religion and thought, the society of technology demands a
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different answer—locating the human on the side of life, on the side of the body.
“All our culture consists in limiting the body in favour of the spirit. Even the horror
of the concentration camps has to do with that will to eliminate the bodily. Today, we
face the opposite necessity: rehabilitating the body […]. The invention of the twentieth
century is the S.O.S. sent out by the Titanic in 1912: ‘Save our Souls’. The invention
of the twenty first century is S.O.B: ‘Save our Bodies’ that threatened by transgenics
and huge manipulations.”
Speaking of the “body,” the author of The Aesthetics of Disappearance does
not only refer to the physical body, but to the social body, the corpus, the heritage
we have at our disposal.
The power of art comes from preserving that which is dead or could die. Its
offensive audacity consists in refuting losses and giving an illusory possibility of per-
manence: “Beautiful instant, do not pass away!” Goethe dared to write.
Violence and destruction can only be creatively faced with an ethics of repre-
sentation. What is inside the accident? A victim.
For the 2009 Venice Biennial, Teresa Margolles presented a noteworthy instal-
lation, curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina. This piece’s title was “¿De qué otra cosa
podríamos hablar?” (“What Else Could We Talk About?”). For it, the sombre rooms
in a palace were “cleaned” with the blood of victims of violence in Mexico. Only at
the end, a caption on the wall informed the visitors what they had just experienced.
This devastating valorisation of an absence reflects the task of art in a country with
over 34,000 deaths in the past four years.
Accident is always an alert call, misfortune in search for meaning. As opposed
to massacre, extermination, execution and other forms of serial death, it demands
a response in order to not repeat itself: it imposes self-criticism.
Learning from accident does not mean incorporating errors into a dynamic,
but doing without them entirely. Degrees of reaction are variable: it is easier to stop
producing a machine or a plane than modifying social conducts or natural cata-
clysms. All in all, incidents force us to recognize a radical failure. To borrow Jorge
Ibergüengoitia’s expression, every accident is a “fast autopsy:” it reveals instanta-
Under Discussion (2005)
neously what it holds inside. JENNIFER ALLORA & GUILLERMO CALZADILLA
Benjamin warned that what we call progress is an overpowering storm. The
accumulative consumer and technology society finds in accident an ethics of dispos- This piece was shot on Vieques, a small island off Puerto Rico. After decades of local efforts and interna-
tional protests, in 2003 the U.S. government stopped the military experiments on the island. However, the
session. Not everything is realizable and there’s always something to save. Life beats challenge for the Vieques people has become another: to be able to get their territory back when cur-
defiantly inside the accident. It’s an emergency call, an S.O.B.: “Save our Bodies.” rently, there are many speculative and turistic intersts involved. Through this work, Allora & Calzadilla,
This demand acquires a special historical dimension in a country that has started make an attempt to mobilize the discussion along the island by creating poetic intesections between
power, activism and enviormentalism. This was the first public screening of the film in Mexico.
to say: “No more blood.”
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Such statistic in human terms supports the tragic reality that lead is also Safehouse, now decommissioned, has spread as an iconic representation
in the blood of 30-50% of the inner city childhood population. And their lives of the project to Houston, to Atlanta, and Philadelphia.
were compromised even before the storm. We have assembled a team of landscape architects and environmental-
Informed of an estimated cost of $300 Million to safely transform the entire ists to develop the pragmatic citywide soil lead recovery program. We have
city, and not a single dollar available to support the alleviation of this crisis, it refined the scientific protocol to transform the lead in the soil into a stable,
was decided that the money would have to be made. That it would have to be non-bioavailable form, so that it can no longer harm the blood, bones and
exchanged for a solution. That it could not be the work of a single artist but brains of the young.
made by all people affected. And it will all be delivered. 3,000 kilos of creative currency, protocol and
That it would need an outreach of national scale to match the spread of method of city wide transformation, by armoured truck, fuelled by school cafe-
people uprooted by the storm. terias, running on straight vegetable oil.
And it would need to be delivered. We are committed to the presenting the democratic voice each drawing
The Fundred Dollar Bill Project was started as a top-secret operation. The represents, from the young of Beverly, Massachusetts, to the old, like 92-year-
chief operatives were Elementary and High school teachers. old Rosina Woolfolk Ward of St. Louis, Missouri…
Escalation increased. When we have the FULL load of drawings, we will deliver for the people
Now it is no secret, the millions are being made in 1000s of schools par- to the steps of Congress, and expect an exchange of funds to put into action
ticipating across the country from Brooklyn and Washington DC, Madison, the community capacity to end the threat of toxic lead in soil.
North Carolina, to San Diego, California. But the simplicity of the solution: draw, trim, send, collect, load, deliver,
Many now have a chance to be a Fundred Dollar Bill Facebook Fan present, exchange and transform, must engage with the complexity of trans-
Friend… forever. forming cynicism, disbelief and mobilizing political will.
Our website, fundred.org, is the main resource. We have developed edu- To meet this challenge, I have preached to the Kindergarten through 8th
cational resources, including a dozen lesson plans and teacher testimonials. grade congregations.
You can download a worksheet and print yourself, or, order the new eco We have met with members of Congress, and will continue to initiate
friendly half-page template. the path for other Congressional leaders, like U.S. Representative Eljiah E.
You can celebrate pets and inscribe new mottos like “ooh la la!” Cummings—of the 7th district of Maryland, to support this exchange of human
You can draw peeps, expression for non-symbolic funds and real action.
Or MLK, or one CHE and the many different faces of Obama. The project is not about me. It is about the commitment to 3 million artists
Or you can comment and reflect on the agony of your personal history. in cities like Providence, Cleveland and Detroit, Denver, Oakland, Portland; all
SAFEHOUSE was dedicated to serve as a functional iconic presence in one lead-affected cities. It is the beginning of the celebration of drawing by the
of the most crime ridden, flood wrecked, and lead polluted neighbourhoods. people and the eventual delivery for the people.
After private preview and introduction to the neighbourhood of the 8th Ward, As a sign of real commitment to our student constituents who believe in
St. Roch, New Orleans, we culminated with a street party with DJ Baby Boy. our mission, the 18,600 mile pickups started in the State of Louisiana, where
We publicly introduced the project on Oct. 31, 2008, with a national press the Truck has met students bathed in spiritual light, students in joyful celebration
conference, introducing the art, medical, scientific teams, and our intentions. of the project, and students offering their best bon voyage to the truck loaded
Safehouse was open for visitors and locals and eventually filled with with their generosity.
Fundreds. Whether you were Uma Thurman, who, as expected, posted way Mr. 100 Dollar bill himself, Benjamin Franklin, has given the project his
up high in the house, or Devion Charlot of St. Roch, all Fundreds are treated blessing. We have Malcolm triple X philosophy to deliver—the voice, the science,
with equal importance and value. the method for the physical transformation of New Orleans—by any means,
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material, action necessary. Now, 358, 283 drawings later… We have seen love There can be no social change until there is a physical change in the
in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. We’ve eaten that love, presented that love in a guitar environmental health of our cities. There is no project without the drawings of
case full of 7328 Fundreds. the people we now hold and will continue to collect. They move us; give us
Our driver, Tory Tepp, has been encouraged without racial bias to “Bring meaning, and purpose. The value of human expression will be honoured, pro-
it ON “ by white girls in Mississippi and Latinas of San Antonio. “Odelay”, by tected and delivered for exchange you can believe in.
Children of Immigrants in Arkansas, and pre-profile Arizona with bags of
hand-drawn cash. CVF: I would like to ask some questions. In 2006 Mel Chin visited New Orleans after
We have had Notoriously bigger Baltimore Fundred Boys with talking hurricane Katrina to evaluate creative solutions to treat the aftermath of destruction
bout “de hundreds o’ Fundreds”. We have witnessed Home-style Media cov- as result of the storm. Once there, Chin kicked off Operation Paydirt to attack a
erage from Provo Utah, & Fundred fashion and passion in Monarch High, serious problem which predated Katrina but which proved equally fundamental:
Coconut Creek, FLA showing up strong with 10,497 Fundreds serious delivery by the high levels of lead contamination in the soil of the city of New Orleans. To assist the
ROTC in Beverly Mass and guards in training Casper, Wyoming, to Baltimore funding of Operation Paydirt, Chin implemented the Fundred Dollar Bill Project in
MICA guards making practice runs to DC. schools across the United States to symbolically raise $300,000,000 dollars which
Wait… regarding D.C… WE have BREAKING NEWS. he would later propose to Congress for an exchange of real dollars.
Mel, the Fundred Dollar Bill Project is essentially one where you ask children
We can report that directors and curators of the Hirshhorn Museum of in schools around the country to draw their own hundred dollar bills, their own
Sculpture and Painting were presented this study of 3 Million Fundreds in symbolic ‘Benjamins’, that you later plan to exchange with Congress for actual
Washington, DC… and have agreed to pursue it’s acceptance into the cash/greenbacks. Correct?
permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution upon it’s delivery 2011. MC: Yes, that is true Christian, so far we have 358,283, but this collection, by the
More Breaking News. From EPA Region 9 Emergency Response. people to be delivered for the people, is still building. As artist converted to deliver
From Oakland, Ca. on Oct. 16, 2010. man, I’d love to bring in the whole 3 million Fundred Dollar Bills. But aside from the
Administrator Lisa Jackson, director of the EPA and Barbara Lee, head exchange, there will be an additional gift. That gift will be a scientifically verified method
of the Black Congressional Congress met with Operation Paydirt on the of transforming the lead in the soil into a non-bioavailable, hence, non-toxic form.
heavily lead polluted residential sites the West Oakland, CA. CVF: Can you tell me how you came up with the idea of the Fundred Dollar Bill
Project and how that symbolic exchange has gone?
We discussed the importance, of this first urban demonstration of Operation MC: Well, we’re still collecting and promoting Fundreds. We are warning or notifying
Paydirt in the country… as a further update… The Laboratories yielded POSITIVE certain members of Congress that delivery will eventually happen. The concept
results in locking up the toxic lead. We can officially report that the SOLUTION began with hearing contrary stories from the Environmental Protection Agency
is on the Way. (EPA), and the great environmental justice group, the National Resource Defence
The violence found in Chicago is the same violence of New Orleans, Council (NRDC). The NRDC had mentioned that Katrina had brought in extremely
Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Manhattan. high levels of toxic metals to New Orleans, whereas the EPA simply said, “it did not
These maps show a correlation between high levels of lead and low-test get worse.” I met Dr. Howard Mielke, a toxicologist/pharmacologist, working for
scores. Other layers show correlations of crime and incarceration. The educa- more than 20 years on the soil conditions in New Orleans. To my surprise, Howard
tional deficits of New Orleans are the educational deficits in Chicago, St. Louis, said the EPA was correct.
Oakland, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. And they are linked by a common So I had to ask the follow up question, “Then how bad was it?”
threat in the soil. He said if not the worst in the country perhaps the second worst and he then
We hope that this will be a future New York Times front page. produced the red lead map. The red lead map showed 86,000 properties with lead
And we conclude this report with a few observations:
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levels higher than 400 parts per million—the threshold unacceptable for children to It came about after I had completed my first one-person museum show at the
come into contact with. Those numbers are relative to other countries; for example Hirshhorn in 1989. I’ve told the story often, going down the museum elevator, I
you have about 70 ppm in the Netherlands, 100 ppm in Canada, and zero toler- asked myself what I loved about being an artist. My internal voice responded, I love
ance in Norway. doing the research that resulted in ideas, creating objects to represent these ideas
But then I heard this contamination was part of the reason 30 to 50% of the with my hands. But another voice within me said, “Stop”. So I did. I returned to my
inner-city childhood population was lead poisoned and no funds were being allo- studio in New York, and for maybe 6 months made nothing. Instead, I spent the
cated to address this. time following a previously self ordained mantra, “to research and destroy my pre-
The response was a second of outrage then thirty minutes of thinking “then what viously conceived notions.”
do we do?” I told Howard, “We will have to make the money and we will have to deliver Because of this free-range research I came upon Terrance McKenna’s essay
it along with the solution to the problem.” I emphasized “We” because I knew it would in the Whole Earth Review, claiming plants could remove toxic materials from soil.
have to be the voices of children, the ones most threatened by this mess in cities all The green light came on.
over the US. And in this case, the artist would have to take an evolving role: from I started to think about the polluted wastelands as sculptural material, and
conceptualizer, organizer, and negotiator, to delivery person, as needed. By the way, plants as the perfect sculpture tool. I was probably a pain at New York art parties
human creativity and expression on a Fundred is worth 100 real dollars in my opinion. then, especially as I advocated plants as the next greatest medium. You know that
CVF: The amount you decided that you had to raise to clean up the lead from the Dustin Hoffman film, The Graduate, I was the guy, who instead of promoting plas-
ground in New Orleans was $300 million USD. How did you arrive at that figure? tic, I was promoting plants, in a similar way. But, there was a problem; the more
MC: The scientist, Dr. Mielke, had already established a number for one solution I researched the plants that ethno botanist McKenna had determined would be
that did not involve treatment that was the “covering” of all affected properties with able to clean soil, the more I found that there was no evidence of such a thing.
6 inches of clean Mississippi river sediment that has very low levels of metal con- By luck and perseverance, I found Dr. Chaney, of the U.S.D.A (U.S. Dept. of
tamination. His numbers came up to $250,000,000. In my conversations with Agriculture) who had shelved his research postulating his concept of green reme-
Howard, I added the $50,000,000, as I felt it was appropriate to treat and trans- diation in 1983. Because of the conservative climate that continues to this day in
form the lead. The treatment will be the additional and necessary insurance that the U.S. in terms of ecology his project was not supported. When I first contacted
the solution would be required once, and be generationally stable. Dr. Chaney and asked about McKenna’s choice of Datura, he said, “That will get
CVF: The Fundred Project, in a lot of ways, is very much indebted to one of your you high, but it won’t pick up any metals.” I felt that my contribution to this science
first activist, ecological artworks, Revival Field (1990). In this landscape art project, would be to help make it happen. Revival Field more than anything else, was a
you worked with a scientist, Dr. Rufus Chaney, and used plants called hyperaccu- replicated field test, the first in the U.S., to verify the science of phytoremediation.
mulators that are known for their ability to draw heavy metals from soil (these It became less important to me whether it was art or science, but that it was some-
include plants like sunflowers, hydrangeas and barley). The initial project took thing that just needed to be done. I remember people would come to my studio,
place in the Pig’s Eye Landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota, and lasted three years. You while I was on the phone negotiating with some polluter, and question me, why was
want to tell us a little more about Revival Field? How did it come about? What led I not making art? And I would say, “This is art.” I also felt that certain projects, like
you to this idea as a method of making art? this, might need collaboration to an intense degree, and their completion might be
MC: First of all, sunflowers do not pick up lead, and the plants you mentioned are after my death. This also freed me. I was willing to lay the groundwork, to be part
not hyperaccumulators. Revival Field was about proving that certain plants can of something truly transformative, and not regulated by cult of personality or sales.
and will pickup certain metals. Here’s a short video of the concept. I know lead is CVF: Revival Field was clearly not an artwork devoted to formal artistic values as we
mentioned but again, no plants have been found that will uptake lead. The metal normally understand them but instead about the conceptual realization of scientific/
we were after in Revival Field was cadmiun/zinc. One is very bad for humans and social process brought forth through art. Other Revival Field sites have been located
the other very bad for plants. in Palmerton, Pennsylvania and Stuttgart, Germany. This project materialized science,
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technology and art, while eschewing art’s more conventional object making functions.
Did you say a goodbye to formalist art, art with a more formal spine, with Revival
Field? Has the symbolically redemptive potential of, say, drawing, painting or video,
become insufficient for you/for art from that point forward?
MC: No. That is a misconception. A lot of people believe because of the art hysterical
focus on isolating signature work, it probably excludes other efforts that have con-
tinued. Since most of my objects and projects are concept driven, the forms that
they take can be anything. In fact, I see using formal aesthetics as a valuable tool
in political work, used to lure the audience into giving it a chance.
CVF: Of course, one could argue that formal values do exist in your art, but from a more
metaphysical approach. Revival Field, for example, could be said to be a sculp-
ture—you sculpted a living ecology out of a dead one or one that was dying. There
is beauty in that. There is real poetry in these hyperaccumulators, these plants,
leaching out toxic metals from a poisoned soil. These are not just words, mind you,
they provide a context for levelling critical art which is indeed beautiful, in a way that
is metaphorically similar to paintings and sculptures that might be equally so. The
Deleuze and Guattari quote used to buttress the introductory text of this year’s
SITAC brought me around to trying to make these equivalences: it says “Art strug-
gles with chaos, but it does so in order to render it sensory, even through the most
charming character, the most enchanted landscape.”
MC: I appreciate your assessment. Pragmatism and poetry is a great mix. I really
don’t think about struggling with chaos as a good job description for what we do. I
think of it more as certain drastic conditions compel creativity to come forward
because there is no option other than to do something. In the wake of so much
tragedy and horrific reality, applying a different method of engagement is not just
a struggle; it is a challenge to find a path to take me away from the hell. I tell many
people that I don’t go around looking for disaster to find meaning, or to be inspired
by disaster or political trauma. In fact, I’m not inspired: I’m compelled into action.
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A Map is not the Territory (2011)
JOSÉ JIMÉNEZ ORTIZ
One channel video, b/w, in stereo, 6' 59" / 1920 x 1080 288 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 289
Edition of 3 plus artist's proof.
Panel 1 Nothing but smouldering sticks remained of the affected neighbourhoods’
iconic palm trees. A red dust fell from Cali’s morning sky, the dust from the bricks
ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS
(HELENA PRODUCCIONES), GEORGE OSODI AND RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES of the buildings and houses that flew through the air. The media reported 1,300
dead and more than 4,000 hurt. The official version—that is to say the Colombian
President’s version,—of that fateful day is that there was a ‘political sabotage’3.
However, the report that made the biggest impression on our collective memory is
that fireworks and shells were being fired in anticipation of the country’s August 7th
party, and that there had been an accident.
Catastrophe, Protectionism and Exploitation On the evening of August 7th, 1956 Colombia’s first ‘Teletón’ was broadcast on
Or, these same words but in another order national TV. People in Bogotá paraded on TV screens, donating money and goods
to the National Ministry of Social Assistance (SENDAS) and the Red Cross.
Many national and international initiatives, in the vein of the Teletón, have suc-
HELENA PRODUCCIONES
ceeded in raising donations and provisions for the victims.
(ANA MARÍA MILLÁN, WILSON DÍAZ, CLAUDIA PATRICIA SARRIA-MACÍAS) Official history has it that the Cali explosion, as well as the public’s interpretation
of it, influenced Colombia’s president at the time, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, to
give up his power in 1957 and go into exile, while remaining protected by a Central
American dictator4.
Every year on August 7th, Colombia commemorates the Battle of Boyacá, which
3
took place in 1819 and was decisive for Simón Bolívar’s Venezuelan rooted libera- César Ayala Diago. La explosion de Cali, agosto 7 de 1955 [The Cali Explosion, August 7, 1955] Revista
Credencial Histórica. September 1999. Number 117. Found in its original Spanish on: lablaa.org/lablaavir-
tion crusade. August 7th is also the day when Colombian presidents begin their
tual/revistas/credencial/septiembrede1999/117explosion.htm.
terms. While writing this very text, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, after eight years in power1, 4
General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, high-ranking military official and civil engineer, came to power through a
handed his seat over to the economist Juan Manuel Santos, member of the pow- coup d’etat against the conservative Laureano Gómez on June 13, 1953, a holiday dedicated to the Sacred
erful family that owns the newspaper El Tiempo, one of the highest in circulation in Heart. Laureano Gómez was a president worn by sickness who governed from his convalescent bed. After
the country. the military coup, he was replaced by Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez, who was well received by Colombia’s
opportunist political groups, the military and the public at large, because since 1948, following the assas-
In 1956, on the morning of August 7th, the city of Cali, which then had a pop-
sination of the liberal political leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the country suffered an ongoing blood-filled
ulation of 240,000, suffered a massacre. Seven vans belonging to the national bipartisan violence. When General Pinilla assumed power, the radio blared over the Colombian masses:
army2 and loaded with 42 tons of dynamite exploded in the heart of the city. The No more blood, no more depredations in name of any political party. Peace, justice and liberty.
Codazzi Battalion building disappeared, the Third Brigade Military Police buildings His government oversaw significant social reforms benefiting the most disadvantaged sectors which
disappeared, eight densely populated blocks from the residential and commercial propelled economic, social and educational development. He introduced television as a pedagogic tool by
creating a national television network that broadcast educational shows; he founded the Pedagogic University
sectors of the city, roughly between 30th Street and 22nd and 1st Street and 7th
of Colombia; created the National Service of Learning (SENA); automated the urban and rural telephone
which made up Cali’s downtown until the 1940’s—fifteen blocks in all—were harmed system; depoliticized the police force, merging it with the Ministry of War; built the El Dorado International
by the explosion. Airport and eighteen more airports; paved the greater part of the country’s main highways; finished
the hydroelectric dam in Lebrija; the new refineries, Barrancabermeja and Acerias Paz del Rio; the Military
Hospital; The National Administrative Center (CAN); the Military Club; the Astronomic Observatory; created
1
Álvaro Uribe Vélez’ presidency: first term, 2002-2006, second term, 2006-2010 the banks, Ganader and Cafetero; capitalized on the Agrarian Fund; established the Tobacco Development
2
Fourteen vans loaded with dynamite were headed to Bogota from Buenaventura, seven of them stayed in Institute and the National Institute of Provisions; created the Office of Relief and Rehabilitation to help vic-
Cali the night of August 6th. tims of violence, and the National Secretariat of Social Assistance. And, among others, he recognized the
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The atmosphere of solidarity that the 1956 catastrophe generated made it of bars. Many of my friends and neighbours had gone there to have a good
possible for the national government to craft the Housing Plan through which an time. Three friends of mine, who I used to play soccer with, died. They’d gone
investment design was sealed—a sum no less than 10 million pesos—for the con- there to spend the night out. The Aguablanca houses were donated by the
struction of a neighbourhood of mobile houses for the victims of Cali. The mobile government. This is good land; it was one of the only barrios still standing
neighbourhood was at some point contemptuously called the ‘tin neighbourhood’. after the explosion. The victims had the opportunity to enjoy government aid
Martínez Magaña brothers, sold a designated plot of land to the Land Credit because they’d been left with nothing. The government of Venezuela donated
Institute, and that’s when the Aguablanca neighbourhood was built, which shouldn’t the Edificio Venezolano [Venezuelan Building], which is where my wife’s uncle
be confused, as so often happens, with the minted Aguablanca District. The neighbor- got an apartment. He worked on the train, and was one of the August 7th victims.
hood was small, 23 hectares, subdivided into 25 blocks, two of them reserved for The donations were an incentive for people to go on because it’s very hard
green zones or parks. Rafael López Uribe was the architect who oversaw the con- to be left with no house, no belongings, no rooms, everything gone. It was a
struction of the 157 mobile homes. The architects, Juan Osorio and his partner, López wonderful thing the government did…”
Aldana, built two more sectors. And so 468 aluminium houses in all, without very “A lot of time has passed but there must still be one or two victims living
much ground anchorage, were erected. Years later those houses flew out of there, in the neighbourhoods. Though most of the inhabitants are new people who
but not because a tornado or an explosion plucked them, but because they were have built modern houses—two, three and four-story tall. People bought the
very easy to pack up and take away. Brick houses were also built in the area, which aluminium houses and then, with time, they took them down and started
made the neighbourhoods 457 homes larger, thanks to national and international rebuilding brick houses, and that’s why this neighbourhood is more organized
funds. And so Cali victims were entitled to buy houses thanks to donations.5 and modernized now. As far as I know, most of the little aluminium houses
were taken to farmland. I have a few friends who have one in Dapa6. Many
“The explosion of 1956 was a terrible thing. All of the houses between 26th wanted their home to be out in the country. These houses can really look out
and 25th street were blown away. They say seven trucks had come in from of place. Back then no one knew of aluminium houses, they‘d only seen tin
Ecuador loaded with powder. They were parked in front of the train station at houses with zinc-plated sheets. But this aluminium is a wonderful thing, and
one in the morning. No one could look up at the sky because fist-fulls of ash many people have preserved them.7
would fall in their eyes. And the sirens’ scream was horrendous. Electric So that’s what little I can tell you about how this neighbourhood came
power was out and people ran from one place to another in total darkness. about and what became of it. Many of the people that grew up here are now
Then we heard on the radio that the explosion had been on 25th street, between well educated. They were raised to become doctors, and now they’re people
1st and 3rd which was the designated ‘zone of tolerance,’ a place that was full with a lot of weight and they live in other parts. They sold their houses and
they left for other, more comfortable sectors.”
political rights of women and their right to vote with the third legislative act of the National Constituent Assembly “I was born in this barrio, in this very house. I’m 46 years old and, well,
(A.N.A.C) of August 25, 1954. this barrio has definitely progressed. The streets didn’t even used to be paved.
Like a good dictator, Rojas Pinilla also succeeded in getting away with more than his share. Among All the houses were aluminium, which was donated by the Dutch or German
other abuses he closed the newspapers El Tiempo, El Espectador and El Siglo in 1955. While confronting
government. How great! People don’t know which of the two governments it
this situation, the editorial board of El Tiempo strategically came out with its identical twin, the newspaper,
El Intermedio. was, but we do know it was a great donation they made. More than one owner
Enrique Santos Molano, Treinta y seis mil quinientos días de prensa escrita [Thirty Six Thousand has decided to sell half their property to better their economic situation,
Days of Print Media], Credencial Historia, issue178 October 2004. http://lablaa.org/blaavirtual/revistas/cre- because to improve these houses we have to talk economics, because they’re
dencial/octubre2004/prensa.htm
5
Arturo Rodrígquez O. and Gladys Bossio Jiménez. Aguablanca Protagonista 1984. Historia de los Barrios
6
de Cali [History of Cali’s Neighborhoods]. Administrative Department of Social Promotion and Community Township in the Municipality, Yumbo, of Colombia’s Valle del Cauca.
7
Action. Valle del Cauca Room, Departmental Library of Cali. Manuel Saa in conversation with Helena Productions in the neighborhood of Aguablanca in Cali, 2010.
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big houses. They’re about three hundred meters squared, which is twenty-five de Venezuela [Residential Unity Republic of Venezuela] or the Venezuelan Building
meters long by eleven wide. The barrio has been developing since the Pan as it’s popularly known, was built, located in the neighbourhood, La Flora, on A. North
American Games came here some forty years ago, when the tin houses started Sixth Avenue, with the address numbers 33-06. The family of the Venezuelan citizen
disappearing because most people started rebuilding. Because, as I already Adolfo Bueno Madrid donated the thirty-five floors that make up this building. Oddly,
said, they were determined to sell half their lot in order to build a better half-lot. this building was once part of a condominium complex in the neighbourhood Veintitrés
That’s the way to do it. Only if one has enough cash flow, is it possible to build de Enero, on the west side of Caracas, Venezuela. Rumour has it that the eighth
up their entire property and have a huge house enviable to anyone. building of this complex was donated during the dictatorship of Pérez Jimenez.9
The houses they sold were then taken to the country. They were sold at a
good price, and can be put up anywhere. The bare house can be sold at just “We were one of the families that were chosen to live in the neighbourhood based
about 6 million pesos. I’ve seen them take down many houses. I could even do on our history and education. I’ve lived here with my family for 52 years. My two
it myself. Anyone could do it. Here’s a better way to explain it: when they made sisters married here at the church, and live at the Venezuelan Building. We’ve
this house, they put down one floor, a well-levelled mortar, and the house never been rich, but we’ve also never needed anything. The detonation of one
basically just laid on there and was fixed into place. These houses don’t have of those devices ruined our furniture, but no one in my family died. We lived
any anchorage, even though there are sometimes winds strong enough to lift by Porvenir, in the Jorge Isaacs neighbourhood.10 Officials came shortly after
them, but no, nothing happens; they’re stable. When winter comes, they stay to see how we were doing. My mom went and talked with this one politician,
strong. And when it rains it’s so nice to sleep through the night because the rain Merceditas was her name. She was really good friends with my mom, who told
drops are loud and that noise cradles you to sleep and makes you want to her, ‘I came to talk to you because frankly I can’t take my kids there.’ ‘Where did
wrap yourself in another other blanket. I spent my childhood here, was raised they put you?’ Merceditas asked my mother. And my mother said, ‘Well they
here, when all of this hadn’t yet been paved and everything lay uncovered. It was- told me they’d put me in Aguablanca, that I should go pick out one of those tin
n’t paved until after the Pan American Games, when this avenue, the Simón houses.’ And she added: ‘Do me a favour and get me a good spot, like in the
Bolívar, was constructed. Then, as I’ve said, many started to sell half their house Venezuelan Building, for example, which I know is just being finished.’
or all of it and they went to go live in other neighbourhoods. I wasn’t yet born in “The building has been really strong in withstanding earthquakes, and
the time of the explosion and I don’t know why they lodged some victims here those of us living in the 150 apartments have tried to keep them in good con-
and others in the Venezuelan Building. But I can tell you something: I think dition. We’re fixing the water pipes now, trying to maintain it because we realize
the guys who got these lots won, because it’s very different living in an apart- how well built it is.”11
ment than living in a house. They say, though, that many of those living in the
Venezuelan Building also sold their apartments. The new wave of renters ren- The British Triangle Art Trust (now Triangle Network) hired Helena Productions in
ovated them. And I’ve heard that it’s also very good to live there. We have 2006, in order to oversee the implementation of a basic blueprint for artist cooper-
some friends in the Venezuelan Building and it’s been more than twenty years atives in a rural part of their chosen country, which this time around was Colombia.
since we’ve seen each other’s faces. They’re happy enough so that they don’t This blueprint had already been used in various countries, amongst them, India,
come back here, and we’re happy enough so that we don’t come back there.8 Mozambique, and Vietnam. These countries were primarily in the southern hemi-
sphere, the majority of them “underdeveloped.” Those appointed in each country
The Venezuelan president at the time of the Cali explosion, Andrés Pérez Jiménez,
generously offered to construct a big apartment building for the victims and sent
9
technical personnel to accomplish this. That’s how the Unidad Residencial República Patricia Villegas, En Venezuela si hay fuego en el 23 [There is Fire in Venezuela’s 23], El País Cali,
November 13, 2005.
10
One of the plazas in the city’s market.
8 11
Edinson Rodrríguez in conversation with Helena Productions in the neighborhood of Aguablanca in Cali, 2010. Alicia Ordoñez Correa in conversation with Helena Productions in the Venezuelan Building, 2010.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 294 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 295
were able to apply the blueprint in differing ways depending on their own context below, from Juanchaco, right where the crowd of bluffs begin, until we get
and the main thrust of their organization. After many tries, as it so often takes here, here where these constructions end.
in obtaining the necessary money and after having to postpone the project due to “These houses, that became what today is Aguablanca, were donated
issues in dealing with public policy, Helena Productions finally raised the money by the Canadian government for the victims of the explosion of 1956. Then,
to start the process and, after some discussion, finally decided to build this version around the seventies, those who lived in these houses started bettering their
of the blueprint on the beaches of Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra. With the homes, improving their quality of life, and they began to rebuild with different
money from the Dutch Foundation Prince Claus for Culture and Development which material. These houses were left uninhabited again. But people saw the oppor-
works under the Triangle Network’s umbrella, and with ties to Colombia’s Ministry tunity to bring this type of construction over to the countryside because they’re
of Culture, along with the help of Hotel Turistico La Luna and Cali’s Comfandi so easy to move, so light. Back then, the transportation needed to get here was
Cultural Center, Helena Productions started the project in February 2010 which very complicated, but even then everyone resolved to move these houses and
resulted in the artist cooperative of this area, finished sometime between July 15th then re-build them. It wasn’t just us, but our neighbours, too.
and July 31st 2010. “Each organized their home and brought it. Back then, there wasn’t any
Helena Productions managed (and still manages) its program, Mobile School official transportation here. It was only offered during bridges12 or during certain
of Social Practice and Knowledge, with a framework borrowed from Investigative seasons, until coastal shipping was created. The two most well known boats that
Laboratories for Creation, a program run by the Colombian Ministry of Culture. It does brought supplies here were the Asturias and the Learzo. Everyone took advan-
this with, for example, one of their pedagogic courses called Juanchacho, Ladrilleros tage of the boat and brought as much stuff as they had, and would stake out a
and La Barra Workshop. Helena Productions started its preparatory visits to those big space for their disassembled houses and whatever other material they need,
communities in February of 2010. like cement, the Eternit water tanks that we used back then and scrap wood.
During the development of the first phase of the project Mobile School of “Truth is, everything was done with the help of my dad who, along with
Social Knowledge and Practice in Juanchacho, Ladrilleros and La Barra, which my brothers, managed this place. I was really young back in the year ’57, ’60.
lasted several months, Helena Productions decided to work from the hotel, Los I was a teenager. They were older. Back then they were the people who were
Acantilados located between Juanchaco and Ladrilleros. This hotel is made up of at the front of the place and I helped them with whatever they needed.
various aluminum houses which the previous owners, victims of the 1956 explo- “Like I’ve mentioned, the houses were owned by people who had received
sion, had received as a donation and which once made up the Cali neighbourhood them as a form of help. The families were able to better their quality of life and
of Aguablanca. Those houses were moved out of that neighbourhood in the sixties at one point outgrew these houses and sold them. Even today, there is still this
along with many more from Buenaventura. Because of the nature of the hotel’s type of house in the sector of Santa Elena. The houses were bought either still-
material, its interior heats up as the temperature outside goes up, but they’re also standing or already disassembled. Everyone rented a medium truck that could
easily cooled by wind. hold four tons to go to Cali-Buenaventura, and simply bring the house along with
This hotel, with its many metal structures, is located between a Navy airstrip the rest of their stuff. This job was mostly taken on solo, though sometimes two
and the Pacific Ocean, separated from the township’s main highway by a strip of or three people who were looking for transportation would work together and
lush vegetation and engulfed by the sound of the sea and the song of frogs and share the expenses.
lizards, which is only ever interrupted by the burst of helicopters. It’s an architec- “These houses are totally able to be disassembled. There’s no problem.
tural space with history, birthed from a context moulded by the presence of military They’re made up of sheets of eighty and forty centimetres wide by up to
and tourism. A little like the beginning of one of those movies about Vietnam. three meters long. There are actually many types of lengths. They’re built with alu-
minium fasteners, though here we’re working with zinc-plated fasteners because
“There are people who come and say, these tin houses… But I tell them,
these aren’t tin houses, they’re aluminium houses. These houses come from 12
Refers to a weekend and/or two or more holiday days in a row.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 296 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 297
the aluminium on the roof will bloat and contract with the changes in tempera- Another pull in the area comes from the indigenous populations native to the
ture, and can break or cut into the screw heads. And so the zinc plated ones are region who, in spite of a self-recognized resistance to opening their communities to
of a tougher material, though in reality the zinc plated ones aren’t very advisable the greater Colombia, paradoxically try to have a constant presence in the economic
either. Ours, anyway, are pretty deficient and also get pocked by the weather.”13 and political arenas of Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra. The indigenous leave their
safeguarded communities located in the jungle to buy land from the black commu-
The topic of land ownership is a flashpoint in this region of the country. Shortly after nities, as they’ve done in the sector of Arrastraderos in Ladrilleros where a small
our moving here, the Departmental Assembly of the Cauca Valley issued an ordi- village within the Wouunaan community’s territory has been strategically growing.
nance14 that promoted land ownership within the parameters established in 1996 The three nearby indigenous communities are governed or influenced by, among
through Law 55 which restricted land use proportionally to its potential for tourism. others, public organizations like Community Councils, Hotel Unions and, in the case
The ordinance opened the possibility of individual or collective land owner- of the Wounaan, by the Indigenous Councils as well as the Catholic and Evangelist
ship, which has generated various conflicting positions amongst the population Churches who have a strong voice in the region. Similarly, the State of Colombia is
about its potential ramifications. Individual ownership, for example, is the type of influenced by the Pacific Armed Naval Force, the National Police and the Department
ownership that, for the time being, can more easily be sought out, and is highly of Administrative Security (DAS). This complicates any negotiations in a situation like
regarded by the politically powerful group of settlers who have come from various the one that developed when the Mobil School of Social Knowledge and Practice
regions of the country to establish their businesses in the area; however, this type came onto the stage, along with its various components like the Artists Workshop
of ownership has been fought by the larger population in the region, made up of of Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra and the Investigative Laboratory of Creation
the native islanders of African descent, who generally prefer collective ownership for the South Pacific IV.
as a strategy to protect their territory and its resources from individual interests. Helena Productions develops projects, which, through field investigation as well
The possibility of this latter option is a direct effect of the advice given by the as archival research, come to new places with new ideas. Before all else it seeks
Colombian Institute of Rural Development along with the Community Councils, and to discover a broad sense of place based on direct experiences, all with a sense of
its advancement would be backed by Law 70 of 199315, written to protect the Afro- adventure that has characterized many of its projects. The members of the collective
Colombian communities represented by said Councils. have had many personal life experiences in these three places over the course of three
decades. Boldly, they developed this project by going directly to the political actors
of these three communities without first going through any of the filters accus-
13
Efrain Urrea Delgado in conversation with Helena Productions in Juanchaco, 2010. tomed in Colombia’s political arenas which are so often corrupted by vice, cronyism
14
“(…) First article: Governor of the Valle del Cauca Department, authorized to oversee the distribution of land
and WAM (What About Me?). This made room for difficult but direct negotiation that
in the areas of Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra, of the Municipality of Buenaventura, Valle, which
the State conceded in Law 55 of 1996.” Departmental Assembly of the Valle del Cauca, Ordenance 302 of produced solutions and growing possibilities. One local coordinator created a ped-
December 23, 2009. See more at:http://www.valledelcauca.gov.co/asamblea/publicaciones.php?id=7633 agogic tool, Investigative Laboratory for Creativity in the Pacific South IV, which forms
15
“Objectives and definitions. Article 1. This Act is intended to recognize the black communities who have part of the newest version of Helena Production’s Mobile School of Social Knowledge
been occupying uncultivated land in rural areas along the Pacific Rim, in agreement with their traditional and Practice, which has the goal of investigating in a space that is formed by the
production practices, and gives them right to collectively owned property in accordance with the following
following two questions: What would you like to learn and do? And, what would you
article provisions. It also aims to establish a framework for the protection of cultural identity and the rights of
Colombia’s black communities as an ethnic group, and the promotion of their economic and social develop- like to teach? Or, what do you know and would like to share? These questions gave
ment, with the goal of guaranteeing that these communities obtain the same conditions of equality and birth to a process that unfolded through presentations and exchanges of informa-
opportunity as the rest of the Colombian population. In accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of arti- tion, the development of practical exercises, conversations and experiences having
cle 55 of the Constitution, this Act shall apply in uncultivated, rural and waterfront areas in other regions to do with local culture and daily life.
of the country that have been occupied by black communities who work with traditional production prac-
These workshops created a meeting space for the inhabitants of the three loca-
tices and fulfill the requirements established in this Act.” Congress of Colombia, Law 70 of August 27, 1993.
See more at: http://www.secretariasenado.gov.co/senado/basedoc/ley/1993/ley_0070_1993.html. tions where the struggle to earn money, which came from a dependence on tourism,
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 298 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 299
had made friends, families, and neighbours forget how to work in a group, as a com- “Although my field is in electro-mechanics and electronics, I’ve dedicated
munity, and had created an individualistic model of everyday life. At the same time, myself to making hand crafted things from materials that are autochthonous
tourism is threatening current cultural customs. We should note that tourism in this from this area, that are representative of it, that have a strong relationship with
area, to this date, hasn’t had the opportunity to really take off. Ecological tourism the medium that is the sea, the shores, the folklore. In short, the work that I do is
is sought through a modest infrastructure, which has kept it affordable to tourists. The authentic. I haven’t copied it from anyone. I’d never seen anything like it. And
area’s development, growth and possibilities seem to be limited by the politically and lots of people who know a lot about handcrafts assure that they’ve never seen
socially powerful, which can be seen in the fact that the place is very rich in various anything like it, that it’s something very authentic. It’s something that teaches
ways, but that this isn’t reflected in the economy or the rights of it’s oldest commu- my art is didactic.
nities. Another point to have in mind is the lack of unity between various ecologic “I work with coconut, with ‘chonta’ wood, which is the bark of palm trees,
projects to protect and promote the area, which is evident in the deterioration of the and a material called ‘guerregue,’ that comes from the same palm from which
environment because of the mismanagement of waste and the pollution caused by its indigenous get their material for the outer coating of hand crafted jugs and
inhabitants, foreigners and tourists. vases. With these materials, I make things that I’m passionate about, which
Any plans of ecotourism are still incipient, and so they’re at a purely develop- are model boats from every year.
mental phase and people are still torn over the importance of protecting the area “There’s a boat that is very typical here in the San Juan River, the “potra
and the benefits in exploiting it with tourism. These enumerated conditions gave remontada” (turnaround mare). A “potra remontada” has a 55 horse motor.
the push to open a workshop dealing with topics raised by its participants, includ- People here say that those are military boats. This one is called, ‘the military.’
ing: working together, developing events and projects, supporting each other, sus- We have another boat that is very modern. It has really powerful motors that
tainability, markets and tourism. are being used for drug-trafficking and this model is more or less a flying boat.
The first two sessions of the Investigative Laboratory of Creation for the South They’re made for two people only; one person goes strapped in the driver’s
Pacific IV, took place in the main buildings of the primary and secondary schools for seat, without a helmet, while the other co-pilots. That one is called, ‘the bang.’
the entire area. The Educational Institution of Juanchaco is a simple building that was “I also do works like this cup. The priest from the town Ladrilleros takes
constructed in almost two months as part of a technical training set up between the his wine in a cup made by me. A lot of people like them.
Colombian and North American military to realize engineering and military projects “I’m a mathematician, I’m a technologist, an industrial designer. I like to
in the area. The agreement called for the two military units to collaborate on public read a lot. I’m a man of a lot of information, of encyclopaedia, from which I’ve
work, and it was agreed that whatever was constructed could be used by the commu- taken so many ideas. I’ve done a lot of work, and necessity has called for me
nity. The construction of the school and health post were just two of the humani- sell these works. But my dream is to have a museum in my house where I can
tarian works done by 156 North American military officers who came by helicopter have some 50 model boats from different times and cultures.”17
and cargo ships to the beaches of Juanchaco and Bahia Malaga.16 “There’s a traditional hand craft made with the root of a plant that is com-
Consistent with Helena Productions’ interests in land politics and its compli- mon in the woods, that is called ‘chocolatillo.’ It’s very pretty and ancient, and it
cated place in Colombia’s economic and political history, this place was picked to was used to make baskets. Our grandparents were the ones that worked the
hold discussions on the making of local handcrafts and traditional products, local material most. I began to find out about ‘chocolatillo’ by talking with my grand-
history, and policies that affect every day life. mothers. They used to make baskets too, they also made hand held fans and
mats out of them. Then I started to seek my mother out. My mother also wove.
Yes, there were many women who worked with the material here, but now hardly
16 17
Juanchaco a la orilla de la desinformación [Juanchaco at the edge of misinformation], El Tiempo, Oscar Barandica at the Investigative Laboratory—Creativity for South Pacific IV, Helena’s Mobile School
January 8, 1994 http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-8962. of Social Knowledge and Practice, Juanchacho, 2010.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 300 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 301
anyone is making them. It might be because when people really work on some- The interest in production at the Mobile School of Social Knowledge and Practice
thing, those things are just left there, no one sees a way out with them. Not even was reflected in, among other things, its mobile workshop on production that worked
tourists buy these things. Anyway, I’ve taught my daughters how to weave.”18 hard to meet the different needs of its participants (local residents and some artists
“I’m going to talk a little about food, about the typical dishes of the region who joined in the last stage of the project). This workshop functioned in various spaces,
which are ‘pianguas,’ shrimp, rice in coconut, the ‘guagua,’ and fish stew. like hotels, streets, the beach, etc. Molds were produced to make sand forms, diverse
Everyone cooks differently here, but still everyone seasons with coconut and montages, tables and other wooden constructions; in general, discussion, advice and
herbs. ‘Nato’ is the best for seasoning fish; also ‘pargo’… Tourists ask for ‘pargo’; various technical solutions were spurred. Also the organization and the artists worked
it’s used a lot here. But to make the best seasoning in the entire community, in various spaces of production within the community: tailor shops, sawmills, a
everyone knows to use ‘nato,’ it’s healthier, while ‘pargo’ irritates the stomach, carpentry workshop, artisan workshops and other places.
and so it’s not recommended to use when one is ill.”19 Some exercises developed advertisements for the businesses of the workshop
participants—their restaurants, hotels, stores, artisan shops and their individual
Later on the workshop opened at various sites in Juanchaco and in Ladrilleros, such or family run micro-enterprise projects. This vision culminated in the organization,
as places formerly reserved for the Community Council’s meetings, as well as at the production and realization of an open invitation community event, both festive
recreational centre, Los Robles, where training events were held for the community and commercial, called the Coco Show, which was held on the main road, at the
by the community. Community Council Meeting Hall of Juanchaco. For this event, artisans exhibited
Because of the needs expressed by the enablers of this workshop, who are also their projects and sold the furniture they designed and built during the workshops
the community’s inhabitants, it was developed with the aid of Helena Productions and with the help of the production team contracted by Helena. There was also a
who’s members discussed and made possible the study and confrontation of the gastronomy event with local and foreign delicacies and a concert presenting the
community’s stories. Multiple exercises were developed based on the topics and needs musical group, Guascanato, who’s lyrics talk about the social history and recent
that were surfacing and workshop participants were encouraged to lead and share their politics of Ladrilleros, the band’s hometown.
knowledge about these matters. The group that formed during the Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop
Sometimes using not much more than a pencil and notebook, the workshop includes the following. Yonamine (Angola), Samuel Tituaña (Ecuador) and Edinson
participants developed and shared their own investigations and stories. La Escuela Quiñones (Colombia) were photographers for the Investigative Laboratory of Creation
de Esgrima con Machete de Puerta Tejada [The Woven Door’s School of Fencing for the South Pacific IV. They divided cameras amongst themselves, and docu-
by Machete], an alternative school, presented a project that focused on Colombia’s mented some of the artisan pieces and other products made by the people of the
colonial past and the problem of exploiting workers who harvest cane sugar for the Investigative Laboratory of Creation for the South Pacific IV, which ended up also
sugar industry. This investigation was included in many of Helena’s projects as well serving as advertisement for these pieces. The pictures were developed, laminated,
as in, more specifically, the Mobile School of Social Knowledge and Practice. handed out, exhibited and discussed. The artist, Alejandra Gutiérrez (Colombia),
The industrial designer and artist, Sammy Delgado Escobar, also participated, owner of a restaurant in Cali, lead a workshop about food and the kitchen. In a similar
representing the art collective, Konvertible. Sammy developed a furniture prototype manner, Jennys Fernanda Obando (Colombia) designed drawing exercises based
for street vendors, which was then constructed and used by craftsmen and other on the utensils and spaces of the kitchens of the workshop participants. Ana Olema
businessmen in one of the important events of this project: the Coco Show. Hernández (Cuba) started a project for the Investigative Laboratory of Creation for
the South Pacific IV called Leviathan. Little by little, participation and the invitation
to lead these workshops grew.
18
Rosalbina Valenca speaking iatthe Investigative Laboratory—Creativity for the South Pacific IV, Helena’s Some of the artists in both the Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop
Mobil School of Social Knowledge and Practice, Juanchaco, 2010.
19
and the Investigative Laboratory of Creation for the South Pacific IV and who
Luz Mary López speaking at the Investigative Laboratory—Creativity for the South Pacific IV, Helena’s
Mobil School of Social Knowledge and Practice, Juanchaco, 2010. participated in the Coco Show were Juan Carlos Leon (Ecuador), who lead a free
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 302 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 303
gastronomic event in the street, in which he prepared “corviche,” a recipe of fish, spray, it seemed none of the artists wanted to be called a tourist. This gave way to
banana and peanuts, typical of his hometown Guayaquil located on the Pacific many heated discussions that, in the least, happily ended with a dip in the pool.
Ocean; Eliana Otta (Peru), who presented a series of products, amongst them, The artists investigated and worked in the community in various ways, and
prints, vinyl, dolls, key chains, and clothes, which could be bought in exchange for they started even before they came. They succeeded in doing exhaustive field
a picture drawn of any of the objects; and Alejandra Gutierrez, who did represen- investigations, they visited places of interest to their projects and arranged meetings
tations of the “chigua” using drawings and fruit found in the region, a topic which was and negotiations with individuals and organizations they recompiled information and
then developed through further investigations done in the Juanchaco, Ladrilleros made products. They gave talks about their work, they also produced, with or without
and La Barra Workshop. help, various things that could then be bought or exhibited or that were part of other
From Juanchaco and Bahía Málaga one can see humpback whales, also known production processes, like videos or photos. They developed pedagogic processes
as “yubartas,” that come between July and October of every year to spawn, have that enabled them to make, among other things, workshops and events, prints, draw-
their baby whales and raise them during their first months of life. This, amongst ings, edible products, sculptures and outdoor installations. For Helena Productions,
other natural wonders of the area, makes the region an exceptional site of natural too, it was an important and unprecedented experience, a memorable explorato-
wealth. This is one of the rainiest places on the planet; and so the rainfall deter- ry trip. The Mobile School of Social Knowledge and Practice, invited artists to the
mines the lack of an aqueduct and the absence water to bathe in and drink. Here, Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop, participants to the Investigative
one finds the jungle and the sea, and an exuberant plethora of animals and vegeta- Laboratory of Creation for the South Pacific IV, and the community at large to var-
bles, which forces visitors to be cautious with some of the insects, reptiles and sea ious events. The Mobile School of Social Knowledge and Practice is a mechanism
animals that are known to be a danger to people. to negotiate and exchange, and this experience was made possible and was also
As of some years ago, two possibilities with a potentially great impact have enriched by Helena Productions’ flexible pedagogic model that brings together
been discussed by two very powerful sets of interests: one possibility is declaring artists with community organizations, artists with Catholic priests, and even artists
this area a National Natural Park, which would come with its advantages, respon- with Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS).
sibilities and, surely, limitations; the other possibility which has the favour of a lot As the days went on and various of the artists projects came to light within the
of the nation as well as the favour of the industrial sector of Valley of Cauca’s, is Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop, things got complicated. After their
constructing the longest and most important dock in South America in Bahía Málaga. “honey moon” with the community during the development of the Investigative
This would impact the local economy in an important way and on the other hand Laboratory, came, the very next day, the break-up. Now it’s important to point out
would affect, to give just one example, the whale’s migratory route. These Helena the capacity that art has to problematize and create friction, as well as the capacity it
Productions projects were developed in an environment shaky with the change that has to see things in various, disparate ways and of posing uncomfortable questions.
either of these possibilities promised. The artist, Juan Carlos Leon of Ecuador, presented his project, INEC, in which
The artists’ arrival and the development of their goals in the Juanchaco, he sought to take the population’s census using surveys and graphing methods.
Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop was enthusiastically received by the commu- This process was recorded in a few books that were produced for the purposes of
nity because they were initially perceived to be a group of diverse national and the project. He’d initially planned to do this with three populations, but he was only
foreign tourists. able to accomplish this with one group because of the pressure he received from
As was expected, and in spite of the boat trips down river, the daily and nightly local public organizations that acted on surprisingly nationalists and xenophobic
hikes, the expectation of seeing whales jumping out of the sea, the preoccupation concerns. After a round of negotiations with some community action coalition
of putting on sunscreen and moisturizer and trying to stay cool, the pleasure felt in groups, the police and military armed units got involved and, to make matters
jumping in the pool at the Hotel Turístico La Luna and the Hotel Costa Real, enjoying worse, some of the questions on the census made some of the personnel in the
good cuisine, the fruit of the sea, the evenings spent on the beach as well as the military armed units uncomfortable and the project was looked at with suspicion
nights in the Templo del Ritmo, or simply the killing of mosquitoes with No Piquex due to the current conflict between Colombia’s and Ecuador’s authorities (some
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even whispered that the artist was actually a spy). Finally, DAS showed up at the other businesses. The public had the chance to eat the almost forgotten recipe of
Juanchaco, Ladrilleros and La Barra Workshop. Another reason why DAS came “chigua” wraps and Yonamine’s Angolan dishes and three-milk cakes from a tra-
was to review the project Leviathan, put on by the Cuban artist, Ana Olema ditional Southern Colombian recipe. The event had all of this and more and was
Hernández. In this workshop, leaders of the three communities were represented, held in the middle of a pretty hotel, a space that, though it was usually closed to the
along with his ideology and the context that helped shape this ideology. The work- public, opened its doors to make the celebration possible and so helped bring these
shop also included the participation of a hypnologist. This project angered the initial phases of the Helena project to a close.
community and the leaders of the Catholic and Evangelist churches because of its A few days later, when everyone had gone back to Cali, or to their states and
title, Leviathan, and possibly because of the role of the hypnologist. Around the pul- countries of origin (while this text was being written) the Colombian government,
pits it was said that because Leviathan was a marine monster whoever created that with less than 48 hours before the new president’s inauguration, declared the
workshop must be part of a local cult. Also, techniques were used which the mili- Uramba Bahía Málaga Park a protected National Natural Park which generated an
tary called brainwashing. The project, needless to say, was not to their liking. In uproar that is still very much alive in the industrial sector of the country which, at
addition, the tours lead by the collective formed by Yonamine, Samuel Tituaña and least for now, sees its developmental ambitions truncated. The importance of this
Edinson Quiñones caused uneasiness in the community who asked themselves park lies in the sheer amount of animal and plant species that live there. Without
what someone from Angola (Angola was suffering form guerrilla warfare at the out a doubt, this declaration will help preserve the environmental services that the
time), Ecuador and the southern part of the country were doing in these remote area offers the local community, like fishing, the production of raw materials used
areas. And, in general, people questioned the meddling of each artist within the in artisan manufacturing and the possibility of optimizing ecotourism, which would
communities. Finally, Helena Productions was understood to be a Non Profit be a push to improve waste management and protect the diversity and cultural
Organization and, because of this, was looked at suspiciously, basically because of richness of the ancestral indigenous communities, the afro-descendent raizales,
prejudices related to this form of organization. Non-Profits have been distorted and and bring us closer to a different kind of relationship with the newer settlers and
attacked in Colombia during the last eight years. tourists in the area.
These developments pushed the group to hold a private meeting at Hotel We should always keep Bahía Málaga’s diversity in mind. It’s not only a bio-
Costa Real, where they discussed the possibility of traveling to Cali to hold their logical diversity, but also a political, social and economic one. This diversity repre-
Open Day (an event in which the group presents their projects to the public) in sents a crucial attribute of the country at large, one that has resulted in so many
order to gain distance from the tense situation they were confronting. But this pos- unique phenomenons. To see this place as only a tourist hotspot would be far too
sibility was finally discarded. Though the group felt that the community and local innocent and unrealistic of a vision.
authorities were turning their backs on them, they decided to hold Open Day there These artist workshops seek to find a home-base where they can sharpen and
in the hotel. This was an important decision, because holding Open Day at Hotel develop. Given the current situation and that they’re prone to wandering, they will
Costa Real was an opportunity to show the community what the artists had accom- continue to look for a place to house their next project. In the end, at least, their
plished, as well as what they themselves had participated in. These were projects house is very light and mobile.
in which the community could somehow find themselves: there were representa-
tions of the local motorcyclists who move primarily between Juanchaco and
Ladrilleros offering to give everyone rides, both local and foreigners; there was
Tocayo, the most eccentric character of the region; the flag that Fluvia, a local
seamstress, made and that is captured in a video documenting the event at La
Barra, which had the traditional music of viche, tumbacatre and arrechon playing
in the background; this same video also captured the local landlord talking about
the importance of community and; there were drawings of ice-cream shops and
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GEORGE OSODI
I would like to show some of the most popular images, one of my first projects
in the delta river zone of Nigeria, a place where there is plenty of oil and a large
dependence on this industry, almost 90% of the income actually comes from the
I would like to thank SITAC’s invitation. My name is George Osodi, before I start my oil industry and has ignored other sources of income that once prevailed such as
conference, I would like to briefly present my country. I come from Nigeria, in the fishing and agriculture. But moreover, this industry has helped the power elites to
west coast of Africa, we are 150 million, it is a very large and diverse country; we overcome, elites that dominate the country, as I mentioned, a toughly divided country,
have plenty of oil. We are a democracy but I rather call it a ‘unique system’, a political we are either up or really down. Those that conform the elites are really the least;
system that is heavily influenced by power, by money. This contrast is exposed in there is a very insignificant middle class and a huge mass living in extreme poverty.
the images I will present today. In this image you can see a policeman carrying a gun and a young man painted in
I became a photographer because of the love I feel for art, I couldn’t study pho- white protesting in the delta region. This photograph is part of a project that looked
tography, and instead I studied business, I have a degree in Business Administration. to present an historic moment of the country, during elections these kind of images
I worked for three years at a bank until I decided to become a photographer. Then I appeared and disappeared on daily basis, and the question that raises is where is
had to overcome many difficulties because photography wasn’t considered a serious the government. Another image shows these pipes, you see these pipes all over the
profession, nobody took me seriously, but as a banker I was a well-respected person. country, they are very important as the transport oil over the region, many visit this
Actually, a lawyer friend questioned my decision and asked me how was it possible zone to see if it is possible to steal some oil and profit from it. These images also
that I left the bank to become a photographer, and then she left me. I lost everything; show pollution al over the region, complete desolation. Villages where it’s never
I lost all my benefits at the bank, my partner, and my apartment. I was alone. It was dark, because of the relentless oil wells flames. A polluted land that once was land
a real disaster, talking about catastrophes and disasters. I think that in Nigeria many of agriculture and has been lost by the oil industry, this happens and it is a clear
people have lost hope, they don’t know what to do in the future, precisely for the example of the domination of companies such as Shell that come here and sweep
preconceived notions, in my country there are many… They brand you if you are everything, a real catastrophe.
a lawyer, or if you are a doctor, if you don’t have a ‘serious’ profession, no one takes Then, when I arrive there to work, I am shocked by the situation; these images
you into account. And everyone asks you what are you going to do with your life. try to portray my shock even if they are hard to achieve, as there are many inter-
I would like you to travel with me through some images, images of my country. ests, financial and political interests that have been created in the region. I had to
First, I would like to tell you about my passion for all this issues that surrounded me, go through the zone carefully, it took me five years to penetrate it and be able
everything that is my country and other African countries. There are many concerns, to take these pictures. For example, this image of two young boys selling Chinese
many social problems, and for all these reasons is that I took the decision of becoming products, today very common trend in Nigeria that many use to profit from it, the
a photographer, a mean that truly allowed me to express these concerns and anxieties children sell these products, they skip school to work as retailers of Chinese products.
I felt. There are some images you would rather not see as they reflect a very sad reality. Their parents allow this to have an extra profit for the family. It is a harmed region,
It is sometimes hard to express through images. We have to be careful with what a catastrophe. And yet, there are protests; most of them end up in violence.
we say through them, they can be politically incorrect and you can loose everything, Many of my photographs are example of Nigeria’s reality, portraying also what
so I had to learn many tricks that have rescued me through my years as photographer, I call ‘leaders’, men who pocket the money and never invest it in the country, hous-
I started by developing my photography my self, observing in them an artistic expres- ing projects literally in ruins, complete pollution… In 2009, we saw the BP disaster
sion, taking on account the colour and knowing as well that I wanted to achieve cer- in the Golf of Mexico, everyone was alarmed, but for us it was not really that alarm-
tain things, I wanted people to appreciate my work, appreciate the aesthetic even ing, we have been living for the last fifty years in this reality summed with the ‘new
when many saw my work as political, as images that portrayed my political point of era’, the era of gangsters, it has become an untamed place. Leaks and catastrophe
view. It was my intention that these pictures had aesthetic aspects although reality is the every day, even so, people manage to survive, to make a profit from catas-
is sometimes stronger than images. trophe, to resist scourge and live saying that we are fighting for our country when
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 308 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 309
actually most are pirates that profit from all these illegal activities related to the I also find political and social issues that I try to embellish in order to get the mes-
industry… They steal both from the people and the large companies. sage through.
The images of pollution are all over the region, the desolation and the hunger. Another project I did in Ghana was entitled De Money, and it took place at a
Another project I worked in was entitled Lagos Uncelebrated which shows the city gold mine and narrates the story of Nigeria. People trying survive at any cost, pay-
of Lagos, the largest city in the country where the 10% of the population of Nigeria ing any price. You see people scratching the ground for weeks just to get a small
lives, there are at least 50 million inhabitants and in some way, it is easier to earn portion of gold equivalent of 10 dollars a week. No one sees or cares for the envi-
a living here. We don’t necessarily do well, but at least there is work. There are other ronmental disaster in the forest; the area is completely forsaken while you see the
cities that are some how invisible but in Lagos, money moves, things happen, as people struggling to survive. They don’t have any education, they do not know
they say, the good, the bad and the ugly. about lead or mercury and the consequences and poisoning, they ignore the dam-
This project is about people trying to move ahead at all costs. Nigeria is a religious age that the mines cause to the environment. Many of these ‘mineworkers’ die very
country by excellence, everybody believes in God and asks many favours and mira- young; they give their life in exchange of a small marble of gold.
cles… A perfect example of the ‘mega city’, although I have always questioned what To close up, I would like to show Black Street, a project that portrays another
this means. It is a city with little or no urban planning, everyone is fighting and trying kind of catastrophe. Catastrophes can be both, natural or created by men, and in
to find some space. There is no infrastructure, and then everything becomes erratic, my country we live the second kind. It is not the natural catastrophe that affects
chaotic. Everyone is trying to move ahead, to cover his or her basic needs. In many us, those that are destructive such as the tsunamis or earthquakes; instead we suffer
cases, there are no electric services, or water, and people live with candles… a different kind of catastrophes that are more overwhelming, the ones that are created
Nigeria, even though it is one of the most important countries in the world oil by ourselves as society, an aggravating situation that is flogging the whole country.
industry, oil is scarce, people even break the pipes to steal and most go unnoticed In Nigeria, we generate our own ‘tsunamis’.
because people will do anything in order to survive. Then, other options such as Black Street is about one of these created catastrophes, on how Nigerian women
the night life become a good source of income, people try to find ways to get fit, in are ‘exported’ to Europe as prostitutes. In Nigeria, they go through a sort of initia-
order to find a job in the night clubs, like waiters or security guards. A constant fight tion, a ritual that their own family conduct, like voodoo, they sacrifice animals to
for a place, for a job, everyone living on top of each other, streets are full, of business, protect their daughters through their way, so they arrive safely as it is the family
of people, everything happens in the streets and everyone has learned to coexist interest that they become prostitutes and send some money back home, to get by at
because they do not have other choice. any cost literally. They spend a lot of money in this rituals, more than 60,000 euros
But Lagos is a city where you can get stuck easily, lost; I don’t think there is a to take them securely to their final posting. They work as sex slaves until they can
worst place in the world… I don’t know. pay the family’s debt and keep working to send more money to the family, if they are
Another project, one of my favourites, consists in a trip I did all around the lucky they manage to escape and some of them seek asylum in some Muslim and
country. Nigeria is also a rich country in many ways. But Nigerian people always Christian shrines, or other religions and beliefs. The women come from different
blame the devil, we blame him for any accident or misfortune, it is always the devil’s regions of the country and establish in many European countries, so I did this proj-
blame. So I decided to tour the country by land and portray all this accidents, ect in order to portray this harsh reality, a reality where women realize that time is
because in Nigeria you find many accidents in the roads, nobody respects the rules not a good aly for those engaged in this activity.
so this project is about this particular reality. I travelled all around documenting the
accidents, the destroyed and abandoned cars, something that I have only wit-
nessed in Nigeria, and fortunately I have travelled a lot. In many cases, people dis-
mantle these wrecked cars to steal parts and sell them, the rests remain there for
weeks, even months, no one really cares but what’s weird is that this is too common.
After all, the rich elite doesn’t travel these roads. While I go through the country,
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Earthquake 85 Capitalism, although in this case they were destroyed more for their success than
for their failure.
Art, Architecture and Disaster In Mexico the most notable example of this type of Modern architecture is the
1960 housing project of Nonoalco-Tlatelolco designed by Mexican architect Mario
Pani. This project also achieved many architecture awards. The original plan
RUBÉN ORTIZ TORRES included 102 apartment buildings with their own schools, hospitals, convenience
stores, mural art and green areas. It worked as a city within the city. Today, the proj-
ect is smaller and quite deteriorated. If Pruitt-Igoe symbolized Modernism failure,
Nonoalco-Tlatelolco symbolizes the coexistence with the past and maybe with the
The Swiss born French architect, Le Corbusier, dreamed of modernizing Paris. present and the future. The modern buildings surround the pre-Hispanic ruins of
For that he had to destroy the city. In his 1925 Voisin Plan, he proposed to substi- what once was the Aztec market of Tlaltelolco along with the colonial Catholic
tute the urban plan and romantic architecture of the ‘city of lights’ with a series of church of Santiago Tlatelolco, built by the Spaniards over the Aztec ruins. Altogether,
great towers in a cross plan organized on a Cartesian plane. Not even Hitler dared this constructions form what is known as the ‘Plaza de las tres culturas’ (Tree Cultures
to destroy this idealized city, much less the French. However, after the Second Plaza) that by itself suggests a postmodern dialogue with its history. If true that
World War, some modern architects would try to implement the utopian ideas of Tlatelolco didn’t have the segregation, crime and poverty history of Pruitt-Igoe in
Le Corbusier with disastrous results. The project that has come to symbolize this Saint Louis, it has a terrible history of repression and failure of the Mexican revolution
situation more visibly is certainly Priutt-Igoe. It consisted in a series of housing build- project. It was the scenario of the student massacre by the Mexican government
ings constructed in 1954 in Saint Louis, Missouri in the United States. These buildings on October 2nd 1968, just before the Olympic games took place in Mexico. So far,
replaced the nineteenth century settlements with communal baths in terrible con- the official death toll is disputed and varies between thirty and three hundred. What
ditions in which poor Afro-American residents lived as the white middle class is not in dispute is that on October 2nd of 1968, more than 5000 soldiers, 200
families fled to the city suburbs. Although these buildings improved temporarily tanks, 2 helicopters, snipers, machineguns and paramedics gathered in front of
the living conditions of their residents and won many design awards, as expected, the Chihuahua building in what was planed to be a pacific demonstration of college
architecture itself could not solve social, economic, and political factors that pro- and high school students. The architecture was then witness of this horrifying
duce poverty, crime and segregation. By the end of the seventies this housing project shameful event that the anti-democratic government of President Diaz Ordaz tried
became famous for precisely these problems and started to accumulate waste to hide by blaming the victims and that today is still under investigation. In fact,
and graffiti between its broken windows. Thirty-three buildings were demolished every year, the architecture is still witness of protest demonstrations.
at 3 o’clock on March 16, 1972, only sixteen years after they were constructed. If for Jenks the end of Modern architecture happened exactly at 3 o’clock the
The remaining thirty-two buildings were destroyed during the following four years; evening of March 16, 1972 with Pruitt-Igoe’s demolition by the “Federal Department
the demolition was broadcasted on TV. For the conservatives, the project became the of Housing”, in Mexico we can locate the end of Modernism exactly at 7:19 am on
symbol of the failure of urban planning and social assistance, and for the postmodern September 19, 1985. It was precisely in this moment when the gods and nature
architects, the failure of Modern architecture. Charles Jencks declared its destruc- destroyed model buildings of Modern Mexican architecture leaving only the pre-
tion as ‘The Day Modern Architecture died’. However, some housing projects with the Hispanic ruins and Colonial architecture intact.
same architecture and aesthetics such as Penn South continue to operate suc- Several buildings in Tlatelolco collapsed dramatically as the ones demolished
cessfully in lower Manhattan inhabited by people with more resources and political in Pruitt-Igoe and the images were universalized and also broadcast on television.
and social power. The architect of Pruitt-Igoe was Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed However, this was really a more dramatic event as the inhabitants of these build-
the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre, buildings that also were ings sat within the rubble. The tragedy burdened the limited capacity of a corrupt
destroyed as icons of modernity of the United States, of the western world and of authority and the citizens bound to survive by themselves demonstrated achievable
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direct action and spontaneous self-demarche. Neighbours of all social status organ- cubism. One of them, in a relatively large format, consisted in a vertical composition
ized to rescue victims, and help lift debris. This eventually allowed new forms of in acid colours where some Tlatelolco’s buildings are seen collapsing. I entitled it
political organization that were unthinkable before the tragedy. In a similar way and El fin del modernismo (The End of Modernism); along with this painting I did another
independently, young artists tried to respond and find meaning and significance to two compositions with women crying. The first one was very similar to one on the
this event generating a critic of modernity that lead to the construction of a particular comic strip where a blonde woman appears crying and a dark man with a mous-
nation-state idea. tache answers her. Dialogue balloons without text also appeared, it is a very graphic
The first aesthetic response came from the photographers. Sergio Toledano painting. The other painting is a cubist variation of this one. The three of them were
decided to go and see what was happening in the downtown area and was the first to sent to the Encuentro Nacional de Arte Joven (Young Art National Encounter), that
document the disaster. In his black and white film he made a dramatic essay, which in those days was the easiest way of making them visible. According to the jury
earned him the first prize in the Photography Biennial of 1986. The images are records and Olivier Debroise himself, the works were about to be rejected from the
impeccable. Some of them more abstract and some more human but all of them contest for their eclecticism until they reviewed the title and understood that there
are dramatically expressionists. Many more photographers documented the event. was a concept within the paintings themselves. El fin del modernismo received an
In fact, some members of the workshop lead by Pedro Meyer decided to capture award creating attention and polemic inside the local media. Currently, it is part of
the event. We even were allowed access to restricted areas. My memory is a night- the Museo de Arte de Aguascalientes collection. Other paintings from this series
mare that I just didn’t want to remember for quite a long time. The Regis Hotel was were acquired by important collectors such as Carlos Ashida from Guadalajara and
reduced to a pile of rubble and, on the top a person with a mask over his mouth the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
and a black plastic bag was collecting pieces. When I told a police man that this way Other artists also changed their plastic proposal, making comments and visual
he would take forever, he answered me that the man was only collecting pieces of experiments of the earthquake. The architect Mauricio Rocha, Mauricio Maillé and
bodies. I fainted in the subway when for a moment the light went out, perhaps only Gabriel Orozco produced a collaboration that was shown at the Modern Art Museum
for a false contact with the pathways. I soon discovered that photojournalism was in Mexico City in the Salon de Espacios Alternativos in 1987. They underpinned one
not my thing. I then decided to work in a different way making photographic exper- of the exhibition halls as if it were to fall. With common scaffolding and wooden beams
iments with overexposed images that emulated an earthquake; nerves made me they reproduced the structures seen all over the city to repair damaged buildings also
repeatedly expose the same film roles creating fortuitous images that mixed portraits implying that the museum was in ruins. This work is particularly important if we con-
with images of collapsed buildings. In a film I accidentally combined images of ‘Las sider it is one of the first architectonic interventions by Mauricio Rocha and one of
insólitas imágenes de Aurora’ with other buildings in ruins. This was a popular rock Gabriel Orozco’s first experiments completely different to the organic paintings he was
band that later became Los Caifanes and that with other bands organized rock con- producing at that time. Let’s say this ‘institutional critique’ is his first recognized con-
certs to raise funds for the victims. I don’t have the negatives of these images ceptual work. Unlike later works it is not a devoid and ambiguous meaning in search
because I lent them to a magazine… of an elaborate interpretation. There is an important and critical commentary on the
After the earthquake a cartoon entitled ‘Terremoto 85’ was published. It con- context that goes beyond the poetic gesture and does not comply only with referring
tained moralist love stories that happenned during the earthquake and where about to it with its presence. In this sense, it is a better work than many of his that are
miracles and tragedies, women crying and Mexican men consoling or fighting with actually better known. As El fin del modernismo, this work makes reference to
them, all framed by fragmented images of buildings falling creating dramatic com- the modern building that collapses, in this case the museum and with it, the idea
positions. These drawings worked for me as a better inspiration than the photographic of modernity. The museum becomes the work itself, something that maybe should be
images. We were starting to edit and give meaning to the information and those images in constant reconstruction. The work received an award but regretfully it was over-
seemed to have a strong relation with works of art related to other tragedies, for shadowed by the scandal that the church provoked because of a work included in
example Picasso’s Guernica. With these images I did a series of eclectic paintings the exhibition that depicted the Virgin of Guadalupe with Marilyn Monroe’s face. This
with references to the popular culture, the expressionism, postmodernity and even incident led to the resignation of the Museum Director, Jorge Alberto Manrique.
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The 1985 earthquake is still a subject of inspiration for many artists even out- State look poorly or offer nothing tangible to the private industry. To blame the artists
side Mexico. Susie Bielak is a young artist recently graduated from University of for this absence is to simply put in evidence his short understanding on the basic
California in San Diego who lives in Minneapolis. Her father is a seismic engineer mechanisms of value within the artistic practice and art distribution. This book was
and was in Mexico City at the time of the earthquake the earthquake. He took a awarded the Luis Cardoza y Aragón prize for Visual Arts. However, the absurd func-
series of pictures where the structural damage of buildings and walls is appreciated. tion of these hundred and thirty eight pages is to demonstrate that in this case Art
From these images Bielak has made a series of collages and Formica table sizes History does not exist. And it makes a strange effort not to produce it. The only
that in some cases she uses for printmaking. They have fragmented and stylized reference he makes to the works of artists is copied directly from the catalogue of
compositions where nature has broken the regular and perpendicular traces of the the exhibition La era de la discrepancia (The Age of Discrepancy). It does not men-
Cartesian direction substituting them with dramatic diagonals and asymmetric and tion the Salón de Arte Joven of 1986 and has some terrible errata and omissions
irregular balances. There is a huge metal plate at the University of California in San on the Salón de Espacios Alternativos of 1987, which seem to be the only refer-
Diego School of Engineering at the University of California in San Diego where some ences the author could find. Rants on the sublime and criticism of photography as a
seismic movements can be reproduced from seismic registers. It is used to study nineteenth century art have nothing to do with art from the eighties or contemporary
the effect of such movements and test different structures and materials. Bielak art. Of course the book has no illustrations that might contradict what he says, and
used this plate in order to test the effects of the Mexican earthquake on her own it is an exercise of intellectual opportunism. He claims that there was some art
dinning room, which she reproduced at breakfast time (7.19 am). On this still life made in ’68, presented in an independent way and with little documentation. History
she replicated the brutal movement of 8.1 degrees on the Richter scale violently has more to do with the present than with the past. It exists to the extent that there
pulling down the groomed and colourful breakfast. She documented this action on is an interest in doing it Without this interest there can be no history and the art of
a video work. disaster would just become one more in a long series of disasters.
In Mexico there are also artists that keep on working over the same subject,
such is the case of Amor Muñoz. Without having knowledge that the same works Works cited
were done about the earthquake of ’85, she designed a diagram to produce seis- Padilla Ignacio, Arte y olvido del terromoto. Editorial Almadía, Mexico 2010.
Debroise Olivier, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Teratoma A.C. La era de la discrepancia: arte y cultura visual en
mic alarms. She distributes this diagram in the streets so people can build their own
México; 1968-1997. Turner Ediciones S.A., México 2006.
alarms. It is a very simple system that consists in a series of pendulums that acti-
vate a speaker when they move. She built her own shopping cart with alarms that
activate not only with earthquakes but with simple movements. She pushes it
through the streets and public squares such as the Zocalo in downtown Mexico
City. Most of all she is interested in the social interaction where the people can par-
ticipate directly in finding solutions and answers to nature’s inevitable disasters.
Recently, Ignacio Padilla, the writer, published Arte y olvido del terremoto
(Art and Oblivion of the Earthquake). This book parts from the thesis that one of
the functions of the artist is to memorialize historical events and affirms that there
is a lack of attention of artists towards the ’85 earthquake which has generated
a ghost who can not find rest. This conclusion is particularly wrong, as there is a
great amount of contemporary art produced during this decade in Mexico and it is
probably some of the most interesting and critical of modernity. The monuments
that usually memorialize historical events are of a scale that Padilla couldn’t distin-
guish, for him they are large public commissions that in any case would make the
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 316 DAY 1 | A Minimal Sampler of Catastrophic Events 317
DAY 2 Science in our time continues to peak, increasing its influence on so many philo-
sophical and artistic expressions as it has done over the centuries. Yet, despite the
many recent discoveries of great transcendence, today scientific knowledge does
Technoscience: not inspire the same optimism it brought about a hundred years ago. In fact, quite
on the contrary, nowadays it is somewhat clear that the technological development
made possible by science is the main cause of the planets catastrophic transformation.
We have, on the hand, a clearer notion of the magnitude of the challenges we face
in a much more complex world that past generations had, and, on the other hand, the
Disaster
awareness of a technological power previously unthinkable, that sporadically runs
out of control with devastating consequences.
and Panacea
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 320 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 321
to turbulent; or the change in the gait of a moving animal as its speed increases, stable ones constitute, in effect, seven different universal patterns for catastrophes.
forcing it to go from walking to trotting, or even to break into a gallop. The larger (Again, seven within the narrow class being modelled. When we add a fifth causal
scale critical events that constitute human catastrophes are in many cases based factor, for example, four other universal patterns must be added).3 The reason these
on these smaller ones. The thunderstorms that give birth to the tornados that cause patterns are called “universal” is that catastrophe theory says nothing about the
so much damage every year, are formed by the coupling of two phase transitions: mechanisms behind the processes in which qualitative discontinuities occur: it
the one that gives rise to wavy or convective flow—a typical thunderstorm possessing demands that the process be driven by a gradient but this can be any reservoir of
five to eight convection cells—and the one that, by turning steam into water droplets, potential energy (electrical, thermal, gravitational, chemical); and it demands that
liberates the energy that allows the amplification of convection cells until they reach the causal factors number only four, but does not specify the nature of the causes.
several kilometres in diameter. Thus, the study of the featu es of critical events at This implies that many different processes, embodying entirely different causal
scales that would not be problematic for human beings may be necessary to study the mechanisms, can display similar behaviour when critical events take place.
features of those that are. Catastrophe theory concentrates on a particular type of The indifference on the part of the patterns to the causal details is what raises
critical event: abrupt qualitative changes in processes driven by a single gradient the expectation that catastrophe theory can be applied in many different fields. It has
or potential. A gradient is constituted by a difference in intensity, like two masses of been used, for example, to model the threshold of discontent that can trigger a prison
air or water at different temperatures, pressures, or speeds. When two such masses riot, although such social applications remain controversial.4 For the same reason
come into contact the whole they form constitutes a reservoir of potential energy, a it could be used to model psychological events like the intense grief or sadness that
reservoir that may be used to drive another process. The meteorological maps familiar can push a person to the breaking point, unable to recover after the deep loss and
to viewers of television news, with their zones of high and low pressure, and their cold never being the same person again. Any actual human catastrophe, like that on the
and warm fronts, are a good illustration of how mobile gradients give the atmos- wake of Katrina, involves critical events of all these different types: the natural dis-
phere its capacity to generate entities like thunderstorms or hurricanes. But the same aster of the collision of the hurricane with New Orleans; the engineering debacle
gradients are also what drives many industrial processes: the steam engines behind constituted by the breeching of the levees; the breaking of social order that trans-
the Industrial Revolution made use of temperature and pressure differences in much formed some communities into looting mobs; the psychological impact on individuals,
the same way that hurricanes do. Elementary catastrophe theory restricts itself to some of whom left the city broken, bowing never to return. And then, of course, the
systems that are driven by a single gradient and that are affected by no more than organizational failure and the resulting loss of legitimacy of the authority of the bureau-
four different causal factors.2 Many processes, particularly in biology, are driven by cracies involved, a legitimacy they won’t recover until another critical event gives
more than one gradient, and involve more than four factors, so these must be stud- them the opportunity to display character and ability. The philosopher of science
ied either by extensions of the elementary theory, or by other related fields (like Michel Serres is the theorist who has made the most out of the universality of these
bifurcation theory). Nevertheless, the philosophically important features are already patterns. He finds, for example, the same gradients (as reservoirs of energy) and
displayed in the elementary theory so we can confine our attention to this case. The the same series of abrupt discontinuities in technological objects like steam engines,
most important insight is that, for the narrow class of processes tackled by the theory, and in cultural objects like the paintings of Turner or the novels of Zola. Some Zola’s
there are only seven different ways for discontinuous behaviour to take place. There novels, in particular, are adept at linking the different types of disaster just men-
are, in fact, an infinite number of ways in which discontinuities can happen, but it can tioned (natural, engineering, social, psychological) thus constituting, in Serre’s own
be shown that the majority of these collapses into the seven structurally stable ones words, “a circulation of catastrophes”.5 Thinking about catastrophes as critical events
when faced with even minor fluctuations. Since the world is always filled with small
fluctuations of many types, and since these cannot be eliminated, unstable ways
3
of undergoing qualitative change will tend not occur in reality. This means that the Ibid. p. 55.
4
Ibid. p. 118-119.
5
Michel Serres. It Was Before the (World) Exhibition. In The Bachelor Machines. (Rizzoli, New York, 1975),
2
Ibid. p. 42. p. 69.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 322 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 323
taking place over a range of scales—some striking with overwhelming force, patterns together an entire programmable computer can be built inside the space
others occurring at manageable intensities—suggests that some catastrophes created by the Game of Life!6
may afford us not just risks but also opportunities. A life that is stable and routine, When scientists confronted this enormous potential, a potential that we may
in which the consequences of our actions are always predictable, is not conducive want to call “creative”, they studied the only thing that could be responsible for it:
to creativity. When artists find a style that is safe, a style that brings steady eco- the interaction rules. The space of possible rules contains many cases in which the
nomic rewards, for example, they may become averse to innovation, since any patterns that result are boring and repetitive (rigid rules) or on the contrary, in which
novelty introduced into their lives is a risk, at the very least, the risk of failure. no pattern forms (loose rules). The rules of the Game of Life fall right in between
But for the same reason, such artists are likely to stagnate and lose their capacity the two extremes. The “sweet spot” seems to be located near the edge that sepa-
to surprise. To avoid this fate many artists in history have deliberately lived their rates the ordered from the disordered state (hence the expression “edge of
lives on the edge of manageable crises, in the vicinity of small catastrophes, chaos”). Or more exactly, it is located not right at the edge, a point that would be
although in some cases they may have underestimated the consequences of trig- too precarious, but in its vicinity, displaced a bit towards the ordered side.7 When
gering critical events and paid dearly for it. This condition sometimes referred to the space of all possible rules was subjected to rigorous statistical analyses it
as life at the edge of chaos, can also be explored mathematically to search for uni- became clear that the edge separating rigid routines from unregulated interaction had
versal patterns. all the characteristics of a phase transition. In other words, the cellular automata
The mathematics involved are very different from catastrophe theory. While that displayed the greatest creative potential were poised at the brink of catastrophe,
the latter uses continuous mathematics (differential geometry, the calculus of vari- but far enough from it not to trigger the critical event. The question then became
ations) the edge of chaos is explored using discrete mathematics, the type made whether this was a universal pattern and, in particular, whether physical phase
possible by digital computers. An important branch of this other type of math transitions also possessed this creative potential. Some evidence exists that real
deploys populations of the simplest automata, machines that can carry out com- processes poised at the edge between ordered and disordered states do in fact dis-
putations without using any memory, and investigates the effects of their interac- play spontaneous “computational” capacities. Indeed, biological evolution may have
tions with each other. The interactions are determined by formal rules so it becomes exploited the abilities that emerge in this special zone of intensity to endow its
possible to study the effect that the degree of rigidity of the rules has in the overall structures (membranes, cytoskeleton, the double helix itself) with flexibility and
effect. In other words, the consequences of rules that are too rigid (like unchanging adaptability.8 Although this extension of the findings of cellular automata to the
routines) or too loose (like a fully disordered life) can be explored. Sets of rules that material world is today highly speculative, it does point to important consequences:
are in between these two extremes, not too stable but not too unstable either, pro- not only the rules by which we live our lives, but those that regulate our communi-
duce astonishing effects, the best example of which is the popular Game of Life. ties and organizations, cities and countries, may need to come from that special
Although in principle the population of automata can consist of physical machines, zone in the space of possible rules.
in practice the automata are not hardware but software simulations. Each simulat- And if that turns out to be correct then catastrophes may not only be useful
ed automaton’s position is fixed inside a polygonal cell; the automaton interacting because they test our character and ability, but also because the neighbourhood
only with neighbours whose cells shared vertices or edges. For this reason the field of critical events may hold the secret to creativity.
is called “cellular automata”. In the Game of Life a deceptively simple set of rules
governs interactions that change the state of each automaton depending on the
state of its neighbours. Despite their simplicity, however, the rules lead to the emer-
gence of an unexpectedly rich variety of collective patterns of states. Some of these
6
patterns arise spontaneously, like the famous “glider”, a collective pattern that Christopher G. Langton. Life at the Edge of Chaos. In Artificial Life II. Edited by Christopher G. Langton,
Charles Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, Steen Rasmussen. (Redwood City: Addison-Wesley, 1992), p. 73.
moves diagonally across the automaton population. Others are designed using the 7
Ibid. p. 76.
basic ones as building blocks. It can be shown that using many natural and designed 8
Ibid. p. 86.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 324 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 325
Superflex & Patrick Charpenel
Conversation
Today, humans live enclosed in a political and economic system that hasn’t been able
to ensure neither stability nor welfare. Today, we operate in a structure that generates
differences and conflicts within our various communities. Currently we foster an econ-
omy that compromises natural resources in exchange for strengthening the wealth
of the fortunate few. For that reason, we have now created a system that promotes
discontinuity, contradiction and nonlinearity in the way we operate. The etymology
of the word catastrophe comes from the Greek katastréphein, meaning to overturn,
which is composed of the prefix kata meaning downwards and of the verb fein that
refers to the idea of turning. Thus, the literal meaning of this notion is to put things
upside down. Today, as we all know, in Mexico we live upside down, in reverse, back-
wards. We live in a state of nearly absolute catastrophe. Contemporary art, with its
ability to introduce new variables into the linguistic and social platforms of this great
global structure, can and must change the material and symbolic order of our world.
This explains the tendency for art, especially contemporary, to generate political
experiences at Biennials and international exhibitions.
Today, with the presence of the Danish collective, Superflex, we face a unique
case. This is a group of activists who generate different social experiences from an
art platform. For this reason, I would like to talk to them about their work and their
political stance.
Before I begin the conversation with two members of this collective, I would like
to briefly explain how this presentation will be carried out. First, I will ask them ques-
tions. This will lead the way towards a dialogue. Afterwards, this dialog will be open to
the audience and we will close with the presentation of a video entitled The Financial
Crisis. It is essential for the content of this presentation that we conclude with this video.
Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (2004) So we will have to limit the audience’s questions to 3 or 4. Unfortunately, time does
CYPRIEN GAILLARD not allow us to extend ourselves for too long. Now I will switch languages to hold a
Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (2003-2008) is a
fluent dialogue with Bjornstjerne and Jakob.
series of ephemeral actions, related to Land Art and
documented on video and photography. Gaillard Patrick Charpenel: Thank you for being here with us at this symposium, and for visiting
puts in operation industrial extinguishers in carefully
selected spaces, among which is the iconic Spiral
us here in Mexico. I know that it has been a long trip for you.
Jetty by Robert Smithson. Bjornstjerne Christiansen & Jakob Fenger: On the contrary, thank you for your invitation.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 328 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 329
a main idea: to launched proposals of a power system for families living in rural the NGO who are still producing and working on this project. This was the goal we
areas in Tanzania. I’ll talk about the technical issues and then explain how it works. could reach. They are still installing and developing the system on their own. In
For starters, you place organic material inside a methane system. We devel- Mexico we will also establish a long-term relationship that is far-reaching. We’ve
oped a system in collaboration with engineers in which there are two chambers been getting together with people and now we are able to make a system that will be
that make a back and forth movements. The gases come out of there. The whole commercially produced at a massive scale. We’ve improved the three elements
system is based on organic waste, which eventually produces gas. The waste goes up that we had trouble with before. This is a device that is one meter tall and that can
and at some point the valve opens and the elements mix. Essentially, it is biogas and be introduced into the ground to produce gas. Here we have reached a very ambi-
we are sure we did not invent the system; it has existed for many years. But what we tious stage, which is what we were interested in doing. We also did some work-
did with it, specifically in Tanzania, was that we saw the project as a potential shops and clinics in Mexico City… Next we’ll do water tests and then we’ll install the
aid project. Organizations working in Africa bring money and different projects. We first biogas systems in Guadalajara. Afterwards, we’ll install ten prototypes in different
wanted our project to be a product that families could buy, and if they didn’t want to places around Mexico. The sky is the limit, so to speak! It is indeed an ambitious
buy it, then it was because they did not need it. That was the concern. We wanted project. We are very happy that this has come true in Mexico. It’s been very inter-
to introduce it in the households. Here you can see images from the first experi- esting to meet with investing companies from all over the world. They invest in sys-
ment. The first one is centred on these two plastic bags. Several years after, we did tems, the system is better positioned, the balance rises, etc.
the second test in Cambodia along with an organization, an independent university. For example, in Africa, the people could not buy it, now it is affordable. People
They are involved in biogas technology projects: they go to diverse regions in the can install those systems with their own incomes. It has enabled exchanges. This is
country and introduce different systems. We did it to show what the project was the kind of economy we should respect. In Mexico, we are working to develop an
about, and then we worked with people from Tanzania. Here you can see the kitchen. efficient system to give people an idea of what they can achieve with low incomes.
It’s a brief video showing how the system should be installed. First, you clean the We hope that this will be the final model.
earth, then you clear the debris and you make a hole. The idea behind this project PC: It’s very interesting to observe the impact it could have on people, and also on
had to do with technology that is quite complicated. A brick dome had to be built. the economy.
It’s quite complicated and requires skills and knowledge to do it, to come up with JF: We try to conserve an ‘open’ philosophy, I mean, knowledge evolves if we leave
solutions like these. We thought that it should be a system that can be easily things open, other possibilities arise. We can apply some of these strategies. For
installed. I would like to add that it was very important for us to work with cutting- example, in India we thought this tool could be useful with a technology difference
edge technology because the fact that their income is low does not imply they can’t from ours, adapt it to India’s reality. Tools have a different impact in different regions
afford this or that they have to pay a high price for it, no. The idea is that they can but we have an idea of how they could be used.
actually buy it within their income and still have cutting-edge technology. So the PC: Because of timing, I think we could now open the discussion to the audience
family would feels proud of having their own source of energy and therefore become and then we’ll watch a video related to the word catastrophe. Unfortunately, we do
more independent. Finally, money has to be spent in fossil fuels. The important thing not have enough time to open up the discussion to many questions and comments.
was to try to develop something that was affordable and had high quality standards. From now on we’ll open up the dialogue with the audience. We can’t go on for too
Here in Mexico this has to be an important consideration, it needs to be redesigned. long so if anyone has a question or a comment, please, this is the moment.
Later, an artist friend invited us to Shanghai to do a test so the people could Participant: Could the system be escalated in a community for other uses rather
experiment with it. We had to modify the system because the structure was also than just one house or one household? Is there a more complex workshop and
new. But here we already had the wells in the ground. And every year, wherever we could these be better interrelated so you don’t tend only to one home?
go, we know that the system must be modified. We had people from around the world JF: Well, our focus has been the household but it could take place anywhere. We
participating, and who want to acquire the system because they see that they’re have made these biogas systems in small size and scale. If you want to be a part
useful and work. We worked in Tanzania for three years with trained members of of this kind of investment, we think that the family structure is ideal. There have
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 330 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 331
been attempts to escalate the system to communities and it can be more difficult, product and then sit on it. They don’t promote it, they don’t disseminate it, and they
but yes, technically, a larger scale is possible. don’t know to what extent it can be put to use. For us, the method we’ve followed is
BC: Also, there are state resources. This gives a sense of pride; people are given the the most viable. We are trying to work. Although we do have a patent, it is dated dates
chance to feel that they can achieve certain independency, so the project can be taken from ’96 or ’97 when we first started to work. But we waived the patent. Even though
to communities and also to the market. But during the fifteen years that we have everybody says “you have to have a patent first” but it was never about investing
worked in Eastern Africa and Cambodia, our experience demonstrates that this must in a product for poor families in Africa. We don’t believe in those mechanisms.
starts at the household level and in the families before entering the whole community. PC: One last question
Participant: But if they decide to do so, could you help and assist during the intro- Participant: Since you have tried to implement this device in Denmark and Europe
duction of a bigger system so a workshop could take place in a small community? in general, what do you think about this gap in the sense that when we refer to
If they wanted to have a workshop, would it be possible? Europe or the US, gas is still gas but comes from cleaner technologies. This is
JF: What we did was to produce a system guide where it states, “do it yourself.” You something that is being used nowadays. That is my first question. The other one is:
could do it at any scale you like or need to. The communities could decide to do Did you use a real McDonald’s in your video or did you have to reconstruct it?
them on their own. We have highlighted the importance of this practice: a product that BC: The McDonald’s was built for this piece. We built the building from scratch and
can and should enter a small-scale economy. Our experience has shown that this the image of the restaurant is a studio production. And regarding the gas project:
is really how it works. Moreover, we think that on an economic level, we have biogas systems exist in Denmark but in a much larger scale. It is very hard to iso-
reached a point where an investment could be made and then use the gas for late it since the temperature changes. In Africa, we have much more stable weath-
cooking, and this could be done during a period of fifteen years. The cost for a hand- er. Our focus therefore is precisely to reach those areas. The technology is simpler,
built system is one thousand dollars more or less, but we think that the price could not as complex and at the moment, we are not interested in entering Denmark.
be lower.
BC: We have developed a product that could be produced in a massive manner.
We have to find the right partners in Mexico, the investors. But we are very happy
with the partners we already have for this project. It began with Patrick, for example.
PC: Cuauhtémoc, please.
Participant: It’s a matter of how you negotiate the fact that you are looking for investors
and how you want this to work in a capitalist market. What is the technological
structure? There is a precondition to the investment, and it has to do with techno-
logical property through patents.
BC: That was in the old world. This has now given way to new strategies, and is more
accessible. If we have a product we can be distributed, and do it affordably. So we can
no longer think about protection and patent. It really does not interest us. Protection
today means that it should be open and in circulation. We are protecting the prod-
uct idea. We don’t want to store it in a box. We believe this is the best structure.
Participant: Yes, but in terms of negotiation: you find investors, but you are not sell-
ing the technology. Don’t they get a percentage of it?
BC: Yes, people can invest in this in the same way they can invest in a medicine
with a patent. But our philosophy is very different. Anything could happen. We have
to stay open to really make the product accessible. There’s people who have a
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 332 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 333
Finales century and the first half of the Twentieth, and whose cult object is the score laying
upon the music stands.
You could ask how this tradition has managed—despite all its pedagogical,
PABLO VARGAS LUGO infrastructural, and organizational needs—to exert such a powerful attraction.
Today orchestras, concert rooms and classical music programs are still part of the
cultural agenda of almost any city of reasonable scale in our continent; not to men-
tion the huge supply that you can find all over Europe, cradle of this tradition, and
This is a presentation about music—specifically, symphonic music. Firstly, I give it the proliferation of conservatoires, orchestras and prodigious performers in China,
as an aficionado wishing to share some of his tastes. Secondly, I am motivated by Japan or South Korea. How is it that a tradition that began in Courtesan Europe and
the embarrassing silence surrounding the genre we know as classical music (I will developed throughout the turbulent processes of industrialization and creation of
deal with the definition of this term later on). I don’t mean silence in the sense of Nation States, a tradition that then took a look in the mirror of the years before
the appreciations that may arise from a more or less successful interpretation, World War I and reflected music that seemed not even to want to listen to itself,
where the qualities of a performer may be compared and contrasted with those of was capable of defining itself as such a high an achievement of civilization, indis-
others, nor do I mean silence in biographical or musicological data that could fill pensable for any nation? It could be argued that other European cultural institu-
entire libraries. I mean the silence regarding the contents of music beyond the tions—such as the museum—were exported throughout the world as part of the
merely descriptive, which offers a powerful contrast to that of the field of visual arts, colonization process, and today carry out their problematic function now aware of
where the proliferation of texts is commonplace, and where it is possible, without their own context. But none of these institutions remains in such a defiant state
intending to be ironic, to publish complete collections about art without a single of suspended animation, with a repertoire resisting change or refusing to break with
image. The analysis of music is a sort of aphoristic and isolated exercise, and if it its own routine and conventions. Thus, even today, the moment of highest libera-
weren’t for thinkers such as Saïd or Adorno we would face a wasteland when dis- tion for a symphony orchestra consists in playing its own version of mambo or a
cussing the development of musical language in the past century, which has wit- danzón that no one can dance to.
nessed year by year, the increased withdrawal of so-called erudite music into the I could quote two reasons as adequate explanation to this: the first one, is the
niche it occupies within cultural production. musical text itself, of which the writing establishes a language barrier at the same
To begin with, we could ask what distinguishes what we call classical music time as it overcomes many others, offering, as few other instances do, an illusion
from the rest of the musical genres. I believe that the answer to this question is in of universality. The second one is the institutionalism that music and its ritual incar-
the primacy of the musical text. Other traditions, such as the Indian musical tradition, nate, and which shelters a community in the armour of civilization. In fact, to find a
for example, emphasize the figure of a singer or instrumentalist who is capable of similar level of codification you would have to be present at an act of government, at
developing extended improvisations from a series of strict parameters. Classical music a religious ritual or at one of the more stale university ceremonies. This institutional
places its focus on the composer, whose intentions are expressed in a sophisticated function is one that music adopted gladly during the nineteenth century, coinciding
system of writing that establishes and restricts the terms of interpretation, leaving with the foundation of professional orchestras and their distancing from the cour-
a minimum of space for improvisation. On the other hand, it moves music away tesan and ecclesiastic world that had sheltered musical production for 200 years.
from its function in social life—as accompaniment for celebrations, as part of a reli- This independence allowed for a growing autonomy of musical language, of
gious rite or a narrative vehicle—establishing the ritual of listening as a separate which symphonies are one of the paradigmatic forms. This form derives from small
act submitted to its own conventions. The imposing concert hall, the solemn instrumental interludes of two or three movements included in operas or oratorios,
silence that takes over the audience, the nervous coughs, the strict etiquette of and which, by the end of the eighteenth century, began to be interpreted as works
applause, the gala dress code, the tuning of the orchestra, the entrance of the in their own right. The instrumental character and the collective interpretation of a
director or the soloist, are all elements of a ritual refined during the nineteenth symphony left aside the necessity of placing music at the service of one narration
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 334 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 335
or to write music for a singer or soloist to show off. Within a more or less conven- student facing a test, or the soccer fan before the decisive penalty. When an admirer
tional structure, symphonies opened a space for the free development of musical made up that Beethoven referred to that moment as “destiny knocking at the door,”
ideas and soon became the genre that gave legitimation and perspective to the he never imagined that a comedian (I don’t know who, but I am sure that it was a
ambitions and talents of a composer. comedian) would take it in such a literal way, and that it would end up being
This brief introduction establishes the frame in which to begin discussing the hummed before the most trivial decisions. But instead of revisiting that beginning,
subject of this presentation: the symphonic ending. In this exercise we will emulate let us begin by this end:
a bad reader, one who is bored or anxious and looks at the final pages of his novel
to know what has been the destiny of the characters that the writer has taken care Beethoven Video 5' 47"
of developing throughout hundreds and hundreds of pages. In fact, the comparison
between symphony and novel is not random, and though it would probably require If until recently symphonies ended with a rondo—a movement of quick pace and
a student of culture more sharp and disciplined than I to offer the historical and comparatively light musical material—that finished with more or less predictable,
theoretical fundaments of that relationship, it’s not hard to map the tribulations, graceful and ingenious resolutions, this seems to delimit a territory, hermetically
conundrums, aspirations and throes of destiny that the novelistic art puts its char- closing a sonorous frontier. Music literally accumulates all of the performers’ ener-
acters through onto the thematic developments modulations, dramatic climaxes and gies in a cavalcade towards the end, which seems to postpone at every climax. In
tragic or triumphal resolutions of a symphony’s musical motifs. The novel explores this end, the C major chord is repeated about twenty times. Using Edward Saïd’s
the mystery of individuality through time, and builds a narrative world alive in its own words, the composer seems to say “C major is mine, mine, mine,” appropriating it
right and on its own terms. A symphony opens a new sonorous universe that, as the in his own right after an exercise of heroic individualism. If you can frequently hear
nineteenth century develops, becomes more ample and enveloping, more extensive lighthearted talk of “musical architectures” to describe complex and ambitious
in time, more extravagant in its ambitions and trusting in its autonomy. But unlike compositions, here the simile is not entirely inaccurate, since chords play the role
the novel, which must be grounded in historical and quotidian conflicts, the sym- of columns, elements of structure which are at the same time their portal and their
phonic form seems to move towards rarefaction, involved on its own language and support. Thus, the idea of the classical acquires an unusual expression.
apparently alienated from the social and discursive spheres. Symphonies have If the symphonic orchestra manifests the existence of a wealthy and organized
become most complete expressions of this illusion that keeps classical music as a society, the power given to the composer by placing this device in his hands—and
paradoxically mute object of veneration. the expectations that this awakened—were the expression of a bourgeoisie ever
So, what could be the content of this music? Could we elucidate it from the 15 more confident in its aspirations. The heroic ending is at the same time a closure
or 20 beats that close one piece? I look to the end because that is where the piece of the musical construction and a guideline for the reappearance, so to speak, of
draws its relation with the silence that follows, and with the silence preceding the the community gathered around the score in their ovation or rejection of the piece.
first measure. In the end, the composer must decide what to do with the sonorous But before long, antiheroes begin to appear on stage. The second example comes
world he has created, and which has reclaimed from the spectators not only their from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique: a piece that pretends to musically
entire attention, but also their immobility and silence. The composer can choke it, narrate the tribulations of an artist in love, who, submerged in a narcotic dream,
lose it in the heights, punch it to death, take it to paroxysm or simply make it stop, hallucinates having murdered his beloved, assists afterwards to his own execution
as someone stops a locomotive or pulls down the sails in a ship. The orgasm, the and is then witness of a Witch’s Sabbath around his grave, where he will be tor-
fall, death and catastrophe are codified in these final notes, which are a good start- mented by the spirit of his deceased beloved. Here, a quotation from Dies Irae, a
ing point to explain the cultural weight of these works and to understand the world hymn from the mass for the dead, mixes with a sort of diabolic dance in a frenetic
of sonorous imagination that opens and closes their scores. and accelerated ending, which final chord seems, nonetheless, to leave the narration
As a first example let’s take a look at the most famous symphony of all, the in an ellipse, stressing its unreality:
only one whose notes have entered our every day lexicon. “Ta-ta-ta-ta,” hums a
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Berlioz Video 40" surroundings, and in it, it is possible to move from the cleanest heroic illusion to
the literal disintegration of the orchestra’s ensemble.
In the symphonic tradition, works as deliberately narrative as this one are the excep-
tion more than the rule. However, Berlioz does nothing if not make explicit that Mahler Fragment 1: 8"
which can be appreciated even in the pieces with a language that intends to dis-
tance itself from any program or philosophical statement: that things happen to Here, the inheritance of the Beethovian ending isn’t difficult to perceive, with the
music. That, beyond musical purity, themes cut into each other, intermingles, illumi- D Major chord repeated about ten times. We must go a little further, to the Third
nate or darken in recognizable ways. That, the inflections of speech and the body’s Symphony—which is still the longest composition in the symphonic repertoire—to
rhythms will always be contained in musical phrases. It is enough to listen to the encounter this anomaly. It happens in the middle of the first movement, where the
last beats of the exemplary composer of Romanticism, Brahm’s Fourth Symphony. music seems to get caught in a whirlwind and reinforced towards a premature ending.
Here, before exaltation there is precipitated fall. Violins seem almost to deny their The fragments of the theme that opens the movement can be heard here and
role, and, more than drawing a limit, the ending seems like a tear: there, enunciated in a heroic or a comical way, leaving the listener with the feeling
of having witnessed a true debacle.
Brahms 26"
Mahler Fragment 3A, 46"
Pieces such as Brahms’, however, set the precedent for an increasing rarefication of
musical material. Symphonies gained in length, orchestras gained in size and writ- This musical shipwreck is emblematic of all the later Mahlerian production, busy with
ing gained in ambition, density and complexity. Symphonies such as Bruckner’s the constant undermining of the musical material that is presented under a certain
are done without consideration for the listener’s time, convinced of the compos- light, only to mutate after having its integrity and aspirations questioned by all kinds
er’s privilege and the necessity of carrying his ideas as far as possible, which in of antithetical resources. No wonder Mahler prefigures the final distancing of the
Brucknerian technique possibly means slower and higher. By the end of his Eighth classical tradition in dodecaphony. He doesn’t do it by a mere technical procedure,
Symphony, the horns, the trumpets and the violins articulate among each other the however, but by a kind of historization of the material, which becomes the subject of
four movements’ themes, with a parsimony that reminds us of a procession more a time that is no longer mere duration, but also degradation and atrophy. And yet,
than a cavalcade. Yet what peeks out in the articulation of these phrases is something the Third Symphony arrives to a more familiar ending: a slow and extremely prolonged
more than the alpine heights or the slow transit of the clouds. version of the previously shipwrecked theme. Something is expressed here that
reminds us of an encounter with the ocean, as if musical breath didn’t stop but no
Bruckner Video 1:30 longer had a place to stand.
Is it too daring to find in this ending the heavy rhythm of a locomotive slowing down? Mahler Fragment 3B, 1'
After all, Bruckner has been criticized for his tendency towards the mechanical
repetition of themes, which seem to get blocked and move towards the next step Let us continue with Gustav Mahler. His Sixth Symphony is like the distorted image
only to stop once again. It would be to risky to depict Bruckner as a predecessor of of the first, and the glimpses of heroism are once and again abated by sardonic
minimalism, but I think it attractive to speculate about the reflection of a mechanical trills and degrading mutations. The ending is twice stopped in its development by
attraction in his work, in which the author himself and his admirers want to see a what the composer describes as the “bangs of a hammer” that must be played by a
movement towards the transcendental. kind of hybrid between a drum and a sarcophagus. After the two hammer bangs,
The essential author to give meaning to this exercise is Gustav Mahler. and the music literally agonizing, there’s one last coup de grâce that never stops
Mahler’s music represents the symphonic genre’s most reflexive look towards its surprising even the most experienced listener.
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Mahler Fragment 6, 0:30 The passage following this collapse is long and desolate, barely illuminated by the
final notes of the celesta, that can’t but remind us of the last beats from The Song
In The Song of the Earth—a work which is not properly a symphony but that, con- of the Earth. But unlike that one, this one is submerged in a threatening calm.
sidering the entire oeuvre of this composer can only be considered as part of his
symphonic production—Mahler abandons the references to military bands and peas- Shostakovich Fragment 4B 1:59
ant dances and lowers the tone of his exalted melodies. In their place, he decides to
put into music a series of Chinese poems translated to German, with an orchestra The conflictive relationship Shostakovich had with Stalin’s regime also left its imprint
of considerable dimensions, yet which is rarely listened to in its entirety. Instead the in the history of this piece. Fearful of the party’s reaction, accustomed to more opti-
orchestration turns to small groups that form and dissolve in a few beats, giving mistic machinal fables, Shostakovich took it out of the program shortly before its
the entire work an intimate and fleeting feeling. It is remarkable that amongst all of premiere, instead spending his time writing a Fifth Symphony so conventional and
Mahler’s opuses, it is in this weird Chinese universe where the irony seems more falsely triumphalist that the NKVD should have noticed it. Here is the ending:
remote, as if the mask of otherness gave the composer permission to develop the
musical material without looking to where he could trip it up. The last song of Shostakovich Fragment 5 0:48
the cycle, The Farewell, lasts as long as the preceding five, but unlike them, its integrity
seems to be at play, about to lose cohesion, even some of its passages are marked If for Adorno, what he called “the new music”, meaning dodecaphony, did nothing
to be played “without paying attention to time.” The end of this song is a long dis- but push to its last consequences the successive alienation of the musical dis-
appearance of the orchestra, which breathes in before the absolute silence only to course from the society that surrounded it, then Anton Webern’s symphony, a kind
wane once more, while the voice sings the word ewig (eternally) over and over. If we of dwarf star, resulted from the collapse of a form once expansive and heroic. The
understand the symphonic ending as the place where music is articulated with the intricate palindromic structure of this extremely brief piece even turns its beginning
world’s noise that inevitably follows, the end of The Song of the Earth is a sort of and its ending on upside-down. The holes opened by Mahler in The Song of the Earth’s
gradual surrender. orchestration here become almost insurmountable spaces between sounds, holding
each other in a fragile balance of cannons, inversions and series, which are now
Video Mahler Lied 1:13 the only possible structure sustaining musical discourse.
There are multiple ramifications to Mahler’s work. On the one hand, we have the Webern Fragment
Viennese school of Schönberg, Webern and Berg. On the other, composers such as
Dimitri Shostakovich, who sought to continue the symphonic tradition, modernizing We could however end with a slightly more comforting harmony. These are the final
it without giving into dodecaphonic radicalism. Shostakovich’s case is offered as an chords of the Seventh Symphony by Jan Sibelius, an author frequently disqualified for
interesting reflection of Mahler’s work as seen from the other side of the mirror of his conservatism. This opus, written entirely in C major—the most used tonality of all—
World War I and with the catastrophes of totalitarianism right at its doorstep. In his develops into a continuous movement whose most noticeable characteristic is the near
Fourth Symphony, Shostakovich offers an ending followed by what we could call a very absence of melodic material. The final chord, built slowly, note by note through several
long epilogue. The orchestra is turned into a forced machinery, incapable of moving beats accumulates the sonority of different instrumental groups in a strangely uneven
forward, pushed to a crescendo without resolution that makes it seem as if musicians crescendo. Notes as rays extend beyond its climax: invading the silence that follows.
were reading the sheets upside down.
Sibelius Fragment
Shostakovich Fragment 4A: 45"
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Panel 2 become one of the primary lenses through which evaluate the story. The first
underwater sea helmets with a glass “window” permitted the underwater breathing
SARINA BASTA, DR. AMY SARA CARROL & RICARDO DOMINGUEZ
of the subject, while in the ocean’s depths. This technology existed prior to Verne’s
AND PAULA SIBILIA
novel, in addition to the accompanying ornamented decompression chamber. The
MODERATOR: TOM VANDERBILT
umbilical cord tying the subject to the surface for air, and the heavy gears and
machinery, turned a human subject into a being of an unrecognizable species, as
if to inhabit the otherness of the ocean, a mediating transformation of the subject
was necessary. The submarine Calypso, which the protagonists inhabit for much of
the novel, had capacities unknown yet to engineers of its time.
Oceanomania From a visual perspective, as captured in Alphonse de Neuville’s engravings
accompanying Verne’s original publication, and the monumental paintings Bernard
Managing the Unknown, from Wonder to Depletion Buffet created as a series towards the end of his life in the 1990s, the Calypso
becomes a huge viewing apparatus engulfing the subjects and their books, and all
available knowledge. The apparatus is moving, capturing vistas of an incommen-
SARINA BASTA
surable, underwater landscape. We observe the subjects watching an early form of
cinematic spectacle as they are pulled into the unknown.
These forms of visibility of ocean life permeate the exhibition Oceanomania,
Visualizing the Ocean and with them come the many paradigms and contradictions involved in our
Oceanomania, Souvenirs from Mysterious Seas, is a two-part exhibition, to be held capacity to comprehend the complexity of the Ocean as meta-system. Artist Mark
simultaneously at the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco and the National Museum Dion captures these contradictions, by focusing on the coexistence of wonder created
(NMNM), in April 2011. The concept of Oceanomania derives from the craze for the at the sight of the ocean, and the melancholia that arises upon observing its depletion.
ocean that developed in the late 1700s in Europe and reached its climax after Dion’s point of departure for the exhibition is the Deep Water Horizon Spill oilrig
the 1850s, as interest in the ocean, in its navigation, and in the new discoveries of its explosion, which has long-term repercussions on the environment of an entire region
inhabitants, swept from primary contact with explorers, researchers, and the elite into of the world and whose consequences still have yet to be fully ascertained.
the popular imagination. Risk is an evaluation, which is now often left in the hands of venture capitalists.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw the development of the aquarium The outsourcing of the problem has not of course mitigated the scale of the impact
and the emergence of the first public exhibitions and institutions portraying sea life. of ecological disasters on our environment, human and animal life. Our lack of knowl-
With the removal of the “glass tax” in Britain in 1845, the permeation of glass into all edge, of vision, of having any personal stake in the subject or outcome has become
areas of interior design coincided with this new public curiosity in marine life to bring dramatically exposed during these worst-case scenario events. We do not seem to
these exhibitions into the homes of the middle and upper classes, in the form know how to begin to fix the problem or make amends. Artist Allan Sekula
of vivariums, glass jars, and cabinets. Dead, the specimens were mediated by approaches the notion of risk in his film Lottery of the Sea based on the writings of
the curiosity cabinet, or the glass interface of a jar, while the aquarium permitted the Adam Smith, who introduces the very subject of risk in the life at sea in the eigh-
observation of live ocean specimens. teenth century. In this film Sekula presents the complicated structures of partici-
The surge in interest in the ocean was also fueled by literary fiction, exemplified pants in the modern capitalist relationship to the ocean through the interaction of
by Jules Verne’s 1870 novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. The pro- national and private interests on the one hand, and the seeming absence of account-
tagonist is a natural history museum curator, Nemo, a pluri-disciplinary, renegade, ability among financial, environmental and labor policies, on the other.
engineering genius, whose library and collections kept safely aboard the Calypso
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Between labor and daydream “The great unknown” is in fact a motor for discovery, one where we can be
Writer Fredric Jameson, in The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a socially sym- inspired by the idea of the sublime, the wondrous and the uncanny, seduced by
bolic act (1981) [p. 201] speaks of a literary blindspot to the economic approach George Bataille’s description of the great Formless, sea as parent of all things but
to the Ocean: also of the eroticized sea of the tides, or Michel Foucault analogy between the
“The non Place of the sea is also the space of the degraded language of romance space of the ship and that of madness in Madness and Civilization: A History of
and daydream, of narrative commodity and the sheer distraction of ‘light literature’. Insanity in the Age of Reason, or as a non-place, or a counter-space. We can find
This is however only half the story, one pole of ability to whose objective tension we comfort, inspiration and use in the vision of sea as a space of resistance, one of
must now do justice. For the sea is the empty space between the concrete places of unchartered territory, that of the exiled, outside of national legislature, and of infor-
work and life, but it is also, just as surely itself a place of work and the very element mal relations.
by which an imperial capitalism draws its scattered beachheads and outposts together, But Allan Sekula also puts us in guard of going too far with a certain “neo
through which it slowly realizes its sometimes violent, sometimes silent and corrosive romanticism” about the ocean. There are few if any other territories on earth, which
penetration of the outlying pre capitalist zones of the globe.” people can pride themselves about knowing so little about, besides perhaps the
To Allan Sekula in his remarkable publication Fish Story [2002], underlines an territory of the human brain, and that of the unconscious, an analogy already made
absence noted by Verne: “For all his genius as a naval engineer, Verne’s narrator during Aristotelian times. Many of us would have liked to think that knowing so little
remarks that on the Nautilus’s extensive library: not one single work on political about the ocean, keeping it in the sanctuary of the unknown, or of the wondrous, a
economy; that subject appeared to be strictly proscribed. Nemo’s answer to the sort of mock-virginity, could mean that the ocean could remain somewhat spared from
misery of the land lies in the imaginary pre-industrial plenitude of the sea”. Within the usual machinations of human enterprise—recent history has proven otherwise.
Sekula’s publication lies an extensive analysis of images of representation of the Replicating our rather comforting vision of the ocean as space of other, of the
ocean correlated to the evolution of its use in human enterprise. nourisher and of the unknown, has a true cost in terms of our human management of
One of Sekula’s notable examples is the way our backs were turned to the less the ocean resources and the human labor that takes place on its surface. The BP dis-
romantic cargo transportation of ships that emerged decades after the advent of the aster is significant in that respect—in that it took us 3 months to stop the “leak”—we
steam engine, transforming the docks into sites of ungainly labor, de-estheticized and did not have the knowledge or the technology on hand to master the situation. And the
hence ignored by the very classes that profited from the exchanges on its surfaces. consequences are still not known. The threats of species disappearing have consid-
In his documentary films, Sekula emerges as a specialist of the industrial and financial erably accelerated—before our knowledge of this biodiversity has even been fully
complexities of the ocean, from the shift to container cargos that started in the 50s, uncovered or allowed to develop. The very unknown we have romanticized of the
and the political frameworks or lack of them in the circulation of goods. ocean’s diversity and species that have yet to be discovered, the systems which have
“Thus the proliferation of air-courier companies and mail order catalogues serv- yet to be understood, may be obliterated through a terrifying process of depletion,
ing the professional and leisure needs of the managerial and intellectual classes the dialectal corollary of blind accumulation and exploitation.
does nothing to bring consciousness down to the earth, or to turn it in the direction The Ocean as unknown or forgotten space relates to a more general question
of the sea, the forgotten space.” of an antiquated and romanticized vision of nature still in force today. Contradictory
notions of responsibility, of saving, preserving, and letting be, all suggest that as our
technology advances, so must our understanding of a measured view of ocean
The Great Unknown management, all while hopefully maintaining potentialities for an unexploited sense
These artists in the exhibition are revealing aspects of the ocean in a moment when of wonder.
science and its technology, and technology linked to entrepreneurship, and culture
at large are still grappling with a reality of the ocean as the great unknown, or as
described in Jameson’s quote “the empty space”.
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Dislocative Media, A Ghost Story from tactical media to hacktivism, has hidden behind the slogan “More Than Just
Art!” TBT is a fractal gesture that is no longer part of the histories of network art’s
(or how to rub two stones together in the name attachment to camouflage ecologies, named by Alex Galloway and Thacker in their
book The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (2007) as an allegiance to the “impercep-
of trans_bodies to be/come) tible” or “non-existence” (135).
Through TBT, we aspire to create translucent tunnels into the electronic market
as art and something other. The post-contemporary moment demands artwork that,
DR. AMY SARA CARROLL & RICARDO DOMÍNGUEZ as gestures of visibility, can haunt the fictions of market, of the state. With TBT, we
strive to exceed our own expectations that art must spook the forms and contents
of globalization as network or cloud, though. Through and with this project, we also
1. The Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT) is a last mile safety device designed to lead conspire to connect real bodies to data-bodies as trans_bodies, to disturb the
the disoriented and thirsty—regardless of their nationality—to water caches and atmospheric conditions of post-post 9/11 (1973/2001) in/securities.
safety sites on the U.S. side of the Mexico-U.S. border. It is intended to compliment
the efforts of humanitarian organizations like Border Angels and Water Station, Inc. 3. We went to Port Bou, Spain, to guide a ghost to the United States. Aiding and abet-
Housed on a global positioning system (GPS) enabled platform, TBT is a production of ting unlawful entry into the United States is a federal felony. You cannot speak openly
Electronic Disturbance Theatre (EDT)/b.a.n.g. lab, a collaboration among Ricardo, of shepherding a human being across the border. A ghost is another matter entirely.
me, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, and Brett Stalbaum, which performs a critical
codeswitch on multiple registers. 4. Borders are not boundaries, but perfomatives and performativities that crisscross
One, dislocating the code of locative media, it revalences the so-called “ideolog- the catastrophe of the state; they have the potentiality to represent a stateless-
ical neutrality” of walking tools, while also decentering locative media’s urban bent. aesthetic gone awry. Even as they police, they also gesture towards evidence of “a
Two, interrogating “the language of new media”’s accent on the prosaic, TBT activates turning” without the return of tragedy—as that self-knowledge that sacrifices myths
a conceptual poetics. Three, in the spirit of much post-1968 collective artmaking, of community in the name of activating Justice—as a catastrophe without re-turn.
it is impervious to the supposed borders between art and activism. Just as the Oresteia (Aeschylus 458 B.C.) constructs martyrs as disastrous stars
TBT sports a user-friendly compass interface. It also includes prose poems as enclosed by the force of Law-without-law, without Justice, the Benjaminian ghost
audio files, which offer information about desert survival in multiple languages, we implicitly invoke, via such a vision of borders, disrupts the fault-line of the post-
redistributing facts comparable to those provided in basic desert survival manuals, contemporary function of Empire as one crisis after another.
including ones issued by the U.S. military or briefly by the Mexican government. The French collective Tiqqun writes in Introduction to Civil War (2010), as surely
We have presented this series of poetry, interspersed with poems from a second series as Naomi Klein contends in Disaster Capitalism (2007): “Empire functions best
(more explicit in its conceptual experimentation), in various museum, gallery, and when crisis is ubiquitous. Crisis is Empire’s regular mode of existence […] the tem-
performance venues. The pair function as a single performative utterance, elongated porality of Empire is the temporality of emergency and catastrophe” (Tiqqun 2010:
as the Mexican “isthmus,” rhetorical as the question, “What constitutes sustenance?” 126). TBT ghosts the anomie of mobilized bordering that repeats, restores and dis-
locates tragedy as a non-sovereign engine of indecision calling only for more martyrs
2. With TBT, we seek to remaster the acronym GPS per Laura Borras and Juan Gutierrez’s to sacrifice. In the latter scenario, everyone becomes a victim—“even the oppressors.”
reflections on a “Global Poetic System” (2009).1 Since 1994, network/software art, Yet, learning from Benjamin, we’d counter an in between, an among. Between, among
the catastrophe of petrified borders of history, the tragedy-without-return of disaster
1
capitalisms, and the materialization of baroque tyrannies of atavistic globaliza-
See http://www.hyperrhiz.net/hyperrhiz06/19-essays/74-electronic-literature-as-an-information-system,
accessed 10/10/10. tion—an Empire of disorders—from each of these enclosures arises alter-specters,
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 346 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 347
alter-eucatastrophes, and alter-disasters that, as the positive remainders of trauma, If we live in a world where goods and services a priori have rights to cross bor-
recombine at times; resist constellation at others. A phantom standing reserve with- ders, where things and proto-things create wireless clouds of data, of access and
out reservation. Our Benjaminian revenant stands in for this unquantifiable variable. containment, where a chaosmosis of markets demands aggressive state social fil-
But, he is one, while we speak of more than many who have an ur-name—that of ters, we seek, via TBT, to account for the performative complexities of the new earths
transborder_bodies. upon which we walk and those to come, a geo-aesthetics that recognizes the car-
tographies of trans_bodies with transborder rights as both a necessity and on
5. In August 2010, an uncanny opposition floated, recirculated as air—that of the horizon. We set our watch, our watches against disorientation in the service of
refrigerated trailer trucks. At the end of July, before seventy-two migrants’ bodies an artwork to ark a geo-philosophy for bodies that already are flowing as trans_bor-
were found in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, fifty-one bodies were dis- ders across the continent’s arcs. Key practices that fractalize our geo-aesthetic
covered in mass graves east of Monterrey, Mexico.2 Using backhoes to dig up the include artivism, tactical poetries, hacktivism(s), new media theatre, border distur-
deceased, Mexican soldiers temporarily stored their grisly evidence of narco-vio- bance technologies, augmented realities, queer technologies, transnational femi-
lence in refrigerated trailer trucks. In eerily consonant contrast, on the U.S. side of nisms and code, digital Zapatismo, intergalactic performance, ________ (please
the border, Arizona’s Pima county coroner in July saw an uptick of crossers found help us to fill in the blanks and voids).
dead in the desert from heat-related causes. “To accommodate the bodies” in the
triple digit temperatures, the county parked a fifty-foot refrigerated trailer truck in 7. If you ride the train from Barcelona to the French border, Port Bou is the last
the coroner’s receiving area.3 Spanish stop you’ll encounter. A guarded fishing village in possession of an Arcadian
It’s hard not to ponder the ironies of this juxtaposition as they relate to the per- train depot, Port Bou has reproduced various scenes of “migrant melancholia”
ilous terms of crossing. It’s also hard not to return to Luis Alberto Urrea’s transcrip- (Schmidt Camacho 2008) over the course of the twentieth century. In the 1920s
tions of a Mexican consul’s observations in The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (2004). via its eponymously named “La route Lister” over the Pyrenees, Spanish Civil War
After the dead bodies of the “Yuma 14” were flown via chartered jet home to their Republican General Lister smuggled supporters and soldiers across the Spanish-
villages in Veracruz, Rita Vargas considered the costs of their special transport Franco border. In the 1940s, European Jews and others attempting to escape the
($68,000). “What if,” she asked, “somebody had simply invested that amount in Nazis’ invading France, also risked their lives on “La route Lister,” dreaming of
their villages to begin with?” Buenos Aires or New York by way of Casablanca or Tangiers. Even now, guide-
books speak of North Africans and Eastern Europeans’ gambling on “no questions
6. TBT is border disturbance art that, conjuring a geo-aesthetic meets geo-ethics asked” anonymity in Port Bou. In sum, it is a border town.
gesture against the boundaries which crisscross every single body on the planet, Of course, Port Bou celebrates one migrant, who ‘chose’ to remain. Walter
boots up at the nanoscale, interpellating itself into the GPS grid which envelopes Benjamin’s makeshift memorialization is practically a cottage industry, certainly
our planet in its opaque mists. Imagine a geo-aesthetics that connects both the Port Bou’s supplemental income. In a small kiosk for tourists in the village’s centre,
human and the inhuman, geography and ethics. Imagine a geo-aesthetics that guides sell the catalogue for Israeli artist Dani Karavan’s permanent “environment,”
crosses into and dislocates the fog of geo-spatial mobility that rallies ethical objects Homage to Walter Benjamin (1994) and a couple of other books. Or, for the more
and multiple forms of sustenance. economically minded, there are postcards, which juxtapose the Port Bou of the
1940s with its 2004 successor.
On the rainy, summer day we arrive, we walk Port Bou’s tiny harbor-side
promenade, taking in the Mediterranean, the dramatic framing device of the jagged
2
See http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-bodies-20100825,0,2229485.story and seaside cliffs. We descend steep steps to the level of the water and a narrow beach.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/25/world/la-fg-mexico-bodies-20100725, both accessed 10/10/10.
3
We collect sea stones and shells. The sunset is muted by the heavy cloud cover as
See http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-deaths-20100824,0,5950093.story,
accessed 10/10/10. if the sky were huddled beneath a thick down blanket. In the dwindling twilight, we
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 348 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 349
find and linger outside the former Hotel de Francia where Benjamin committed sui- “las heridas abiertas” across the event—a borderlands—of mutant desires against
cide. When we return to the small bed and breakfast (with the tree, growing the abstract machine. If in Spook Country one of the characters never sleeps under
through two of its stories) where we’re staying, the contrast is striking: in lieu of a the same GPS “grid” twice for fear of linking his body to his GPS coordinates, the
white-washed facade and shuttered windows, these walls are covered—ceiling to trans_border body we conjure never sleeps under the same borderless borders of
floor—with drawings, photographs, newspaper clippings, magazine articles that “grid.” Still, this body needs sustenance and trans_rights.
“tangentially translate” Benjamin’s relationship to the village.
9. Garbage. Delilah Montoya’s series of photographs, Sed: A Trail of Thirst (2004)
8. Our own fragmentary excess approximates hieroglyphs in anticipation of data clouds takes up the question, “Who and what constitutes the disposable?” reframing it in
(a-cumulus nimbus) where everything that is solid melts into the Wi-Fi air. We are the terms of what we leave behind. Her images map a migrant path across Arizona’s
locative artifacts that William Gibson anticipates in his 2007 novel Spook Country. Sonoran Desert. Abandoned campsites, lost or discarded items, lone water stations.5
There, he describes locative art as an aesthetic to monumentalize the holo- A recent case overturned by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (September 2,
graphic dead. In Gibson’s vision of cloud Empire we are all the augmented realities 2010) also contemplates the forms and contents of “garbage.” More specifically,
of the deceased River Jude Phoenix or F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Spook Country the its majority opinion hinges on the definition of “garbage,” while its dissenting opin-
characters travel between all that is lost to “cartographic attributes of the invisible” ion seeks to shift attention away from the word “garbage” to that of “littering.”
and the specific coordinates of locative realities. Everything is falling between the In contrast, within the text of The United States of America v. Daniel J. Millis,
cracks of hyper-tagging and the wave point edges of new recombinant realities, there is only passing reference to its defendant’s testimony, “At his bench trial,
“The artist annotating every centimetre of a place, of every physical thing. Visible Millis admitted that he had placed the bottles of water on the refuge. However, he
to all, on devices such as these” (2007: 24). Gibson’s locative media machines testified that leaving water out for illegal immigrants constitutes humanitarian aide
bring forth the dead and the lost before the eyes of the forced forgetting policies of the and that ‘humanitarian aide is never a crime’” (2010: 13294).
spook-state. The strategies that Gibson names move from pre-emptive strike politics And, nestled into the dissenting opinion, a lonelier reference to the ‘Other’
and military action to softer media tactics that utilize the affective politics of fear, debris in the Arizona Buenos Aires Federal Wildlife Refuge: “At trial, Officer Kirkpatrick
however. To all of the above, we whisper, “Boo!”—a hauntological counter-stroke. testified that ‘there was a great deal of trash on the refuge,’ which consisted of ‘water
For, in Gibson’s chillingly plausible rendition of the “future five minutes from bottles, backpacks, …articles of clothing, foodstuffs, vehicles,’ and ‘pretty much
now,” the spook-state attempts to colonize the virtual to get to the real, or, we might anything you can imagine’” (ibid: 13306).
say, to harness the untimeliness of the event—an event that fractures the fractality A briefcase with an extant manuscript?
between the virtual and actual—that manifests the locative perversity of those living
and breathing beyond the holographic graveyard. Let us then consider in contrast 10. Through TBT, we seek to experiment with an artivism that probes the conditions
the aesthetic event-based technology of TBT’s performative matrix as a mobile built of post-Fordist factories of the “no-place,” that signals where the gaps leak beyond
environment to divert the flows of disappearance towards the mythopoetic nonlo- networked (post/super)modernity, that forces the Cloud Empire to stutter its demands,
cations of un/accountable presence, of the all too human’s crossing. Paradoxically, its glitches. Through TBT, we aspire to capture the Cloud Empire’s majoritarian
in this instance, what passes as the mythopoetic slows down the hypermedia of being as the post-9/11 incarnation of a nanofest destiny of the floating interactive-
always being switched “ON.” The mythopoetic has the potential to attune data bod- state-machine. The Cloud Empire, all dressed up in the neoliberal rhetoric of free
ies to the slow digital Dasein that always already is linked to locations that cut and choice, demands that everything and everyone participate in software culture to
paste the borderscapes around us. Through the mythopoetic (pace Gloria Anzaldúa
[1987], pace The Headmap Manifesto4), with TBT, we seek to finger the deep cuts,
5
Montoya’s images first arrested our attention when we viewed Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano
Movement (2008) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Some of Sed: A Trail of Thirst is reproduced
4
See http://tecfa.unige.ch/~nova/headmap-manifesto.PDF, accessed 1/20/11. in that show’s catalog.
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organize the infinite databases that standardize market relations between real bodies This nothing that preceded the everything of Cloud Empire is taking shape
and data-bodies. around the question of oceans of data. In fact, data is floating on and within oceans
Standardization is the key strategy for a functional production-consumption like so much flotsam and jetsam of Modernity’s repeating islands. These oceans have
subjectivation diagram. But, what manifest densities escape this code’s execu- been a core condition for empire historically. Google now has oceanic datacenters
tion? We’d propose that TBT rehearses the dislocative materialities of precari- to support the new Cloud Empire, to solve the heat building up of millions upon
ous trans_ontologies, which demand a distributed prescience of each unique millions of processors that are using tidal waters to smooth out emergent power, to
trans_body—without and within database clouds. create water cycles of subjugation. But, the Cloud Empire is only in part a reflection
of Google’s off shoring of critical infrastructure.
11. Benjamin’s compulsive engagement with the allegorical enabled his ruinous The force of endless logistical-data-objects is separating national-data-borders.
“cultural studies.” Or, was it the reverse? Old cyberborders are unravelling as surely as the conceptual borders of the super-
In response to The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, Theodor Adorno state machine—against all trans_bodies—re-gerrymander their forms. Cloud Empire
famously confided to Benjamin, “If one wished to put it drastically, one could say core computing absorbs, sponge-like, more and more social and economic media
that your study is located at the crossroads of magic and positivism. That spot is on planetary scales. Trans_border bodies, like old citizen formations, are losing rights
bewitched. Only theory could break the spell” (quoted in Cohen 1998: 2). Tom before the powers of end-user agreements.
Cohen projects the paralysis that Adorno identifies in Benjamin’s corpus onto “the The new civil war on the Cloud Empire by trans_border bodies cannot be about
age of cultural studies” (ibid). reinscribing the link between territory and state, about reasserting the intimacies of
We are less interested in reading literally for theory’s absence, more invested jurisdiction and law. Instead we must loosen the tides and ticks; we must re-cite
in the mechanisms, vestiges of ‘bewitchment,’ which animate the aesthetic to the- the flows of alter-globalization that move trans_bodies from illegal bodies to extra-
orize and enact its ‘objects of inquiry.’ In “las ruinas de un edificio nunca constru- legal post-things—with the full rights of post-human flows and deep locative artic-
ido” (Sarlo 2000: 24), could we conjure a comparative border, cultural, ethnic, ulations of place. (And, to this open end, we remember the Zapatistas of Chiapas,
postcolonial, gender and sexuality, _________ (fill-in-the-blank again) studies that Mexico, one of the first sets of trans_bodies to call for a planetary civil war.)
negates prevailing negations of the para/aesthetic (i.e., Yúdice’s “the expediency
of culture” [2004]) to champion in “collaboration” the latter’s dormant totipotency? 13. Rosa Alcalá’s collection of poetry Undocumentaries (2010) foregrounds the
Could we risk (or afford not to risk) hospitality, Derrida’s injunction, “Let us say yes power of the prefix “un-” as surely as Samuel Weber claims Benjamin’s writings fall
to who or what turns up, before any determination, before any anticipation, before back on a suffix, insufficiently translatable as “-abilities” (2008). Alcalá’s fixation
any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner, an immigrant, an with “un-” interrupts a hegemonic documentary performative that the Border
invited guest, or an unexpected visitor, whether or not the new arrival is the citizen Industrial Program (1965), seemingly mandated in anticipation of the North American
of another country, a human, animal, or divine creature, a living or dead thing, Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994). Sandy Soto describes the phenomenon
male or female” (2000: 77)? without naming it as such: “an implicit binary opposition of order and disorder […]
uncritically organize[s] representation[s]” (Soto 2007: 420) of the U.S.-Mexico border.
12. Tiqqun writes, Imperialism and totalitarianism mark the two ways in which the Alcalá riffs, “The office for agents/Is the etymology of factory […]/It reads
modern State tried to leap beyond its own impossibility, first by slipping for- properties/for poetries. Factory is both fact/and act, and mere letters away from
ward beyond its borders into colonial expansion, then by an intensive deepening face/and story.” Undocumentaries demonstrates an agility, an ability to recognize
of the penetration inside its own borders. In both cases, these desperate reactions proxy, proximity. Words slip into one another (or not)—properties and poetries,
from the State—which claimed to encompass everything just as it was becoming fact/act and face/story. Alcalá privileges flows over blockage, surveillance, even
nothing—came to a head in the very forms of civil war the State claims preceded when mismatch overshadows connection. The result: a diffusion, a defusion, a soft-
it. (2010: 109) ening of the aforementioned binary logic.
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“Hard facts” that prevail? Paradoxically, the Mexican-U.S. borderlands’ “season Can we imagine a state, a religion, or a community bound to remembrance, which
of dying” demands a supersession of both the dematerialization of the object (be would have the courage or craziness to call a wind a monument?” (2006: 30).
it art or cartography…) and the dematerialization of the subject (the human being).
The “politics of the question,” which we aspire to enact through TBT—like Alcalá’s 16. Deleuze and Guattari state in What is Philososphy? (1996) “Art is not a notion
exercises in “undocumentation”—amounts to a latitudinal attunement, an auto- but a motion. It’s not important what art is but what it does.” What lines of flight
interpellation into “the song of the nonaligned world,” which registers and resists does TBT as an ethico-aesthetic codeswitch, “do”? (66).
the Mexico-U.S. border as a set of literal and imaginary geographies ad infinitum. We’d argue that TBT allows trans_bodies to make visible their desertion of
the state machine as constituting a civil war. TBT aids trans_bodies in cutting the
14. Maurice Blanchot proposes in the first sentence of The Writing of the Disaster landscape of globalization with the force of a hope of being-more-than labour,
(1995) “The disaster ruins everything.” It also leaves “everything intact” (1). The of becoming more than disposable. And, through TBT, we reject the non-place of
disaster dislocates catastrophic knowledge with a non-forgetting that crosses out, the supermodernity posited by Marc Augé in his book Non-places, Introduction to
that goes across and against the grain of dissociation and forgetting, necessary for an Anthropology of Supermodernity (2009). TBT dislocates literal and imaginative
the borderization of knowledge, epistemologies of enclosure. Trans_bodies cross borders as non-places, re-marking them as “Global Poetic Systems” for the invention
out concretely (as in concrete poetry), enjambing the future and the now. The dis- of new functions that manifest the visible trans_lives of those who “flee” from one
aster links trans_bodies with different experiences to different temporal scales. It place to another and those who stand, counter-frictions to the machine.
binds us by doing away with that which is common and by forcing us to face the “The Taste of Abundance” (1981), an essay by Paolo Virno, touches on the
possibility of visceral relationality. It depends upon an aesthetics of the over- theme of relocating lines of flight as exodus:
write/right. The uncommon movement of crossing creates a geography of ethics, a
planetary geo-aesthetics. The disaster is an un-event of relayed/delayed Disobedience and flight are not in any case a negative gesture that exempts
affects/effects that revels in the possibilities of spaces where histories-to-come can one from action and responsibility. To the contrary, to desert means to modify
be told, witnessed and made through trans_kinships (constellations, associations, the conditions within which the conflict is played instead of submitting to them.
alliances, relations) as undocumentary gestures of, in and outside of the ruins of And the positive construction of a favourable scenario demands more initiative
the futurenow. than the clash with pre-fixed conditions. An affirmative ‘doing’ qualifies defec-
tion, impressing a sensual and operative taste on the present. The conflict is
15. Benjamin Walter. Port Bou officials reversed Walter Benjamin’s name on his engaged starting from what we have forms of life out of which we are already
death certificate. They also listed him as “Catholic.” Although Port Bou banks on making experience. To the ancient idea of fleeing in order to better attack is
Benjamin’s memory (at least its quaint buildings with neat placards’ landmarking added the certainty that the fight will be all the more effective if one has some-
his points of interests do so in English, Spanish, and Catalan), the village harbors a thing else to lose besides one’s own chains. (49)
laissez-faire attitude toward the cemetery where the philosopher’s remains suppos- Through TBT, we seek to modify globalization’s mapping of labor migra-
edly were placed first in a niche (rented by Frau Gurland for five years at seventy- tions by echo-relocating the emergence of another wave of subject(s) in
five pesetas), and later transferred to a fosa común. But, only months after his motion. We are not referring to the post-Fordist multitude or the illegal immi-
death, Hannah Arendt, visiting the cemetery, could not find her cousin. To Gershom grant under ‘house arrest,’ but, to trans_border subjects in hyper-exodus who
Scholem she lamented, “his name was not written anywhere.” already crash network art and networked power’s logics of invisibility by “flee-
Michael Taussig muses on this mismatch between name and body, finally ing” into fields of perception, of corporeality beyond the GPS grid. Transversing
reading it as “allegorical.” He in concludes, “The wind howls up there. It has its existing political maps, these individuals who desert—compose new earths,
own name, the transmontaña, its own personality, its mysterious origins and rea- new earthworks, beholden only “to what in eco-philosophy is known as reces-
sons for being. In the Spring and again in Autumn it is so strong it bowls you over. sive ethics” (Boetzkes 2010: 4).
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17. In March 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that the “successful” border management depends on successful image management [which]
virtual portion of the separation barrier erected along the U.S.-Mexico border had does not necessarily correspond with levels of actual deterrence,” Andreas concludes
proven ineffective, manifesting numerous technical glitches, notably a hyper-vigi- that border control is a “public performance for which the border functions as a kind
lant inability to distinguish among wind, sage brush, and human beings. More of political stage.” In other words, the performance of security is more important
recently, the Department of Homeland Security has junked the separation barrier, than actual security and the theatrical serves as a substitute for the real. The miles of
Boeing’s SBInet, whose networked sensors once were heralded as “the ultimate in razor wire, the ubiquity of ‘boots on the ground,’ the air support—they are all material
anti-illegal immigrant technology” (2011).6 entities, but they are also crucially part of what Andreas names as a “symbolic per-
Chantal Akerman’s often overlooked documentary, De l’autre côté (2002) formance.” “Border control efforts,” he explains, “are not only actions (a means to
depends upon a series of high-lonesome establishing shots. Her camera pans across a stated instrumental end) but also gestures that communicate meaning.” (36)
expanses of desert where the wind whips through the sage brush, each a spook of the Trans_bodies crossing borders on a planetary scale rehearse new forms of visible
virtual barrier. De l’autre côté outs its subject—a shift in migration, prompted by trans_rights. Their sheer number will lead to a modification of existing laws and the
socially dramatic reconfigurations of border wall-fence ecologies—what displaced invention of new rights. They re-engineer the performative matrix contra the “esca-
would-be undocumented entrants from the light-up-the-border campaign stretches lating symbolic performance” of border control.
of Mexico-California to the alternately treacherous, increasingly narco-driven, intem-
perate zones of Mexico-Arizona’s “devil’s highway[s].” De l’autre côté’s long-wind- 19. Jay Parini melodramatically stages Benjamin’s last words in his novel Benjamin’s
ed silences, in the tradition of Akerman’s “images within images” (see Sultan and Crossing (1997):
Akerman 2008), remain as deceptive as this stretch of the border’s own alleged “Tikkun Olam,” he whispered. The repair of the world. “Tikkun olam.” (281)
historical emptiness, that which De l’autre côté renders as a cacophonous roar. Benjamin actually wrote in his farewell/suicide note to Henny Gurland (one of
his two final traveling companions, mother of José): “This is a situation from which
18. TBT recognizes the immanent creation of new rights beyond the biopolitical there is no escape, I have no option but to finish here in a small village in the
zone of the border—a zone that since the start of Operation Gatekeeper and, then, Pyrenees where nobody knows that my life’s draining away.” He went on to quote
September 11, 2001, has become more dangerous than ever. The tactical force of Kafka, “There’s plenty of hope, but not for us.”
trans_bodies flowing through the border liminality is the epitome of “risk”—not What, if anything, does Benjamin have in common with the contemporary
because crossers are “illegal” or “unauthorized;” but, because they re-make the con- migrant? We might process Benjamin’s last sentiments as suggestive of the
dition of what continental citizenship could mean, shifting its foundations beyond thinker’s affinities with the circumstances of today’s border-crossing “wet mind.”
the “laws of borders” and the “laws of free trade.” We also might draw parallels between his plight and the dire circumstances of the
Put differently, the borderless border has not stopped migration North. As Rita poorest of the poor contemporary train-hopper or foam-walker. Sebastião Salgado’s
Raley registers in her book Tactical Media (2009): universal exile. The economic sociopolitical refugee. As so many scholars of the
Indeed, by all accounts the numbers appear to be at an historic high—so what postcolonial, of the subaltern, of the global, of the neoliberal, of the digital (divide)
other purposes does the borderless border serve? Etienne Balibar writes in a different note: individuals/collectives—adrift from their “origins”—far outnumber the citizens
context about the symbolic power of “obsessive and showy security practices” at the of our planet’s most populous nation-state.
border, which are “designed […] as much for shows as for real action.” What would
be the socio-cultural function of such “shows”? Peter Andreas’s important study, 20. The tunnels of neo-modernity and global industrialization are re-designing reality
Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide, provides some answers. Noting that as we speak. Via their own, post-Taylor-made “relational aesthetics” (Bourriaud
2002), objects become networks of things: iPad desires, texting transgressions,
6
data power clouds, airport scan-bodies, Facebook economics… Let’s shorthand
See http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/homeland-security-junks-its-sensor-laden-border-fence/,
accessed 1/17/11. this phenomenon as the almost fully amorphous Cloud Empire whose logistical
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 356 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 357
capture-objects arrive before our optical nerves and fingers as design fragments, networked tunnels. But another signal was also at play under the sign of the invis-
built in pieces in one place, put together in another, and delivered via multiple ible during the 1990’s—the ontologies of being hyper-present, of being all too visible
routes after or before we consume. Better yet, let’s acknowledge that we’re cap- to the state machine (a utopian plagiarist remix of Henry David Thoreau’s “Let your
tured by their logistical-thingness. This is the same logistics that (could) govern the life be a counter friction to stop the machine!”).
flows and protocols of trans_bodies—their borderscapes, their movement towards EDT’s practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) should be understood as
an extra-legal formation, their territorial remixing, their counter-computational pro- the visible manifestation of a hook-up between data bodies and real bodies (albeit
cessing, their modes of desire, and their methods for crisscrossing (by foot, by boat, more than a one-night stand!). The dichotomy between the digital and the physical
by Photoshop document, by becoming the most wanted/unwanted labour bodies is a false god. As our collaborator, Micha Cárdenas insists, “ECD involves a number
demanded by the global market…) though. of physical components, from the hardware that web page is displayed on and the
Seventy to eighty per cent of goods for the global market are at any given JavaScript it runs on, to the human body that activates that code.” The bodies par-
moment in transit and this massive migration of goods is paralleled only by the flow of ticipating in ECD “are on the radar!” The myth of anonymity does not apply to EDT’s
trans_bodies, crossing borders everywhere, trans_bodies who are forced to sacrifice aesthetic practices of ECD. The performative matrix of EDT constructs more fluid
their rights, their persons, and their kinships to the “just in time” circulation system forms of embodiment-participants in a virtual sit-in are not necessarily restricted to
of the Cloud Empire. The alternative spin on this techno-science disaster lurks in the the same rules and protocols of gender, sexuality, race, or religion which they may
space of border tunnels (at the “terrorist assemblages” of Israel/Palestine, Mexico/ experience everyday body—trans_bodies here with the use of any of relational sys-
the United States [Puar 2009]). Theirs is a traffic in trans_bodies contra the overde- tems of communication (from a webpage to a cell phone) open themselves up to
termined assembly line/ation of the world. Imagine trace/rs on a map of connections becoming visible organs without bodies connected to their specific bodies.
between things and humans. Strange close encounters among logistical objects, Trans_bodies flash virtual potentials, they smolder ‘real’ as real bodies becoming
trans_bodies, and the sovereignty foreshadow what the futures could be—multi-nodal augmented visceral realities with surprising new organs and organizational schemata
and scalar, exceeding the Cloud Empire’s objects and object-making in route. to circumvent the oppressions of logistical assembly line/ation.
21. In Notes on Conceptualisms (2009), Rob Fitterman and Vanessa Place claim, 23. The glass is cracked as if someone wanted to break through to the other side.
“Conceptual writing is allegorical writing” (13). No doubt. But, through TBT, we’d argue “It is more arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than that of the
that one can appeal neither to the “allegorical” nor to “conceptualisms”—let alone renowned. Historical construction is devoted to the memory of the nameless.”
link the two—without accounting for site-specificities, makeshift periods, ecstasies G.S.I. 1241
of influence. TBT summons the ghosts of Latin/o American conceptual—isms, It is hard to turn around and climb up again.
ranging from those elaborated by Luis Camnitzer (2007) to those implicitly flagged No neatly manicured lawns stretch like carpets for attendants in waiting here.
in such exhibitions as Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement (2008) Karavan’s “environment” clearly understands: on this high, desolate stretch of coast,
to those which could be gathered under the sign of “border (disturbance) art” to it is the natural environs which prevail as if the breaking waves recited the dead’s
those which have yet to coalesce at the nexus of the Zapatista “Our Word Is Our Kaddish over and over to the linden and lemon trees’ surrounding the graveyard.
Weapon” communiqué, documentary poetics, poetic conceptualisms a la Place Arendt described this place as breathtakingly beautiful.
and Fitterman, flarf, electronic literature, earthworks, “Queer Technology,” net art 3.0, Homage to Walter Benjamin’s weathered steps beckon in intense dialogue
to be continued… with the landscape. Inset into the side of the mountain, from the exterior, this sea
salt oxidized built environ looks like a great triangle joined with another to enclose
22. Network art (net art/net.art)/software art attempted modes of aesthetic disap- a passageway. Eighty-seven steps dead-end in a glass rectangular panel, which, takes
pearance. It strove to become vacuoles of non-communication, epitomized in and on the appearance of a portal for space and time travel. How thin the membrane
by the slogan, “Get off the radar!” Its m.o. was hibernation, dreaming deep inside separating the living from the dead.
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24. We might ask how TBT dislocates the remnants of the catastrophe and the disaster Borders of theory, art, literature, public policy…, per Jacques Rancière, we submit,
in the post-contemporary moment as a minor aesthetic or transcendental -ism that “The real must be fictionalized in order to be thought” (2004: 38). Poetry and
creates passages for the allo-martyr, that faces the violent apotheosis all around us water are not equivalents; but, the new toxic wave of U.S. culture wars leaves us
vis-à-vis a re-theocratizing of the future-now and its mirror calls for posthuman sin- thirsty for more expansive readings of engagement.
gularity. TBT represents a sinthomatic disturbance of the ruins yet to be built by
transborder_bodies—not of meaning but of being and becoming—not of the law, 28. Trans [ ] infinities dancing on the void: e-vents arrive on dove’s feet, they surprise
but of the allo-ontologies of justice. Just us. us in the moment of greatest silence, e-vents a-void the void of the [empty set] by
engendering parallel universes that call on us to “share the labour” of what is to be
25. The likeness is uncanny: The firm Rael Sanfratello Architects, in response to done without Infinity. All locative situations echo back the aleph [ ], the empty
calls for the redesign of the U.S.-Mexico border wall/separation barrier, envisions a brackets, like rattling handcuffs that become state-sanctioned attempts to contain
luminous doorway, an oxidized “environment” to rival Karavan’s. Could we enter infinities, to lockdown the set [ ] and throw away the key. TBT exceeds the singu-
one portal, but exit through the other? larity of Infinity by overflowing the set, by naming the pluralized trans [ ] infinities
that never relinquish what the catastrophe of borders subtract—the logics of an
26. TBT is a softwhere through which we imagine a join, a join with trans_bodies in aberrant ethics=aesthetics that moves within and alongside us sin nombre.
their aesthetic performance of virtual democracies to come as forms-of-life behold-
en to trans_rights. This trans_body gesture risks internalizing geographies of place 29. We are listening for the wind’s cadences, cached in the sea stones and shells
(homes, lands, scents, local imaginaries). It celebrates minor singularities smug- that we collected on Port Bou’s beach. Like the sound of two chips of “messianic
gled into biopolitical zones of the Cloud Empire vis-à-vis borderless borders. It revels time,” rubbed together, their frottage—what’s remaindered—reminds us that the
in the refusals of invisibility, reasserting the primacies of footnotes and postscripts. post-neoliberal resides not in a future tense, but in the historical-contemporary’s
With it, we walk into the alleged nothingness of “anti-anti utopian” futurities as translucently infinite conjugal conjugations.
surely as we walk into the Sonoran Desert (Muñoz 2009).
Works cited
27. TBT has garnered such remarkable ‘reviews’ as that of U.S. news commentator Akerman, Chantal. De l’autre côté. 2002. 103 minutes.
Alcalá, Rosa. Undocumentaries. Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2010.
and political pundit Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze, its August 31, 2010 pro-
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. San Francisco: aunt lute books, 1987.
nouncement that TBT’s “explicit poetry threatens to dissolve the nation.”7 The Augé, Marc. Non-places, Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. U.K.: Verso; 2 edition, 2009.
Blaze’s hyperbole evidences the aesthetics of right wing punditry, but also attests Blanchot, Maurice. The Writing of the Disaster, trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
to the first phase of TBT’s deployment as a conceptual intervention. Boetzkes, Amanda. The Ethics of Earth Art. Minnesota: University Of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Between excitable and fearless speech (Butler 1997, Foucault 2001)—that Bourriand, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon Pleasance, et al. France: Les presses du réel,
2002 [1998].
spot is codeswitched.
Brady, Mary Pat. Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space.
A poem-in-motion to remap the continent. An earthwork to interrupt discourses Durham: Duke U. P., 2002.
which, ensconced in their own aesthetics of market-oriented-transparency meets Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997.
military-industrial-complex, reduce the would-be crosser to debris or felon. Between Camacho, Alicia Schmidt. Migrant Imaginaries: Latino Cultural Politics in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands.
the lower-cased border of Mexico and the United States and the upper-cased New York: NYU Press, 2008.
Camnitzer, Luis. Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2007.
Cohen, Tom. Ideology and Inscription: “Cultural Studies” after Benjamin, de Man, and Bakhtin. Cambridge:
7
See http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ucsd-professors-want-to-dissolve-us-give-gps-phones-with-explicit- Cambridge U. P., 1998.
poetry-to-illegals-for-border-crossing/, accessed 1/20/11.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 360 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 361
Galloway, Alex and Thacker, Eugene. The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Minnesota: University Of
Minnesota Press, 2007. Dreams of Corporal Reprogramming
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. What is Philosophy?, trans. Janis Tomlinson and Graham Burchell III.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Derrida, Jacques. Of Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford U. P., 2000.
(To technically subdue the catastrophe…
Fitterman, Rob and Vanessa Place. Notes on Conceptualisms. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009.
Foucault, Michel. Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson. New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents, 2001.
to instigate it, perhaps?)
Gibson, William. Spook Country. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2007.
González, Rita, Howard Fox, and Chon Noriega, curators. Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano
Movement (exhibit catalog). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press and Los PAULA SIBILIA
Angeles County Museum of Art, 2008.
Karavan, Dani. Homage to Walter Benjamin: “Passages”, Place of Remembrance at Portbou. Mainz:
Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1995.
Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2007.
Kwon, Miwon. One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. The body of any thing whatever that takes nourishment constantly dies
Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York and is constantly renewed […] But if you restore as much is destroyed day
University Press, 2009. by day, then as much of the life is renewed as is consumed,
Parini, Jay. Benjamin’s Crossing. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.
just as the flame of the candle is fed by the nourishment afforded by the liquid
Place, Vanessa and Robert Fitterman. Notes on Conceptualisms. New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009.
Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Asssemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke U. P., 2007. of this candle, which flame continually with a rapid supply restores to it from
Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics, translated by Gabriel Rockhill. New York: Continuum, 2004. below as much as is consumed in dying above […] and the continuance
Raley, Rita. Tactical Media. Minnesota: University Of Minnesota Press, 2009. of the smoke is equal to the continuance of the nourishment, and in the same
Sarlo, Beatriz. Siete ensayos sobre Walter Benjamin. México: fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000. instant all the flame is dead…
Scheurmann, Ingrid and Konrad, eds. For Walter Benjamin: Documentation, Essays and a Sketch, trans-
LEONARDO DA VINCI
lated by Timothy Nevill. Bonn, Germany: AsKI, 1993.
Soto, Sandra K. “Seeing Through Photographs of Borderlands (Dis)order.” Latino Studies 5 (2007): 418-438.
Sultan, Terry and Chantal Akerman. Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space (catalog). Just as we routinely engage in sex today for its relational and sensual
Houston: Blaffer Gallery (The Art Museum of the University of Houston), 2008. gratification, we will gain the opportunity to disconnect the eating of food from
Taussig, Michael. Walter Benjamin’s Grave. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. the function of delivering nutrients into the bloodstream. This technology
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Resistance to Civil Government, edited by William Rossi. New York: W. W.
should be reasonably mature by the 2020s. […] we will be able to eat
Norton & Company, 1992.
Tiqqun. Introduction to Civil War translated by Alex R. Galloway and Jason E. Smith. Los Angeles: whatever we want, whatever gives us pleasure and gastronomic fulfilment […]
Semiotext(e), 2010. United States of America v. Daniel J. Millis. 09-10134 D.C. No. 4:08-CR-01211- We will be able to accomplish this using special elimination nanobots that act like
CKJ (9th Cir. 2010). tiny garbage compactors. […]One might comment that we do obtain some
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story. New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2004. pleasure from the elimination function, but I suspect that most people would be
Weber, Samuel. Benjamin’s—abilities. Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 2008.
happy to do without it.
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Yúdice, George. The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era. Durham: Duke U. P., 2003. RAY KURTZWEIL
To state that we live in strange times does not say much, since all ages must have
been, and probably always will be, strange, but maybe this historical moment has a
peculiarity of its own. This present time seems to reconcile, as never before, euphoric
celebrations of an allegedly triumphant happiness, and profoundly desolating visions
of the near future. In so many ways, at the beginning of this second decade of the
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twenty first century, the future seems closed or covered by a confusing cloud. A com- The second image I would like to evoke, in contrast with the previous one,
pact mist that only dissipates through well-lit cracks: those ascending the infinite stair- shows a seed whose genome of has been altered. Thus, turned into a transgenic
case of technological advances, and those that crumble towards catastrophe. Yet, in organism, the plant this seed will give birth has been genetically projected as such.
neither of these paths do we seem the subjects of history; something curious happens, No only so it does not grow crooked or flawed, but also so it may posses certain
in dealing with the immediate heirs of this turbulent modernity. Contrary to what specific characteristics, such as tolerance against herbicide, a certain size and colour,
said lineage might suppose, disoriented and somewhat paralyzed, the inhabitants or certain types of nutrients in its composition. All this can be achieved by program-
of this globalized planet feel these two forces as something foreign to our will and our ming the genetic code of the said seed; the plant thereby develops these traits.
actions, those real and effective and those considered possible or even thinkable. The distance between the technological strategies hereby used on these two
Besides, both these vectors are related. The catastrophe, for example, seems vegetables could sum up the history of technical interventions on organic matter,
propelled not only by the fabulous technical inventions of the last couple of cen- whether human or otherwise. At least until now. Both literally and metaphorically,
turies, but it also promises to be technologically controlled… or, at least it tries. Not these two images synthetize the “evolution” of the ways technology is used to alter
only in what regards this great planetary cataclysm—starring the terrible ecological life. Both condense the history of how various invented modes of knowledge and tools
drama and a certain weariness in the ways of life associated with late capitalism—, have been implemented throughout millennia, for the purpose of transforming living
but also those small everyday catastrophes that affect us individually: from diseases organisms in relation to ever-changing human goals. Within this set of technically
or any other type of psychophysical discomfort, up to the personal tragedy of aging intervened beings we find, of course, the living bodies of men and women. Yet, it is
and death. Indeed, none of this sounds novel; on the contrary, it seems inextricably important to consider the usage of the term “evolution” within this context, since
linked to the very destiny of the human condition. Notwithstanding, certain elements between the former and latter examples mentioned we are dealing with a mere
taint this course with an air of novelty, outlining the current status of the very phe- accumulation of achievements, gradually heading towards an ever-increasing tech-
nomena that inspired the title of this essay: dreams of corporal re-programing. nical perfection; we are dealing with a true collapse: an historical rupture manifest
both in technological and biological terms.
Technical interventions on organic matter: correction or programming This radical cut occurs due to the fact that the matter constituting each one
What are such mythical affairs about? In order to explain this, it is worth summoning of these living organisms is different. For each particular organism, its materiality
a couple of images, representative of two rather different historical configurations. is thought of as being different and, besides, is manipulated in different ways. The
First, the silhouette of a tree whose trunk grows bent, warped, leaning over to one first plant is shaped or “corrected” from the outside-in: its external wrapping or
side. For this reason, said plant must be straightened with a stake or a sort of tutor shell is pressed through rugged mechanical and analogical methods. The second
that, in time, will force it to develop in ever-straighter forms. This method for inter- plant, on the other hand, can be projected from the inside-out: its internal nucleus
vening live matter has certain traits that associate it with the mechanical ideal; from a is programmed, using rather sophisticated biotechnological methods inspired by
contemporary perspective one could say it uses an analogical technology, as opposed information technologies. It can be asserted that these latter procedures are closer
to the digital apparatuses that now reign among us. In brief, said onslaught reflects to the digital universe than to the analogue one; they point to a reprogramming of
a will to sculpt, carve and mold an organism that has certain flexibility but which something considered imperfect by nature, instead of an attempt at correcting cer-
is, at once, hard, rigid and opaque. It is a form of matter that resists the action of tain deviations.
these technical procedures intent on normalizing it by straightening. It is an ardu- If it were possible to apply the classic metaphor of the machine—a rather fertile
ous and slow method, somewhat brutish and cruel even, yet with uncertain results: rhetorical figure as fertile in the western tradition, quite active throughout the mod-
it is not a hundred percent efficient strategy. Despite the care and the advances ern era—to both these plants, the first of these would be an old industrial artifact.
achieved throughout centuries of these aforementioned techniques, there are no In other words, pure hardware built with gears, levers, pulleys and screws, as a set
guaranties that the plant will actually straighten out; nor can we establish when it of pieces assembled to form an indivisible unity, whose complex machinery is ani-
will happen, or if it will happen at all. mated by a mysterious vital energy. The second plant, instead, would be another
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kind of apparatus: a machine whose hardware—understood as the body’s organs any two living beings, and the results always throw a merely numerical difference:
or materiality—is directed by a sort of software comparable to an computer pro- a problem of quantity and organization of the same information. The differences
gram. So its body and its life are commanded by the instructions that configure its between humans and cows, for example, ranges barely about twenty percent of
genetic code. It would not be an overstatement to say that DNA functions, here, as their genetic makeup. Less than the discrepancy between the genome of a man
a sort of operating system, governing not only this particular seed and the plant it and that of a mouse, by the way, even though the informatics diversity between
will bring about, but also all other vegetables and all the animals currently alive or corn and a human being is also less than that between two types of bacteria. Despite
that have ever lived on the Earth; including, of course, man. all these disparities and arithmetic curiosities, every case concerns the same basic
For these reasons, this flaming vision of the world implies another logic for life type of information, ordered in various ways and in different doses.
itself: a new biology, which is biotechnology as much as biopolitics. This new cos-
mological tale—to use an expression dear to anthropologists—, this explanation of the
world, typical of our tribe, is becoming evermore hegemonic in the globalized western Life as information and a reprogrammable nature
culture of the twenty first century. And, according to its narratives, the four chemical Due to this basic equivalence, according to these new cosmological narrations lean-
letters that compose the “alphabet of life” constitute a new language: these four ing on truths of an evidently scientific sustenance, the codes of different species
signs compose the DNA, a code whose infinite combinations in helicoidally ordered could combine and recombine in an infinite series of possible mixes. And this mul-
instructions result in the enormous diversity of terrestrial life forms. It is the same tiple mixture would allow for a total reprogramming of life: of any life form, even
language, composed by these four single letters, that is in charge of codifying the those yet inexistent or even unthinkable, or those that have been extinct for over
“essence” of every living being: from the fruit fly to the oak or the firefly, from the dove millions of years. Therefore, it is not about a mere anthropological rupture, or con-
and the crow, up to the orchid and the weed. Or well a dog, a cactus, a butterfly, cerning only the human species, but a genuine biological reformulation that entails
a bacterium, an elephant, a mosquito, a lettuce: the enumeration could well be infi- all animal and vegetable species, even those nowadays considered chimeric. Besides,
nite, for it comprises every single living being. Their bodies and their lives are pro- these transformations come accompanied by a series of convulsions in all realms,
grammed with this same language, composed of those four letters: A, C, G and T. with serious impacts at the epistemological level: a mutation capable of informatizing
So, for example, the difference between a chimpanzee and a human being or digitalizing nature, turning life into malleable information.
has already been quantified in these terms, and the scientists responsible for this Before this mutation, which has lead to the current historical crossroads, was
study assure that the difference resides in less than two percent of said genomes. unleashed, opening the evolutionary horizon in an unforeseen way, the combinatory
It is not merely a matter of minimal discrepancies; besides, measured this way, the possibilities between diverse species of living beings was rather limited. Whether
differences between both types of being are solely quantitative: they refer to a they come about naturally or randomly, or produced artificially by the humble
major or minor complexity, a major or minor amount of genetic information. For deeds of techno-science, all these mixes had a basic requisite in order to occur:
this, it is worthwhile to pause and review the peculiarities of each of these cosmo- the living organisms involved in these transactions had to be sexually “compatible”.
logical tales, and to think about what the panorama would have been like before This means that their corporal carcasses had to be capable of mechanically
this informatics reformulation of life and nature. If man and the chimpanzee were exchanging genetic material amongst themselves. For the atoms that configure
observed as two mechanic mammals through the old scope, for example, they matter are much less ductile than the bits composing the information: those carnal
would be seen as two rather similar machines, but irreducibly different in several particles, less docile and flexible than the data flux, were considered much harder
ways. On the one hand, we would have the monkey; and, on the other hand, man and rigid in that new form of chemically decomposing organic material to the point
or woman; that is to say, two types of beings with qualitative differences inexorable of making it almost immaterial, ethereal, volatile and ubiquitous. So it is about two
between themselves. types of very different forms of materiality: that of the crooked plant to be mechan-
Currently these other mathematical comparisons—such as, eventually, their ically straightened out, on the one hand; and, on the other, that of the biotechno-
combinations and genetic information exchanges—, can be carried out between logically programmed seed.
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So, before—when we only had access to the old mechanic and analogic they functioned according to another logic, not only technological and epistemo-
methods—, a donkey and a mare could bring a mule into the world, for example, logical but also biological and anthropological.
or an orange and a lemon could produce a new citric fruit. But it would not have This ancient organic matter comprised the crooked plant and was, mostly, com-
been possible to combine, in that coarse “analogic” way, the material makeup of patible with the mechanical and analogical tools of the already aging modern times,
soy and salmon or squid, for example, or the physical substance of a rabbit with yet it was rigid, opaque and resistant to technical penetration, and, above all, mys-
that of a medusa or a firefly, or well the ingredients of a human being with those of terious. It kept, deep in its carnal entrails, the enigma of its workings: the secret of life
a pig or a flower. For these bodies, comprised in the mechanic and analogic code, belonged to it entirely, and it was believed to be an unsolvable mystery, one bound
were incompatible, and back then it was not about digitally operated information to remain mute for all eternity. Now, for a change, the new organic matter—constitut-
exchanges, as is now the case. Notwithstanding, this has been going on for millen- ed by that reprogrammed seed, to adopt a certain form—is much more flexible
nia now, given that the new informatic-based biotechnological methods are rather than its predecessor. Particularly because it is governed by enigmatic codes now
recent: they emerged a few decades ago, with their fabulous schemes for recom- being deciphered; and the great dream of the techno-scientific project is that this
bining genes, designing transgenic organisms and carrying out the most audacious type of biological universal software—the operative system that commands all life
cloning experiments. forms—will become transparent and, moreover, will be comfortably compatible
Despite its short trajectory, these unsettling innovations might be starting a with our electronic artifacts. It yearns, then, for living matter to soon become entirely
new chapter in the history of humanity, such as the relation between technology malleable, programmable and reprogrammable at will.
and living matter. For this reason the images of those two emblematic plants—one
whose deviations are straightened out with mechanic instruments, and the other From the mechanization to the digitalization of bodies
genetically programmed to be a certain way—are so eloquent, for in the distance, In view of these reflections, it is worth emphasizing the initial suspicion this text was
between both examples the history of this relation is put together, placing in evi- born from: it is very difficult to determine if all this implies a possible solution for
dence the complex links that ties technology to organic bodies. If these two images the catastrophe that nowadays ensues in the horizon, or if, on the contrary, it is
synthetize the itinerary said relationship has coursed until today, the abyss that merely another of its causes. We still lack firm answers for this distress, but there
separates both examples is comparable to a crack dividing two universes or two is something whereby there is no place for doubt: the consequences that said refor-
different epistemological regimes, as well as two clearly distinguishable anthropo- mulation of life will bring about are undeniable, for the human species as much as
logical and biological blocks. In one of them, old-fashioned mechanical and ana- for the entire biosphere, even though these effects are still incalculable or even
logical methods, used exclusively up until recently, reign; while on the other, it is unimaginable. It is also true that art has much to say about this, and that an effort
the domain of new incipient procedures: bio-informatic methods that increasingly is already being made through a variety of layouts and tones, even though more
resort to digital logic to achieve their ambitious goals. could be done towards refining those questions that bring about such perplexity
In virtue of such intense transformation, there are those who uphold that the and confusion.
possibilities developing with the advent of these tools could, perhaps, bring about We can rely on the certainty that we are hereby dealing with a new metaphorical
a new type of humanity, launching a type of human being that would be more fit- field a swell comparable to the mechanistic alluvium that impetuously transformed
ting with this brand-new reprogramable nature. Consequently, a humanity and a the world from the end of the seventeenth century/beginnings of the eighteenth,
biosphere redefined as post-organic or post-biological would emerge, one compat- producing an epistemological commotion whose repercussions extend well into our
ible with a world that is becoming post-natural and even post-human. If these diag- days. This historical project had, as one of its main goals, the ambitious proposal
nostics are correct, one could suppose that the consequences of such a mutation of mechanizing human bodies and nature all in all. But a new set of computing
are immense. Among other reasons, because the analogical methods that attempted metaphors grow overlapping its predecessor, pushing it with the purpose of replacing
to industriously sculpt human matter—and the organic matter that composes all it with a new web of images and tales, as it threatens to impose its own order and
other life forms—were much less efficient than these new procedures. Besides, laws in the universe in general, as among all living beings and particularly the
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human organism. Instead of trying to mechanize all these entities, this new metaphor- human condition: it is changing how we think about what it means to be human;
ical substratum points towards digitalizing them. that is to say what are the meanings and implications of being and being in the
This is not happening just now in the domain of genetics, as might seem world the way we are, or how we could be and be in the world.
according to the attempt made to sum it up in the preceding pages, but it expands
throughout all the “sciences of life” in all their more contemporary versions. In this A computer compatible body and soul
sense, neurosciences constitute another thriving vector: the intense media exposure To delve deeper into this paradigm break’s diverse meanders, another comparison
of their research and discoveries tends to show how, nowadays, the mysteries of proves worthwhile. In this case, opposing the human genome or the genetic code
the brain are deciphered in pixelated images that project their colorful reports on of each individual—in other words, that which ciphers our essence, according to
computer screens. By allowing the digitalization—that is to say, the conversion into the more common definitions of our era, not only as a biological species, but also
bytes—of the “mental contents” and the “genetic load” of each individual, thanks as singular subjects—with other more outdated entelechies, such as the soul or the
to the processing of all this data by means of electronic artifacts now available or in spirit, or even consciousness, mind or each subject’s mental phenomena. All these
swift development, it is thought that we could soon overcome some of the most per- entelechies are obscure and hermetic, with traits that could now only be described
sistent biological limitations of the human organism. Certain weaknesses or restric- as “analogical.” Not only because we are dealing with entities that are opaque,
tions binding this coarse material body in all its analogical rigidity, could be murky, nebulous and highly difficult to define and conceptualize, or even to cap-
removed—in this sense, comparable to that old plant previously mentioned, bitterly ture a visual image of, or any other form of objectification for that matter. Besides,
crooked, in its imperfect nature, and that, by such motive, is presented as deficient and above all, because they uphold an unappealable resistance to the onslaught
and, now, obsolete. of the new technical arsenal, whose lineage is informatic, and with which our bodies
It is believed that that body can be “improved” or reprogrammed through tech- are ever more compatible. These entities are elusive: they would never allow them-
nical means. Not only in the most banal and evident sense of embellishment or selves to be penetrated by the informatic and digital paraphernalia now intent on
rejuvenation of the physical appearance, though this is a fundamental and highly deciphering our essences, and whose code is considered to be found rooted in the
insidious component in contemporary moral. Besides, it is thought it could possibly go carnal depths of each being.
much further. It is believed that soon, for example, preserving cerebral information For said reasons, those mysterious entities that now seem antiquated, these
could be possible—or, in other versions of this same tale, genetic information—, heavily analogic inventions of antiquity—the soul, the spirit, the psyche, the uncon-
and then transferring this “essential” data into another corporal support: a clone, scious—, are different not only from the recorded instructions in the genetic code,
perhaps, or some technically perfected successor for the ancient human body. but also from the pixelated information that transits through the cerebral circuits,
Of course, this compatibility between the human body and information arti- which can also be read and deciphered by our machines. All these entelechies
facts is not only explored in the scientific field: both philosophical reflection and remit us to another universe, taking us back to a previous cosmology, a biological
mediatic/artistic productions are also quite fertile. The examples are many and rather and anthropological redefinition that accompanies the most recent technological and
heterogeneous, but the difference between the universe and those shiny digitalized epistemological leaps. Suffice it to remember how enigmatic subjective essences
seems to be rather clear—even for being touched-up with the PhotoShop’s increas- should be interrogated and interpreted by methods that did not necessarily demand
ingly popular “software scalpel”—and those other human organisms that were a technological mediation, but an entire set of slow, harsh and painful ritual proce-
dreamt of as more mechanical or mechanizable, in their planning of an epiphany- dures. And, above all, these methods were uncertain and fallible: they were consid-
ridden progress as one of promethean modernity’s worst nightmares. A world and ered “subjective,” lacking in the magical objectivity that envelops techno-science.
a type of body, these latter we have already begun to abandon, over the last couple They were barely efficient—uncertain, precarious, imperfect—, among them stood
decades. It is about the historical rupture, marked by a transformation in the tech- psychoanalysis and its affiliated therapies, for example, but also other typical tools
niques we use to alter living matter, but also in what they imply on the conceptual of historical contexts, like the intimate journal, introspection and diverse forms of
or epistemological level. This metamorphosis marks, even, the very definition of the intimist confession.
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Instead, the renewed substances that compose our essence are biological, and subject’s brain chemistry, they tend to medicate. To prevent someone with these
this is true for genes and DNA as for biochemical brain fluids, hormones, enzymes, genetic of neurochemical tendencies to actually become a delinquent or a danger,
proteins and neurotransmitter, all composing the bodies, articulating subjectivities. they intend for methods capable of deactivating these fateful biological propensities.
This detail is not a minor one: the new entities are carnal. They are inscribed in the These methods strive on exerting, on these flawed individuals, a sort of tech-
organism, even when in the metaphorical crystallizations disseminating everywhere nical and preventive normalization, a project supported on new techno-scientific
they are thought of as basically immaterial, as is they where mere informatic instruc- tools: on those instruments compatible with the human body intent on digitalizing
tions or something comparable to computer software. Nonetheless, all of them are its informatic essence, to then be able to reprogram it. In fact, this type of proposal
incarnations of the organic material in the most diverse formats. Besides, they tends to be presented as the only way to pacify—and, hence, control—certain
are—or soon try to be seen as—entirely decipherable, through a very efficient arse- types of particularly unmanageable, or “twisted,” bodies. As if pressing the Delete key
nal, fruit of the marriage between computer sciences and the new sciences of life. on a computer keyboard could suffice to erase that carnally ingrained disagreeable
DNA sequencers are a good example: devices capable of reading the genetic codes technical problem; and, who knows, maybe in time, and with the improvement of
of any specimen originated from an organic molecule. Or the artifacts of magnetic tools, eventually trying to extirpate it from the human species. In such cases, the
resonance, PET-Scans and computed tomography: machines capable of photo- preferred metaphor is that of the computer or any similar apparatus; even, why not,
graphing in eye-catching images of brain scans. some of the informatics circuits that compose the human body, specially in their
Thanks to this compatibility between living organisms and the brand-new elec- medullar incarnations, such as the genetic code or the central nervous system.
tronic tools, all the vital information that defines the “essence” of human beings For, as we have seen, the mechanic metaphors, as well as the traditional analog-
could be digitalized. Such data is not only decipherable, because what is intended is ical methods are now obsolete. And we find in this set not only the disciplines that
not only that it be read to be de-codified: the most fervently pursued objective consists adjusted the corporal cogs and gears alongside the antique work code, but also the fine
of altering this vital information. To program, deprogram and reprogram it according arts and the literary culture. In other words, all those old modeling and goldsmithing
to a copious menu of human desires, objectives and wills, and no longer according to techniques, both in biological and anthropological terms, literally and metaphorically.
uncontrollable divine designations or the inscrutable randomness of nature. This is These methods were applied from the outside in, and the tried to penetrate—whether
quite different from what it initially set out to do—and, specially, different to what sweetly or violently—into the human matter to straighten, discipline and normalize
they effectively managed to consummate—, that ancient art of mechanically mod- it. A process that used to be difficult, parsimonious and painstaking, and whose
eling, rectifying, chiseling and correcting the brute, harsh and mute matter that up efficiency offered no guarantees, was unforeseen and was far from being total.
until recently composed human bodies and nature in general. Today, for a change, resorting to other tactics and strategies would seem more
adequate: more precise procedures, capable of operating a true reprogramming,
Biologize, pathologize and medicate through more efficient and clean techniques than those rustic analogical methods
There are many techno-scientific projects and initiatives currently dreaming with of the industrial era. These new techno-scientific formulae practiced in these cutting
reprogramming certain human traits, those of each individual in particular and edge projects, bring with them the promise of deactivating criminal predispositions,
those of the species as a whole. In order to carry out such a project, these initiatives for example, through reprogramming potentially “flawed” subjects at their very
tend to biologize certain behaviors and dispositions, offering anatomical and phys- inner nuclei, where their bodies are commanded. In other words, by altering their
iological explanations for these. Besides, in the same gesture they tend to pathol- informatic essence they intend to rewrite it with better handwriting. This explains
ogize them, cataloging them as abnormal and unwanted traits, defining these as the intense search currently going on, looking for entelechies such as the “crimi-
attributes ascribed to the lineage of diseases. It is increasingly habitual to come nality gene” or “the neurotransmitters that induce violence,” or a host of equally
across genetic or neurologic origins postulated for certain traits, such as a predis- dangerous enzymes and hormones. What is sought after is some sort of technical
position towards violence, for example, or for the tendency to commit crimes. And to procedure enabling a deactivation and reprogramming of such fatal destinies
solve these “faults of character,” to repair these errors, inscribed in the genes or in the inscribed in the flesh, whether it be in the genetic code or in the neuronal network.
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There is more to this: these new procedures are also highly inclusive, given youth and eternal life. Anyways, and however it may be, the emergence of something
that they are not limited to focusing on particularly difficult cases, indocile or twisted new alongside this set of techno-scientific explanations and solutions is undeniable;
bodies that ought be corrected because they are “flawed.” On the contrary, their main something evolved from the fertile fields of computer sciences and the new sciences
motto is prevention; not all subjects exhibit obvious and flagrant flaws in their codes, of life, and has proven applicable to the human body as to nature in general. A new
such as the propensity to commit crimes or contract a certain illness. It is worth dream is being configured with this whirlwind: a paradigmatic shift, or the implan-
clarifying, on purpose, that in this new scheme diseases are interpreted as errors tation of a new “regime of knowledge-power,” to make use of a prolific expression
inscribed in the vital informatics codes, even though theses dysfunctions are coined by Michel Foucault. An historical project that derives from these metaphors,
potentially corrigible through technical interventions. In any case, if well we do not interlaced to its new truths, yet all the while contributing to reinforce and reproduce
all have these terrible defects written into our cells, it is undeniable that we all have them. Only within this new context is it possible to comprehend the unexpected
certain propensities. Absolutely all human beings have some propensity towards ill- prospect of reprogramming organic life and, particularly, the growing aspiration for
ness and death; in larger or smaller doses, depending on variables and factors that reconfigure one’s own body as if dealing with post-organic, post-biologic or even post-
ideally could also be measured, evaluated, quantified, foreseen and completely human entities.
prevented. This means that, just like our machines, we are condemned to obsoles- This new ambition is presented more as a technological project than a human-
cence. Notwithstanding, for this very reason, we should fight, without rest, against istic one; more technical than political, cultural, social or economic. And more digital
the (¿still?) inevitable culmination of a downfall already set in motion long ago. To than analogic: a plan sustained on an epistemological basis of extreme scientificism,
obey certain mandates it is necessary to carry out all the necessary improvements or a “techno-scientificist myth” that boasts more objectivity, efficiency and truth
and constantly recycle: it is as such that the upgrade and update tyranny operates; than all other possible or even imaginable cosmologies. But what is most important,
we now live under its constant pressure, not only in what refers to our machines perhaps, is how this metaphorical reductionism—a physicalist simplification, which
but also to our bodies. is no less real for being a metaphor—ends up depoliticizing and dissocializing the
For such motives now all human beings must redefine themselves as virtually ill conflict when these are, instead, biologized and medically diagnosed. For according
and, therefore, as perpetual consumers of healthcare products and services. Within to its explanations, the origin of all evil and suffering that now afflicts us, seems to be
this new context, the illness is made endemic: it becomes a trait inherent to the individual: mere programming flaws in a particular human organism. It is believed
human species. It has become mandatory to pay medical companies a monthly fee: that the specific nature of that living being has a flaw, it registers an programming
the triumph of prepaid medical systems confirms that we are all asymptomatic carri- error within its biological constitution, an imperfection that can eventually be cor-
ers of illness and death, in higher or lesser degree, even though we are currently rected through the valuable aid of technology. But these are always technical
not showing an symptoms of these dysfunctions. Hence we are always prone to the explanations and corrective interventions carried out on individual organisms: a
risk of becoming ill or dying, we thereby find it necessary to maintain unceasing merely medical problem, and no longer a political, social, cultural, moral or ethic one.
self-awareness, pursuing the dream of exercising complete and constant control As is well known, technology does not seek to elucidate a meaning or enunciate
over one’s own corporal destiny. One must know what the individual biological ten- grand questions; instead, what it intends is the production of certain effects; its
dencies show in order to attempt preventing the irrevocable fatality of its verdicts. goal is to be more efficient with its specific purposes: preventing and controlling
At least to keep it as far away as possible, to delay it consummation, which—for certain concrete and restricted phenomena.
now—strikes as inevitable. It is curious that all this happens at a historical moment when, in many ways,
the end of Nature seems to have been declared. Or, at least, that old ecosystem that
A new world project: the triumph of technology functioned mechanically has been superseded: a biosphere that was harsh, opaque,
One of the more curious aspects of this new world vision is how, in its great trans- mysterious and, also, arduously resistant to technical penetration. This nature now
formation of vital logics, instead of freeing us from our human finitude we can finds itself invaded by a sort of universal techno-scientific laboratory, its walls have
become some sort of self-controlled slaves, enslaved to the imperatives of health, blew up and, then, its field of experimentation went on to cover the globe’s entire
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 374 DAY 2 | Technoscience: Disaster and Panacea 375
surface. This collapse is confirmed not only in the drama of environmental pollution and appeasing the brutality of natural randomness, with human purpose until obtain-
and the fears unleashed by global warming or by other such threats, but also in the ing, who knows, immortality. It is probable that, this is still, at this point in time,
suspicion awoken by transgenic experiences or those of plant and animal cloning, something impossible to span with thought alone, but at its heart a certain assurance
among other controversial matters practiced in the open. The old Nature, which once peeps out: whether it takes on the face of the catastrophe or that of redemption
knew how to be overbearing and almighty—in its brute force as in its infinite wisdom depends, in large measure, on all of us. Sure, as already out of date subjects of
and inimitable beauty—, suddenly shows itself faint: it is worn out and needs intensive history, maybe, or of its more recent incarnations in renewed silhouettes, but it is
care so as not to extinguish itself definitively. It now demands its preservation in spe- not only about the technocrats and the scientists that have guided us to this point,
cially protected reservoirs in order to survive, demanding the urgent realization of but also—and perhaps, above all—, it is about the philosophers and artists that
conservation programs and, even, “revitalization” ones. dare to ponder, question, and actively participate.
For all these reasons it is so troubling that precisely now, when large part of
the recently considered of a cultural, political or social origin, today are considered
as having a natural or biological roots. Even when they are processed through the Bibliography
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, from _OCTOBER_ 59, Winter 1992, MIT Press,
metaphor of immaterial software, associated with digitalizable information based
Cambridge, MA.
on the instructions of the genetic code or the pixels of neurochemical flows, it is Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, USA, Vintage Books, 1995.
considered that their biological root is found deep in the entrails of each individual Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences, USA, Vintage Books, 1994.
organism or that of the species as a whole. “This condition is motivated by a genetic Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
predisposition,” we now hear or read everywhere, “said trait is the fruit of a neuro- Martins, Hermínio. Hegel, Texas e outros ensaios de teoria social. Lisbon, Século XXI, 1996.
Sibilia, Paula. El hombre postorgánico: Cuerpo, subjetividad y tecnologías digitales, Buenos Aires, Fondo
logical deficiency.” And the prescription to solve all these inconveniences affecting
de Cultura Económica, 2005.
contemporary bodies and subjectivities, the key that will allegedly solve said problems,
is also not cultural, political or social. The solution tends to be technical: frequently
medical or programming based, indeed, because its lineage is biotechnical.
We can then conclude that this mutation we are currently going through is
technological as much as it is biological and anthropological. Because in its avalanche
it drags the very definition of the human being, reformulating, in passing, nature and
the entirety of life under the digitalizing impulse. It is up to us to discover, as Giles
Deleuze would say, “what we are used for” or to what historical project we are incited
to serve when we accept an apparently ineluctable destiny: of becoming perfectly
compatible with the efficient instrumental of contemporary techno-science and with
that post-organic universe so many promises seem to sell and that must, at very least,
bring about some healthy sense of mistrust on our behalf.
Among these suspicions, one stands out and restates its defiance: is this part
of the catastrophe or is it the outline of a possible solution? Even though some
aspects of this grand project rouse a certain apprehension, one cannot forget that
their agenda also promises the virtual “resuscitation” of animals and vegetables
now becoming extinct, for example, through the regeneration of their DNA in labo-
ratory specimens. Or the possibility of ending with malnutrition, thanks to the inclu-
sion of transgenic foods in a new generation of public policies; or that of controlling
Aesthetic evident as well, as if even while finding moments of relative stability these were always
fleeting and at times unwanted for the ends of the medias unrelenting enjoyment.
It would seem that over the last fifty years we have journeyed from the pathos of
the expressionistic artist to the ethical character of politically engaged art. The arts
can make sense as a form of survival and resistance in the face of extreme violence or
Imagination generalized crisis, but can also be a place of contemplation and teratological recycling
of the mass media. In this session we will inquire into the elusive and problematic
position of current art amidst the forceful and unfathomable reality of its context.
in the Face
of Chaos
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 380 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 381
to the platforms. I also did some work related to henequen, which led to slavery, personal and ethical commitment that can be translated and is not opposed to pol-
and I believe was the other major export from Mexico before oil. itics. You talk about Gandhi and his link with morality, and I think that this link and
I think this is a good stopping point to begin discussing the work a little bit. the process of decolonization that existed in Gandhi’s era as well as the resistance
TJ: Good then, there’s a lot of material that you’ve shown us as well as many inter- against the British Empire can also be compared with the resistance to corpora-
secting connections. Different geographies: Haiti, Ghana, and Norway. You spoke tions, and I think that Murray can clarify this. That is to say, the link of activism car-
of ecology and morality. There is a lot that we can begin to speak with. About your ries resistance to certain forms of Capitalism.
reference to Gandhi and morality, how do you introduce it to your own work? MC: Yes, I think that in the end this is just a way in which I work. I work with specific
MC: When we did these installations and when making this work you end up being sites. It’s not just about working with environmental issues but I will filter them
judge. At a certain point in the research you have to filter the information and sustain through my reference, and these are my references. Of course my morality is there
your own political ideologies, you have to see what is the visual information and which but that does not mean that my work is a moral judgment.
references will be used. In occasions the references are included with moral judg- TJ: Yes, in respect to the samples that you are showing here—the kangaroo just
ment for example in the case of the Australian government. I asked myself if it was reminded me of a dinosaur—you showed us that slide, that’s the suggestion. Just as
my responsibility to decide if these moral judgments were right or wrong, and in turn the dinosaurs went extinct, now we are facing the extinction of various species because
it led to a lot of internal conflict. I had conversations afterwards and I realized that of this ecological crisis. However, if we were to enter this installation you also have
the observer and the spectator are ultimately the final filter and they decide the the logos of various corporations mounted. Can we talk a little bit about why these
visual, they decide what they are seeing and capture the information of the work. corporate logos and corporate advertising are there and how it plays into your work?
TJ: Much of your work deals with catastrophic crises, which I think is linked to the MC: There is an important notion… They are like hooks. I say this because I was
ones addressed in this SITAC edition. I am convinced that today, it is really important not interested in the corporation per se, but rather the symbolism. What the corpo-
to speak and discuss these issues, for example, ecological catastrophes. The implo- ration represents and what happens in some of the work is that the logos of the
sion that we are now seeing has everything to do with environmental degradation, companies already carry a positive or negative image as part of their design, and this
oil pollution, and etcetera. Do you think these things are creating moral responses in is what I tried to exploit further still. That is to say, what people see and the code
viewers? In your opinion, is your work mobilizing people in order to introduce a barrier that is implanted in the brain and immediately recognized in the logo. And how you
of containment against disasters? can send a message through the very minimal information about the corporation,
MC: No, I believe that there are specific references for specific information. For the business and the company. What is it that these minimal messages send to the
example when I was talking about the industry; throughout the exhibition I tried to brain? It is difficult to document if we do not look at a logo or an image because at
create an essay. The judgment about these pieces wasn’t obvious or evident, and the times it refers to, or criticizes corporate practices and at other times it only uses the
focus of the exhibition was ecological and of course, ecology never divides the nat- brand as a visual channel. For example, I don’t know if you saw the alteration I made
ural environment from its social issues. Ecology is interacting with the entire planet. of Evian water changed to Egalité. I think that there is a good example of manipu-
Highlighting that the social conditions are the ones that are creating not only the lating by using the brand and the visual information that does not speak for the
social crises but the environmental crises as well. If you take this as groundwork it company. It is not always the case to speak of a company.
will be easier to see that noise, pollution and everything that is related to environ- TJ: And why don’t we speak to the company more specifically?
mental issues is not the problem. In fact the problems lies in production, industry, MC: I think that in different contexts it does. For example, the ‘Del Monte Corporation’.
and ultimately in Capitalism. Everything else is a symptomatic, or a final manifes- What happened with this company? Generally these types of logos do not simply
tation of the problem. It is very common to research environmental issues and realize manipulate an image but are also used in campaigns then are reproduced like
these underlying issues that exist such as political issues that are there. objects, paintings, and decals. The Del Monte Corporation uses very small decals
TJ: Of course the theory of social ecology is also there, but for example, these in order to stick them to the fruit in supermarkets. This practice is being dissemi-
social and moral concerns which you link to Gandhi, the development of a moral, nated in different ways.
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TJ: I think that this is also important. You use different spaces for exhibitions, you progress, development, globalization and infrastructure are used but it looks like
spread and disseminate, and you use galleries and museums. Tell us about this. they are beginning to loose their meaning. The concept of development or of progress,
MC: Frankly, it’s not my decision. I simply accept the invitations that I receive to give in the end looks like the opposite of what it is. It is repression, environmental crisis
talks, like this one for example. Even though it’s not my decision it becomes part of or environmental destruction. I think it’s interesting to analyze what part of the political
my context, and not just the cultural space where one presents the work, but I also take discourse is handling these terms and what they really mean or hide as well. By
into account whom the public will be at the exhibition. The Sao Paolo Biennial is one analyzing these concepts I arrived at the concept of society: what is society? This
example. The Brazilian context is very complex and interesting. I had the opportunity piece is called Social Entomology, (Entomología Social). In this piece what we see
to do something outside in a public space, or within your exhibition space. I think that are basically small microscopic samples of insects and are also projected with
the biennial had one million visitors and it was more important and the better strategy microscopic projectors. There is also audio as part of the installation it is like a con-
was to be inside the space of a museum. It was more convenient than being outdoors cert of insects in which the sound in the beginning is savage and disparate but
where doing something outside on the streets could be lost, because this does there is a moment where it becomes a rhythm, so from the chaos comes order.
happen, sometimes things are lost when you are dealing with ephemeral objects. Surprisingly it sounds a little like samba but it then becomes lost again and returns
TJ: I have another question in respect to ethics. I am being led to something that Murray to regenerate this supposed chaos in the sound, and once again returns to the
Bookchin said in regards to social ecology. He said that ultimately the resistance to wild. The installation in itself also talks about the individual and I almost personally
the ecological crisis in which we are in can’t be made from ethical principles and arrive at the conclusion of the impossibility of the individual. There comes a moment
morals but that people connect themselves with bigger social movements. where we realize that everything is constituted on society. We are also a society of
MC: And it’s more than social movements, therein lies the root of the problem. It’s the cells, there is a human society. There are distinct societies and ecologies on the
Capitalist problem, which brings us to see that the real problems and their roots lie planet that, in the end, form one thing. The planets are part of the universe that is
within Capitalism. another society, and it looks impossible to arrive at the idea of the individual and
TJ: Is there a connection between your talk and your communication with the social this reinforces the concept of a social ecology. Basically the idea that we are all
movements in that they can communicate and project to other political areas? dependent on everything and when generating violent situations or that of exploitation,
MC: In my case it’s very simple. I probably project my political direction, yes, absolutely. is not just necessarily towards the other. These things come back and I think that
The thing is I take it as a foundation, it is the system that creates these problems and it’s what is happening with the political, social and ecological crisis it is only one
that I am a political actor. Outside of being a lawyer or doctor, I think that has the situation. I think it’s ok if we stop here and continue discussing a bit.
same type of motivation, a political motivation in respect to my work, projects and TJ: Could you tell us what is on the table in this installation?
activities. Recently I read a quote from Einstein, and he said precisely that social prob- MC: The installation is about insect societies; it includes very primitive drawings from
lems form part of the capitalist economy. He was conducting an analysis through an early stage. It is my collection of microscopic plates with different segments of the
other filters of information but somehow ended up saying the same thing. insects. It can be a wing; it can be an eye, the eye of a spider. There where also some
TJ: Perhaps you could present some more work and afterwards we can continue of poetic expression, for example, the powder which was taken from a butterfly wing
our conversation. which also carries its own tag and for me contains certain poetic aspect because
MC: This poster is in Lithuanian as part of an exhibition that I had at the Kurimanzutto it references what science signifies from a century ago or possibly even dates that are
Gallery. The quote deals with the concept of democracy. Basically it says that it is a earlier. I think that it had to do with human curiosity or this desire for more knowledge.
violent action when a man imposes his will on many men, which would basically be These microscopic images exist for this reason, so we can use these objects of yes-
a dictatorship or an authoritarian state, however, it is also violent and aggressive when teryear: microscopes, plates, etc. If we were to use modern equipment the scientific
many men impose their will on a sovereign man. This becomes paralleled with investigation of this moment is guided by industry and there could be other types
democracy, and this brings me to speak on some concepts such as of democracy of equipment that would try to profit. I think that there is a big difference in anti-
that is filtering the political and economic decisions in the world. Concepts such as quated science. Perhaps I am becoming a bit of a romantic, but I believe in not
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 384 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 385
profiting from science and in protecting the relationship between the curiosity of The disaster, the catastrophes, how do we really arrive at an explanation? Naomi
the human being and trying to understand the world. Klein spoke about the capitalism of disaster, are you interested in subjects such as
TJ: But this exhibition, is it a vitrine, is it glass, is it a table, or…? these? I’m not referring to a particular piece, put asking generally, does it interest you?
MC: It’s a combination. The table is actually a series of tables and some are vitrines. MC: Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it? I try to analyze these aspects following these same
These illustrations of insects are already antiquated. There are beautiful books, one guidelines. The problem is that it’s not just environmental issues, or catastrophes in and
of which is illustrated by Covarrubias. Here there are special glasses that amplify of themselves. The underlying problem, and the fundamental crises… and many people
the images. There are also some objects that deal with the use of insecticides and like people in Haiti, for example, living in conditions of extreme and alarming poverty,
books that deal with plagues. We are not just looking at the beautiful aspects of insect and because of this there is so much suffering. I’m a bit skeptical of these NGO’s and
societies but what also has to do with industry, not only because I wanted to create the campaign against AIDS, of what is in fashion, what the trends in the news are telling
a reference to insecticides but because this is another industry with chemical us. It seems that we begin to learn geography according to where the most recent nat-
weapons that also deals with everyday products. ural disasters happen, or because a tsunami happened, for example, otherwise, we
TJ: What you present is really interesting; I am really fascinated by it. It really is a wouldn’t know where these places are, we find out after their destruction. What I reject
magnificent exhibition and it takes us back to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. more is the media coverage of all this. These initiatives somehow deal with the guilt of
Its encyclopedic information and really deals with human curiosity. It also produces needing to help others, but they come about after the fact, especially by using money
specimens, and in the nineteenth century the relationship with death and science with donations to shake this guilt. Then even after all of this we deny that we are polit-
becomes more objective, where curiosity about nature was more of an attempt ical actors. We are political protagonists. There are catastrophes in every moment
to dominate it. I think there is a relationship in this sense, either literally with the and I think that we really only pay attention to the ones broadcasted in the news.
insecticides or a gradual, much less pronounced history. How does one speak TJ: Yes, I think this is an important point. We learn information from the mass
about death and the extinction of a species in all the crises that have arisen? For media. They love catastrophes because catastrophes help boost ratings, everyone
me this is what you have raised in your work. is glued to the television. However, do you have any other deeper commitment?
MC: Yes, I arrived at the conclusion that scientific research is a great example of how Does your artistic commitment have to be aligned with natural disasters? You have
man wants to control anarchy. I created work for this same exhibition that was only been telling us what you feel but what does this offer as far as artistic expression?
plates, it’s called Colonia, but it was the diatom lamina, which is a marine fossil. It was MC: I think that when you investigate and you are close to these social issues, of
a very special plate because I tried to form a flower, a star made of diatoms. There were social activism, in some way you protect yourself from the media. They are simply
hundreds and hundreds of them that were changing in this way, yet they were a taking advantage and are really creating a farce based on very simple information.
microscopic ornament. Once again my desire was also to bring order to something I think that staying well informed is a daily practice. We have to keep our feet well
that was once wild, and I think the same goes for the music that I produced for the planted on the ground.
installation. The sound of the crickets, bees, flies…I don’t know, in some way I could TJ: Would you like to present something else? Should we continue since time is run-
filter these sounds, passing through a kind of cultural screen, and charge and rec- ning out or we can open the discussion to the public for questions and answers?
ognize the musical tones of the human hand. Yes, this is always present in my work. MC: I wanted to talk a little bit about borders and the concept of nations. This is the
I think that I have other works that are more specific and explicit to the aspects that state of Texas and it’s a work that I made last year. I was invited to go to Marfa and
you mentioned about what we want to control through science, even to the point to produce a work in exactly this part of the state of Texas, which is right along the
that we are dressing monkeys and dogs. These experiments are interesting. border with Mexico. What we are looking at is the landscape that is very close to
TJ: Ok, in retrospect, and to take into account some of these themes—nature, con- the Rio Bravo. I went with a group of assistants who helped me move forward with
verting it into an object, the relationship between the extinction of the species, eco- two jobs, and I’ll only speak about one of them. Thinking about the border I wanted to
nomic crises, catastrophes, and capitalism—all of this has to do with social ecology. take into account the possibility of constructing a bridge, and not necessarily a phys-
My question is if there is a new terminology that we can use in the political fight? ical bridge, but a conceptual one. Using mobile phones to keep ourselves connected,
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 386 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 387
for example, as a form of a conceptual bridge since you can connect between both MC: This is in the periphery of the State of Mexico. When I was there I said, “this is
countries. On the border we have AT&T in the United States, and Telmex in Mexico and what capitalism means,” the texture, and the abstractions make it clear. All this
one has to have good aim to capture the signal. I also started thinking about the idea waste is what we are producing, and to be there with the people that live there in
of working in the political aspects of marches, protests, etc. in this region. I think that the trash, it was like being on another planet, another world. It wasn’t the third
if one works from south to north it is the most political act that we can conceive. With world but rather the sixth world, I think. It really had an impact on me.
this idea of constructing a bridge I had the notion to provoking a kind of accident so TJ: Then your job consists of photographs, or was there an installation?
that there would really be a reason to cross the river between the United States and MC: After all these experiments we stumbled upon some friends that study bacteria
Mexico. What we ultimately decided to do was to paint rocks that I could then use to and they could accelerate the decomposition of plastic bags. We did experiments in
go jump the Rio Bravo. I was marking the rocks with a type of lime and made a dotted the laboratory with these bacteria and this is what got to the installation. This was the
line. In the end the idea of really constructing a bridge was achieved, by creating these result of all of this. It was interesting to discover these blue colors, greens, yellow-
footprints and I was able to cross the border from Mexico to the United States then from greens, pieces, plastic fragments, all these was preserved because green does not
the United States to Mexico. What was important to me was the moment that I real- disappear or fade in the sun. These are samples of what was in the landfill.
ized there wasn’t really a border, and that all of the fear and the terror that existed TJ: We’ve been given a note saying that it’s time for questions. Does anyone in the
actually came from the media. The “border” between the two countries is part of the audience have any questions?
imaginary politics that we carry with us through this zone. It’s very scary for one to PARTICIPANT: Minerva, apologies for such basic questions. Have you ever exhibited
cross, but in reality there is no sign that says, “you are crossing, this is the border,” one of your installations more than once? Not just in a specific and thought-out
nothing tangible exists. Of course there are police patrols present in those routes, but location? This question is also in relation to another: who documents the actions
the desert of Chihuahua is also huge and is really pretty. It’s liberating to cross the river; and processes that you then go on to use as documentation? Thirdly, do you control
at that moment you understand that it’s impossible to have a tangible and physical the museology of each of your installations in each location? How much weight
border between two countries. Then I found out about the consequences of building does the aesthetic presentation of your work carry?
a wall between two countries in this case, the United States and Mexico. The political MC: Well, It’s very rare that I exhibit the same project in two different places because
consequences are minimal in comparison to the environmental consequences because generally they are for specific contexts and normally I am invited to develop new
some migratory species that go from the United States to Mexico stop their migration projects. Who takes the photos? Generally I take my own documentation apart from
and these species might change and become extinct quickly. So, it frees you to cross that the museum that hosts the exhibitions and take their own documentation.
in this way. It was an excellent experience. Thirdly, the visual part of the work, I think, is fundamental for me, to maintain the
They wanted me to propose something that could have an impact on the com- projects as an aesthetic exercise…in fact, I feel that my work in itself is not just
munity, or a positive result, which I said was impossible. I explained the reasons that the installation, but the research that is behind it as well as the intellectual exer-
I thought an art project would not solve a problem of such a magnitude, like the trash cises that generates all these clues or references that are included in the exhibition.
problem in Mexico City. They insisted, saying that what they were looking for was a In the end, the visual part, or the formal solution is the entrance. It’s a way of pro-
more creative approach. No one knew about this possibility to decompose plastic bags voking the intellectual exercise and all the questions, and permeating each work
using bacteria, so rather than taking four thousand years to decompose it could take with our own conceptual and political filters. It is basic that the work has an optimal
less than three months. It was really interesting for me to perform this experiment. formal solution. I don’t remember if there was anything else.
I was collaborating with geologists and a chemical engineer at UNAM to find the most P.: No, but I also wanted to know, when you sell, what do you sell?
suitable Mexican bacteria for achieving faster decomposition of the plastic bags. MC: Well, some museums have bought my work and what I sell is the installation in
We went to these huge dumps and when I was there I was like, “Wow, I’m standing most cases. I don’t know if that answers your question.
on top of tons of garbage.” P.: Of course, when you sell an installation, does it also imply the right or possibility
TJ: Where is this? to reinstall it? This is what I was referring to before.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 388 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 389
MC: Yes, it is a very important part of the type of work that I produce. Keeping it as
a public work is very important, that it has proper storage conditions, that it can be Panel 3
JULIETA GONZÁLEZ, JOSÉ ROCA, ITALA SCHMELZ AND FELIPE EHRENBERG
installed again and be public, it’s a privilege. It’s very important.
MODERATOR: EDUARDO ABAROA
P.: Good morning, I wanted to know, do you feel that the work of the disaster is more
a work of identification as critical to a system, or rather creates new ecologies to
move forward? We are transformation and it goes beyond critical journalism?
MC: I think that I am entirely too pessimistic. I think that it would be boring to be The Aesthetic Imagination Before Chaos:
telling people how they have to live. I am not the kind of person that would do this,
nor that could do this. I do think that by defending the way we want to live and From Self-Destructive Art
being consistent with our position as political actors we basically change our sur-
roundings. Then, I think that one way to go about this would be if each and every
to the Free-Market Diaspora
one of us is resilient to capitalism and the favors of capitalism. However, it is not
pointing out, or criticizing as such. I think that yes, there are elements in which I JULIETA GONZÁLEZ
make references, there are elements in which I exercise a criticism that passes
through my professional filter of other references, but in the end it is simply that.
Exercising my profession based on my politics and my ethics.
P.: Minerva, I wanted to ask you, have you ever questioned your references or your
political judgments ever? Let me clarify that these are a series of notes that could serve as a starting point
MC: Absolutely, all the time. It was just because of this that I began to think about moral for a more exhaustive research, or possibly even an exhibition (being a curator and
concepts, concepts of progress, and the concept of development. Just to provide not an academic, when I embark on any critical reflection, I cannot help but think in
another example, I am producing another piece almost permanently that is a video an exhibition content). As notes, and given the brevity of my talk, I will limit myself
called Disidencia (Dissidence), which is an archive of situations that deal with to the revision of very precise aspects in the works of the artists I have chosen to
resistance or opposition, or just alternative lifestyles in Mexico City. The project has discuss here.
become a map of recordings of scenes going from the most obvious political events This reflection has been partially motivated by the emergence of concepts such
like demonstrations and marches to the documentation of cultural and political projects as chaos, crisis, diaspora, and the problem of the border, amongst others, as instru-
and other activities like an alternative currency or underground project spaces. But ments of critical evaluation and platforms for curatorial models that have been for-
when I was developing the project I was confronted with the dilemma that I would be mulated based on those notions in the past fifteen years to try to give a more
the one deciding what would be considered dissident or wouldn’t be, what would specific referential frame to the periphery’s production. In a way, these strategies have
be considered too far left and what wouldn’t. I wanted to remove myself from an stemmed as a reaction to what Hal Foster called “the cultural politics of otherness”
anthropological vision, I wanted to be inconsequential, a nobody who would observe that modulated a large part of curatorial and artistic practices during the 80’s and
how these situations happen. In reality, however, the idea of registering these situ- 90’s. At that time, deconstructive thought activated the concept of otherness to
ations emerged because I felt a part of them and I wanted to document them. Yes, legitimate the aesthetic codes of the periphery and thus to facilitate their insertion
the process itself is a filter, from the moment that you decide the frame or what part within a global cultural production. If this phenomenon greatly enabled the integration
of the video makes it into the final edition. Again, I think that in the moment that it of Latin American, Asian and African artists into the mainstream of biennials and
becomes public the final filter continues to be the viewer. It will have a second other international events, it also gave rise to a series of exhibitions that not only
reading and the public will make their own opinions depending on the references constructed an iconography of otherness, but also misrepresented many of the
that they have and their own political filters. I don’t know if this is clear. periphery’s artistic practices. Nonetheless, I believe that these models, articulated
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at a time of crisis, have worn out and have lost specificity, becoming umbrella terms Horkheimer during their World War II Californian exile. For Adorno and Horkheimer
as homogenizing and clichéd as the multiculturalism of the 80’s and early 90’s. “Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has
In any case, I am interested in the way that some of these curatorial proposals have always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as mas-
revised and reinscribed the work of artists like Gego, for example, within a contem- ters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity.” For
porary context and outside of the traditions where they existed in a somewhat marginal Horkheimer and Adorno, science and progress’ promise of emancipation was
and dissonant way. I use Gego as an example because she was a figure who exist- suddenly diluted in a world where that advancement of knowledge had contributed
ed on the margins of the Venezuelan geometric abstraction tradition, and whose to the creation of a society “willing to accept the fascist ideology, practice genocide
work is re-read in exhibitions such as “The Structure of Survival” in the 2003 Venice in a deliberate way, and develop lethal weapons of massive destruction.” For them,
Biennale organized by Carlos Basualdo as belonging to the imagination of the crisis, reason had become irrational.
of the informal city. Basualdo’s curatorial strategy effects Gego’s post-mortem tran- This seems to be the feeling shared by these artists in whose works we can read
substantiation from modern artist into contemporary artist (without getting into a the sequels of the war experience, even if they don’t allude to it directly. Loss, dis-
debate on the flexible notion of contemporary in this context). Similar revisions have location, disenchantment and apocalyptic visions of technological progress mani-
taken place with other artists who occupied what could be called an “uncomfortable” fest in their works through operations of destruction, deterritorialization, dissolution
place within late modernity’s aesthetic traditions. As part of my research job for the of structures, de-hierarchization and indeterminacy that we will now analyze.
Tate, which in this particular case is inscribed exclusively to the Latin American
context, I have also been interested in revising and recontextualizing the works of Gustav Metzger: the Art of Destruction
some artists whose oeuvre in many cases even anticipates these curatorial and critical Perhaps Gustav Metzger’s work is most emblematic in terms of the theme that con-
discourses today. But I didn’t come here to speak of curatorial models, but rather, cerns us today, “aesthetic imagination before chaos.” In it, the conviction that civ-
to speak of the work of some artists that I consider exceptionally pertinent in light ilization is on the verge of extinction and that technological progress will lead us to
of this discussion. self-annihilation is constantly manifested. Metzger’s work is too vast and complex
In this symposium we have spoken of the figure of the global artist, based in sev- to be analysed thoroughly in the space of this discussion so I will only stop on some
eral cities around the world, and nomadism has certainly become a professional particular aspects. Metzger was born in Nuremberg in 1928, the son of Polish
requisite of contemporary artists. If this nomadic condition could serve as a common Orthodox Jews. After his parents, grandparents and one brother were deported to
denominator for the four artists that I wish to present today, in their case it does not Poland, in 1939, Metzger and his elder brother managed to escape to England with
respond to a simple everyday need in a contemporary artists’ professional life. the help of the Refugee Children’s Movement. His parents, brother and other
For these artists, dislocation, and why not call it that, exile as a particular form of members of his family remained in the extermination camps. In 1948 Metzger offi-
chaos, are central and formative experiences, subsidiary to a larger catastrophic cially assumed the condition of statelessness, which he has maintained ever since.
event—World War II—that I wish to utilize today as a sort of index to analyze the From early adolescence on, Metzger was actively militant in diverse political move-
different aesthetic approximations to chaos in the works of Gustav Metzger, Gertrud ments, but in 1944 he decided to dedicate himself to art and not “revolution.” In
Goldschmidt (Gego), Mira Schendel and, as a conclusion, I’d like to dedicate a few 1959, Metzger does an exhibition in which he presents the parts of a cardboard box
words to Luis Camnitzer’s theoretical and critical work. During the thirties, each of that correspond to TV packing as abstract works. For Metzger, these disposable boxes
them at a different point in their life, all of them Jews from Germany and Italy (in possessed aesthetic qualities similar to modern painting’s loftiest, and in addition it
Schendel’s case) were somehow marked by persecution and exile. But as I said was an art “made by machines.” On the occasion of this exhibition, Metzger com-
before, in this discussion, the experience of exile is contingent to that of war. posed the first version of his Manifesto for Self-destructive Art, which proposes
Beyond the catastrophe it implies, World War II, marked the end of modernity, “mainly a form of public art for industrial societies.” Art that can make use of technol-
so to speak. If one fundamental text sums up this perception in a resounding ogy and be made in collaboration with scientists and engineers, that can be mechan-
way, it’s The Dialectics of Enlightenment, written by Theodor Adorno and Max ically produced and assembled in factories, and whose duration and permanence
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can vary between a few instants and about 20 years, since the disintegration process a twist of fate (a problem with her British visa) takes her to Venezuela, a country
is part of its own structure. It also prefigures the interest in entropy and dematerial- that welcomed the Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution with open arms. Gego would
ization that significantly marked the conceptual practices of the end of the 60’s and establish herself there definitely until her death in 1994.
70’s. The collaboration amongst artists, scientists and engineers that Metzger for- Gego’s work emerges as a dissonant voice in the context of the tradition of
mulated, as well as the precision that frames self-destructive art in an unavoidable geometric abstraction in Venezuela—a voice that drills into the very foundation of the
collusion with technology, would inscribe Metzger in the context of cybernetic art, univocal agenda of the modernist project in the country and proposes a site of resist-
from his “spatio-dynamique”, “chrono-dynamique” and “lumino-dynamique” sculp- ance from which the validity of said project can be in fact put into question. Gego
tures, to the posterior initiatives by E.A.T (Experiments in Art and Technology), and seems to weave an alternate plot to the modernist project in Venezuela, resisting
including the participatory experiences through technological mediation that were the imperatives of “order and progress” that seemed to underpin it and that, with
central to the GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel) as much as to other kinetic time, have demonstrated its purely cosmetic mood since they never accompanied
and cybernetic art groups of the time to which Metzger was close (for example Signals, a true social, political or economic project in the country.
Guy Brett and Paul Keeler’s gallery, in whose homonymous magazine, edited by Gego comes out of the failure of European modernist utopia, out of incertitude
David Medalla, Metzger first published his 5th manifesto, On Random Activity in and the feeling of general failure that Word War II occasioned. So she could hardly
Material/Transforming Works of Art). In open opposition to the relatively optimistic share the naïve enthusiasm of the Venezuelan modernist avant-garde, who were
and positivistic vision of the techno-utopias of his time, Metzger’s self-destructive concentrated on leaving the nineteenth century behind and plunging fully into a
proposals, as public art and therefore possessing a certain monumental character, twenty century anointed by the oil bonanza, in a tropic where the horrors of the
emphasize the destructive aspect of the society for which they were conceived. European war seemed a distant nightmare. Gego is disenchanted by the logic of
Metzger would later take his concept of self-destruction to other social structures such modernity and she expresses this through a distancing from the rationality of pure
as the art market (“the artist must destroy art galleries. Capitalist institutions. Boxes of form and Euclidean geometry. This is manifested in her first sculptural works, which
Deceit,” he declares in Manifesto World, fourth manifesto, 1962) and the very notion experiment with non-Euclidean geometry, topological surfaces, and games of folds
of the artists’ production in his later manifestos and actions, such as his 1977-1980 where indeterminacy would seem, if paradoxically, to be an organizing principle.
Strike, through which he aspired to put in place the fall of the commercial art system, Again, I only want to focus on a single aspect of Gego’s work that I have dealt
imagining galleries collapsing, museum bankruptcies, closing of magazines: “Damage with before and that has to do with this distancing from pure forms and from the
one part—and the effect is felt world-wide.” In this sense, Metzger’s call to action, structural rationality of the reticle to decidedly enter into a universe of open, contin-
typified in the “Act of Perish” pamphlet, finds a more propitious context in the radical gent and apparently structurally precarious forms that prefigure and later reflect
actions of artists like the Argentinian destructivists, Ralph Ortiz (Rafael Montañez the urban development of her most immediate context: Caracas, a city that grew
Ortiz), Charlotte Moorman, Jean Toche, and Jon Hendricks of the later Guerilla Art in a shapeless, chaotic and un-hierarchized way from an initial reticular grid imposed
Action Group, Herman Nitsch, Al Hansen, and Yoko Ono, all of whom participated by the conquistadors on the uneven topography of the valley of Caracas. Gego’s
in one and/or another of the London and New York editions of Destruction in Art Reticuláreas (Reticleareas) implode the reticle and produce this precisely by their
Symposium in 1966 and 1968. Later on in the 90’s, this preoccupation for destruction own weight, even though they’re made of flexible and light materials such as wire.
gets Metzger closely involved with the environmentalist cause and in 1992 he writes As a spatial experience, the Reticleareas operate on the basis of the contingent and the
his manifesto titled, “Nature Demised Resurrects as Environment.” incidental and unfold the spatial possibilities of a reticle in crisis. Gego’s Reticleareas
can be read as the critique of the local ornamental modernity of monumental vocation
Gego: Unraveling the Reticle on the one hand, but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a discreet affinity with
Gertrud Goldschmidt was born in Hamburg in 1912 at the heart of a wealthy family the chaos of her adopted city and its informal agglomerations. Caracas, a city without
of bankers and intellectuals. In 1938, her family abandons her native city for exile in a center but with many centralities, and where the definition of public space obeys
England and she, recently graduated in architecture, leaves slightly later. In 1939, the constant flows of the freeway or the avenue and not the static and permanent
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spaces of the plaza or park. Her Dibujos sin papel (Drawings without Paper) do noth- under which she undertakes this dissolution of the structure of language. Bense
ing but confirm that vocation for contingency, precariousness and chaos. They are wire proposed the autonomy of the components of language—an autonomy which we
sculptures that defy the spatial autonomy of the sculpture, subordinating it to the can appreciate in Objetos Gráficos (Graphic Objects), the body of work Schendel
wall, and in which marginality is expressed through the precariousness and poverty begins in 1967, and in which word, syllable, and letter take on the dimension of the
of the materials she uses, materials which sometimes remind us of the antennae that object, but become more legible in a chaotic structure that can be seen right-side-up
proliferate on the roofs of the slums in Caracas and that are connected by a knot of and upside-down, making language burst from its very own structure.
stolen electric wires, which also echo Gego’s knots and tangles. Guided by chance
and opportunity, by the beauty of equilibrium found in that which is evidently unsta- Luis Camnitzer: Reterritorializing the Postcolonial
ble, and by the new spaces that can stem from improvised solutions, the humble Luis Camnitzer’s presence in this discussion serves more as a conclusion, and I will
selection of materials (debris, rusted and bent wires, screws, buttons) and the formal not analyze his work as an artist but rather his extensive and lucid production as
resolution of the Drawings without Paper seem to speak of the precariousness of the writer, historian and critic. Camnitzer lived the experience of war and exile in a retroac-
city’s most emblematic architecture. Informal settlement: unprogrammed architecture, tive way: he was only one year old when his Jewish parents immigrated to Uruguay
agendaless city, resulting from chance and necessity but imbued with strength, in 1838, escaping what would have been certain extermination. Due to professional
resistance and adaptability that defy urban policies and the imperatives of govern- motives, Camnitzer moved to New York in 1964, which he calls “free-trade diaspora.”
ability. Gego’s work, unique amongst its generation in Venezuela, committed to the There, together with Liliana Porter and Guillermo Castillo, he founds The New York
formal search for geometric abstraction, was capable of capturing the side effects Graphic Workshop. And then in the 70’s he lives a second exile there during the
of modernity and the ulterior result of its fleeting utopia of progress. Uruguayan dictatorship: which, having been outside already only belongs to him by
ideological affiliation, for, as he says, his formation in Uruguay always pointed to the
Mira Schendel: Dissolving the Word consolidation of his identity as a “Uruguayan intellectual,” and as such he would have
Time shortages limit me to a very brief mention of Mira Schendel’s work, which I probably been exiled during the military dictatorship. Nevertheless, these two indirect
would like to further develop in an extended form of this talk, but which I didn’t exiles caused a feeling of unease. As he himself analyzes his experience in an essay
want to leave out. I would like to stop for a moment on one aspect of her otherwise titled “Exile:” “By leaving Germany at the age of one, by definition I started to grow up
prolific work that I find to be grounded in her experience of the war. Schendel was as an exile. To leave a country under the threat of a death penalty, even at such an early
born in Zurich in 1919 of Jewish parents. As a child she went to live in Italy with her age, must have some influence on any further development.” Duality and bilingualism,
mother and suffered Nazi persecution during the war, until she arrived to Sarajevo belonging nowhere but in two places at once caused his early engravings to be per-
where she married a Yugoslavian in the hopes of obtaining a visa to emigrate. She ceived as “very South American” in Germany while in Uruguay they were considered
finally arrived to Brazil in 1949. Schendel occupies a place somewhat at the margins “German expressionist.” In New York, he leaves expressionism behind, interesting
of the Neo-concrete Brazilian tradition. Unlike Lygia Clark’s and Hélio Oiticica’s himself in the links between pedagogy and art, and in that process, he becomes more
work, hers is not oriented toward the phenomenological aspect of the pieces. Later distant from Uruguay. After the thirteen years of dictatorship, which he did not suffer
on, she begins one of her most extensive bodies of work, Monotipias, where she in the flesh but from a distance, Camnitzer concludes:
begins her exploration of language, where its dissolution takes place, and where I see that I am left floating between two cultures—one that is becoming alien
sentences and phrases give way to babblings and typographic games. The experi- even if I don’t want it to, another that is alien because I want it to be, and I don’t
ence of war and exile are doubtless transmitted in a hermetic way in these works conceive of it in any other way. It is now thirteen years that I am passing through here,
that seem to articulate an order within the chaos of the disarticulate word—that in a provisional state. These are thirteen years that took the rest of the Uruguayan
which speaks of the impossibility of constructing meaning after tragedy. In 1966, intellectuality to jail or into exile, which, except for the guilt complex or alibis, is the
Schendel begins an intellectual relationship with philosopher Max Bense, and it’s same thing. I am a citizen of my memory, which doesn’t have laws, passports or
perhaps in light of this relationship that we can start to understand the conditions inhabitants. It only has distortions.
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Camnitzer expresses a conflict of identity in this and other writings and com-
municates it in a succinct way in his work Paisaje, which leads him to dissect the
Ceci N’est Pas Une Biennale
art history of Latin America in his writing and curatorship, renegotiating the genealo-
gies of conceptualism and reclaiming the discourse of diaspora as his own and not JOSÉ ROCA
as the exclusive domain of a postcolonial theory formulated on the colonial legacies
of the British, French and Belgians in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean—colonial
structures that remained in place until the second half of the twenty century. In his
historiographical revision, we can read a call to specificity lost in the logic of mul- 1. Rules and Possibilities. In The Pleasure of Architecture Bernard Tschumi said: “If you
ticulturalism and its subsequent curatorial strategies, which I mention at the begin- want to follow the first rule of architecture, break it.” Something similar could be
ning of this talk. Camnitzer, for example, locates the beginning of Latin American said about curatorship. There are no parameters that can be applied to all cases,
conceptual art in the figure of Simón Rodríguez, Simón Bolivar’s mentor. Surely an only intentions and desires. It is preferable to be congruent with the development of
audacious gesture and one that affirms this search for specificity. In this way, his a project than consistent with a hypothetical “Should be.”
work proposes at the same time a site for resistance and an antidote against the
(quite diffuse and often insubstantial) models built by the curatorial strategies of 2. An Exhibition is Not an Encyclopedia. Unlike the encyclopedist, a curator can’t include
the (intellectually) void era. all the examples that illustrate a concept—only those that s/he finds and that are
available. Curatorship creates a fiction from those fragments. When recognizing the
impossibility of completeness, the only thing left is to try to suspend the visitor’s
disbelief when facing a set of small pieces from a puzzle without a model. As Douglas
Crimp said, quoting Eugenio Donato’s in On The Museum’s Ruins, museums are
based on the acritical fiction that it is possible to represent the universe from its frag-
ments. An exhibition creates a believable fiction, or at least one that we want to believe.
3. An Exhibition is not a Library. If I want to read I go to the library, where I can acquire
in-depth information…and I don’t even have to do it while standing.
5. An Exhibition is Not a Movie Theatre. If I want to go and see a movie, I go to the movie
theatre, where I can sit in the dark, and the noise (usually) comes only from what
is being projected. Aside from very few exceptions, feature films do not belong in
the exhibition space.
6. A Biennial is Not a Museum. Based on Art History’s orthodoxy, the Museum aspires
to truth. A biennial is not grounded on a mountain of facts—it is sheer speculation.
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Let us not aspire to Truth, only to beautiful half-truths, or to lies that resemble ali- 12. A Biennial is Not an Art Fair. Artists shouldn’t be isolated in their own space as if they
bies: believable, useful and adorned with a veil of suspicion. were stands in a commercial art fair. Their works should be in a spatial dialogue, and
the resulting text is what we call curatorship.
7. A Biennial does Not Document. If the work happens in time, or out of the physical
boundaries of the exhibition site, it should be left there to live (and die). Nothing 13. Dramaturgy. Just as the theatre, the exhibition space shows a work for an audience.
is more frustrating than an exhibition presenting material that documents perform- The difference is that in the theatre the spectators are motionless. An exhibition is not
ances, actions, ephemeral works and works in situ presented as a reminder of what a list of works or artists, but a bodily experience: the way in which this experience
we couldn’t experience. Unless it was conceived as a work in itself, or unless it has happens in space should be studied. Where do I come in? What do I see? What do
a particularly significant contextual value, documentation belongs in an archive, not I hear? What is the visual cornerstone of every movement? A memorable exhibition
in an exhibition. is conceived in the mind, composed in space, and experienced with the body.
8. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Every biennial is a fight lost in advance, because it is 14. Ecology. What is the carbon footprint of a biennial? If we take into account the
impossible to include all countries, all regions, all media, all sexual orientations, all artists and curators’ travels, and the materials used in the production and the set-up,
ethnicities, etc. No matter what you do, someone is always left out. Starting from most biennials wouldn’t pass a certification process for environmental sustainability.
this ontological impossibility, you aspire to a beautiful failure: as Harald Szeemann If some of these evils are unavoidable (nothing replaces the direct relation with the
signals, the latter is one of the poetical dimensions of art. Apollinaire said that artist; no one wants skype curators or blackberry curators, who curate by ear and
architecture should aspire to offer a beautiful ruin to Time… do not visit the studios, etc.), the approach to the set-up can attempt to be responsible
and consistent. We can abandon the claim of of systematically using a white cube for
9. Multiculty. Place 20 immigrants freshly arrived from different countries in a con- bi- and tri-dimensional work and a black box for videos: each work must occupy what
tainer. Ask them to engage in a productive conversation. This is what a biennial is strictly necessary so that it can be experienced without loss. It is not necessary to
aspires to. And sometimes it achieves it. hide the behind-the-scenes and paint everything white: museography can have a
Brechtian approach. I prefer a creative interference to a dialogue between deaf
10. A Biennial is Not a World Fair. Therefore, it shouldn’t have the imperative of an egal- people, each one in their drywall tower.
itarian geographical representation. More so, given that today’s notion of the regional
often makes more sense than a blurry and controversial idea of the nation. Does 15. A Biennial is Not a Technology Fair. Where we go to look at the newest, the most
a Basque artist feel comfortable representing Spain at the Venice Biennale? What advanced, the never-before-seen. A biennial, especially in the Third World (which
State should an artist from Ramallah represent? generally lacks museums with large collections of contemporary art or places that
show avant-garde art) must present a mixture of new projects and existing works.
11. A Biennial Shouldn’t Just be a Biennial. Most biennials are worried about creating a The local audience can appreciate important works, which the blasé spectator of
spectacular event, concentrated in time and space. And when the Great Exhibition the small artist world might find trite. A biennial is neither a show of new talents,
ends, they go into a sort of hibernation for the next two years. A biennial should find nor a place where curators from other biennials might come hunting for new
ways of extending its action in time, and in that way fight back the post-biennial peripheral talent.
depression suffered by host cities. A way of doing this is to understand them as a
space for creating infrastructure, establishing poles of action that activate the local 16. A Biennial is Not an Art School. And it cannot pretend to replace it. But it can perform
scene in the periods between each biennial. an important role with regards to the training of the gaze, a function that museums
perform (and a biennial is a kind of temporary museum). From its transience, a
biennial can perform the function of familiarizing the audience of a certain place
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with the images and discussions of its contemporary art. In 1953, The São Paulo
Biennial presented Picasso’s Guernica, and every two years, it has brought the São
The Vision of the Ultimate Man
Paulo audience closer to the artistic movements of its time. A biennial is a tempo- The Apocalyptic Path of the Works
rary museum that especially benefits the vast majority of people who cannot travel
to the art centers. A biennial builds a visual repertoire in time, a collection of mem- of David Alfaro Siqueiros
ories that are the artistic patrimony of the community where it is inscribed.
17. Educating/Learning. A biennial can try to transcend the triad of interpretation- ITALA SCHMELZ
mediation-service that characterizes the pedagogical work in museums, instead
evolving the idea of education from its own curatorial formulation. Museums always
try to mediate between art and audience, attempting to facilitate this relation by
proposing mechanisms that help to understand what is being presented. But art is 1. David Alfaro Siqueiros (1898-1974) was, among his contemporaries, a modern
in itself an instance of knowledge that does always go through the rational: it is also man. An apologist of both technology and science, his political convictions led him
learned through the senses. Occasionally, an image is worth a thousand words; a to imagine a future of progress and social justice that would be brought about by
sound, a thousand images; and a smell, a thousand sounds. We don’t know which Communist Revolution. He and his generation of painters, though living through
will be the device that will unleash the processes of knowledge. two devastating world wars, held onto their idealistic visions of a bright future.
The architects of the mid-twentieth century were starting to imagine the future
18. Emergency. At the office of Diane Karp, director of the Santa Fe Art Institute, I saw of the city and it was Siqueiros, above all, who was able to portray their visions. By the
a sign stating that, “There are no artistic emergencies.” Art, no matter how impor- 1950’s Siqueiros had had the opportunity to witness several cities from the air. In his
tant we think it is, does not save lives (or maybe it does, but in a metaphoric way). urban paintings of the period his vanishing points evolved to give the perspective
There are successful exhibitions whose result makes us forget that the process was of something like hyper-cities, as cities as seen from the air. “I believe that men living
complete torture. This is wrong: in art as well, the end does not justify the means. in the age of the airplane cannot have, in terms of travel, the same lyrical sensitivity or
To do an exhibition can end up being a distressing, frustrating or painful situation. the same romanticism as those men had who lived in ages before the skies had
been conquered,” Siqueiros wrote. For him, putting into perspective the stratospheric
19. Responsibility. Curatorship is not signed because of vanity, but just as you would curve of the Earth was a way to pinpoint his perception of our planet as a “universal
sign a blank check: once it goes public, anyone can cash it, and the curator must platform of man.” This aerial view, as well as a developing cosmic consciousness, is
be there to answer. perhaps one of Siqueiros’ most original artistic visions. It is little known that Siqueiros
was interested in Science Fiction, and yet in the mural of San Miguel Allende (1948),
20. Community. Exhibitions are made to create memorable life experiences. I under- which includes a large motor running along the ceiling, he uses the convex dome
stand curatorship as the creation of a temporary community. Artists and curators of the roof to suggest a rocket in launch. In 1956 Siqueiros also painted the
enter a dialogue that happens due to a prolonged coexistence and a more or less “Atomic Ship” which could have been what inspired Kubrick to imagine his own
common goal. I consider successful those exhibitions where I ended up making artistic odyssey into space.
life-long friends. It is not that I aspire for a biennial to be a marriage agency, but it But the famous Mexican muralist was also disturbed by what the future held in
should doubtless be a moment of empathy. Working with friends is rare and art can store, and thus tried to imagine what the present heralded in his paintings. Through his
provide that opportunity. works he shaped images of catastrophe as intense visions of the biblical Apocalypse.
Siqueiros sketched his most intensely destructive scenes, which also happened
to be key moments of technical self-discovery, while living in New York (1935-36)
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and just before leaving to fight in the Spanish Civil War. It was in this period when theories into practice by traveling to Spain in 1937 and taking orders with the
he formed his Experimental Workshop which was also, significantly, attended by Republican Army. From the fighting on the front he sent back letters to his wife,
Jackson Pollock. Artists in the workshop primarily dedicated themselves to making Angélica Arena. “I write to you after my first armed confrontation. I had a splendid
artworks for the American Communist Party. Siqueiros also spent these years in inten- morning in the midst of artillery fire and under the trembling of airplanes bombing our
sive experimentation with industrial painting substances, discovering, for example, columns on the march. This is a marvellous historical moment, as much a spectacle
the effects of gun cotton, which would end up becoming one of his most consistently as a problem. And from this close, you can see that fighting is a human thing, with
used painting materials. The mixing and absorption-levels of paint and synthetic none of the lyricism we like to bestow on it when watching from a distance.”
solvents slathered or sprayed on the panels served to stimulate his creative imagi- In the battlefields of Civil War Spain, Siqueiros was named Colonel for his bravery.
nation. More than painting, Siqueiros saw himself as invoking the effervescent biology Here he witnessed with his own eyes what a battle was, felt the vibrations of a machine
of the very origin of life. In a moment of lucidity, Siqueiros wrote to the beautiful María gun and walked on bomb-scorched fields. Carlos Contreras, a fellow soldier, wrote
Asúnsolo: “It’s about the use of chance in painting. The absorption of one colour into of Siqueiros: “He held things together during battles. He once had to run two kilome-
another reveals the fantasy and magic that human brains imagine. It is something tres under artillery fire with bombs raining from the sky. Those were in the stormy
like the geologic creation of the Earth, like the polychrome and multiform betas days of the Battle of Pingarrón. I remember watching Siqueiros in the last days of the
of mountains or the integration of cells. It’s this organization that surges mysteriously battle walking out of that inferno.”
from who knows what dreadful law, from what profundity… And above all this
tumultuous dynamism, this tempestuousness, this physical and social revolution that 2. Skipping ahead to the sixties, between the years 1960 and1964 Siqueiros served
drives fear into us.” his longest prison sentence, which took both a physical and a moral toll on the
Surveying Siqueiros’ work in the 1930’s, one sees the beginnings of a lavish painter. “I’m an imprisoned man,” he said, “I can’t take it anymore,” as cited by jour-
apocalyptic vision. Considering the multiple catastrophes already having taken place nalist Julio Scherer writing about Siqueiros in his book, Skin and Entrails. Scherer
in the the twentieth century, we can understand these violent visions as a simple regularly visited and recorded thoughts of Siqueiros while he was in prison. These ses-
response to his time. The first painting that he completed in this spirit was “The Birth sions with the reporter served as an escape of the present, giving opportunities,
of Fascism” (1936) where the Statue of Liberty is sinking in a storm at sea. In another which Siqueiros didn’t miss, to drive in what he saw as his own heroic character. At
work, “The End of the World” (1936) we see a single survivor rising up amidst the ruins the same time, however, Scherer also reported on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities
of a battle. And then in “Chaos and Disaster” (1936) in the midst of a powerful explo- of the painter in these dark days of his: “He rubs his eyes and then puts on his
sion, we see nothing left standing and no remaining signs of life at all. Siqueiros painted round crystal glasses, whose frame was missing one of its arms, all of which gave
numerous explosions in this period, the most spectacular being “Explosion in the City” him the appearance of an old and miserable man. This is how the painter looked,
(probably begun in 1936 but not completed until 1945). These multiple images of old and exhausted, with his prison duds, his sad gestures, and his humble hat held
explosion might be seen as a sort of premonition of the coming atomic explosion. between his legs.”
His imagery of catastrophe continued in works such as “Black Foreshortening” (1936) In prison the only way by which Siqueiros could continue painting was by
in which we see a single figure lying in a puddle. In this work Siqueiros also included accustoming himself to much smaller formats. Most of his work while in prison
iron and screws on the canvas, deliberately, one might consider, contaminating the wasn’t bigger than 12 square inches, and he even delved into miniature work (or
surface. In “Echo of a Cry” (1937) we see the solitary figure of a child amidst the ruins as Raquel Tibol expressed it, prison painting) painting on both jewels and cigarette
of a war. The child seems to be swallowing an image of his own anguished self. lighters. In these years he completed somewhere around 200 small paintings. For
In painting these works, Siqueiros was indeed influenced by images of events a man who was used to working on high scaffoldings with an air brush, he had to
taking place in Europe, but he was also greatly inspired by the caustic lyricism he was get used to a scale more emotional than polyangular. This later period of his career
discovering in the basic chemical effects and reactions he witnessed in his experi- is when he started giving more liberty to action and subjective painting. He returned
mentations with piroxilina. Culminating this stage of his career, he put his revolutionary to techniques such as “wiping” and the controlled accidents that he practiced in
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the company of Jackson Pollock during those glory days in New York. His brush- the painter turn more lyric, more dramatic, and more universal than historic. There
work loosened up and he began turning to more figurative representations, testing have been very few studies of the late work of Siqueiros. It seems that his millennial
the limits of abstraction and working with gestural suggestions rather than the metic- pronouncements provoked a certain rejection among critics. Specialists consider
ulous realism he strove for in his early work. Some of these fantasy-laden represen- this stage of his career as decadent. My impression, however, is that in the Black
tations even resemble the works of a surrealist. Palace of Lecumberri, our revolutionary and progressive artist turned into a feverish
Schere comments: “The green eyes of Siqueiros are bloodshot. He says that it’s prophet, his paintings starting to proclaim the final end: Apocalypse Now.
because he works all night with nothing but a gas lamp to see by. The prison offi- The vision of total destruction would be the most beautiful vision of all, Siqueiros
cials don’t permit him electric light at night, but he insists on continuing. He won’t stop once claimed in nearly complete messianic exaltation, except that there would be
work on a painting when he feels an inner clarity, which is what some call inspiration…” nobody around to appreciate it. It was this with which Siqueiros became obsessed:
In his small cell he mixed the gun cotton with other extremely potent chemicals. the gaze of the Ultimate, or Last Man. In January of 1960 Siqueiros wrote on the back
It’s probably not too much to speculate that by inhaling some of these chemicals he of a painting: “Scenography project for the play, “Live Ember” (Act II, after the
reached and altered state of mind. I wonder though, if because of these chemicals Atomic War, what?)”. He also wrote: “The earth was completely scorched—a new
he ever reached the point of hallucination or delirium. On the reverse of a work com- dead star—its infinite beauty… But there is nobody to witness it. Absolutely nobody!”
pleted in his cell in 1961 Siqueiros noted: “A strange (for me) optical phenomenon, The painter also wrote a script for this play, or what might be called an audiovisual
after hours of working in complete darkness. The stains and paintings on the walls drama, in which the forces of nature overtake the ancient Greek gods amidst an
of the cells illuminated and started to move, to move torturously. But why?” On the effervescent luminescence. On the reverse of another painting from 1962, set to be
reverse of another painting the artist wrote: “The Gesturer [La Gestosa]: a gigantic part of the design of the Chapultepec mural, he noted: “Life of beings and things
thistle, fifty times taller than a man. It is said that it is born and lives for millennia in will dry up.” On the back of yet another: “Warning: a dead fire will cover the earth.”
the dry and empty estuaries where the rotten plants and fish once fertilized the muck Throughout the convulsing earth will proceed ragged crowds in a sordid dias-
and mire which has by now been dried for centuries.” His visions and fantasies pora. Reflecting on these mysterious migrations, Siqueiros wrote on the back of
seemed to have overtaken his mind. another canvas: “Natives and giant negroes who for years have been tortured by
In trying to understand the way Siqueiros was painting in this period we might the government establishment have escaped and are now crossing deserts, jungles
look to Salvador Dalí, who called a similar process “Critical Paranoia.” Dalí and rivers on their way to the coasts of this burning earth.” On the reverse of another
describes this method as “Representing an object without the slightest figurative or work dedicated to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Siqueiros wrote: “Though
anatomical manipulation while at the same time representing another object com- somebody knows—they themselves—where do they go? Running without direction.”
pletely distinct from the first. The completion of this superimposed object is possi- In the painting we see human beings dramatically possessed and making ges-
ble thanks only to the violence of paranoic thought, which with cunning and skill tures downright Dantean. Are these, then, memories from the battlefields of Spain?
manages the many unnoticed coincidences, etc. Drawing on the second image, in Is Siqueiros reminiscing about visions of hell taught to him during his Christian
this case, takes the place of the obsessive idea.” upbringing? Or perhaps the visions are from his prison years when he was both
In this period, the practice of frenetic sketching led Siqueiros to develop, out of fighting against himself and fighting against his fear of death. Though he was a man
his chaos, a singular universe: a vertigo / vortex of his imagined horrors and land- of passionate energy, in prison he faced the forced impotence of being confined
scapes. Dark clouds, for example, began to resemble ghosts of war, incandescent and on those lonely nights he began to realize his own finitude.
lights hovering over a “Tree on a Sad Night” and the light of a volcano or forest fires His work while in prison was undoubtedly eschatological: screaming visions of
are reminiscent of an atomic bomb. His use of luminous reds calls to mind war, blood, burnt earth, migrations and exoduses, as well as violent sunsets with deep magen-
passion and death. All of this creative energy is like a sermon of the coming dystopic tas along the horizon that could easily be mistaken for volcanic eruptions. These
future. If the catastrophes painted by Siqueiros from the 30’s to the 50’s could be consistent apocalyptic shadowing is similarly described in the essay, “On a Newly
seen as reactions to actual battles, in the catastrophes of the 60’s and 70’s we see Arisen Apocalyptic Tone in Philosophy”, by Jacques Derrida. In this work Derrida
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analyses an essay of Immanuel Kant that describes how some philosophers adopt- a world of violence, a world of tragedy, and yet this is only the beginning of the
ed apocalyptic tones while announcing the death or end of philosophy (the end of tragedy. It’s early still, and the culmination of the tragedy is yet to come.”
history, the end of the subject, even the end of painting). These announced deaths Throughout his career, Siqueiros cultivated his image of the future according
are associated with the idea of a supernatural revelation: “A vision that provokes a to his ideals of justice and humanity, and yet the rhythm of events in his works
mystic exaltation, or at least provokes the pose of a visionary.” This is the end of the shows that the utopian ideas of his time were failing under the triumph of capitalism
end: “I will tell it to you.” and the machinations of war. His art thus reflected a path quite different than what
An apocalyptic tone is a way of speaking that presupposes an occult wisdom he wanted or expected. His hours and hours of work in prison particularly came
as well as its inevitable ostentations. The power of revealing what the majority of alive in his paintings. What then happened to the future he once desired, to the
people ignore provokes undeniable pleasure in the prophet. Siqueiros adopted this optimism he once brushed into his murals? By the end of his life an apocalyptic
role: a prophet announcing the end times. Derrida writes: the eschatalogical ten- vision had completely overtaken his earlier odes to progress. Something had fun-
dency in the human psyche is, in the end, based on a farce, on impossible knowledge damentally changed in the tone of his paintings. Siqueiros was no longer speaking
confused with clear understanding: “An exalted vision promises more: it promises as a union leader or agitator of the masses, but as a prophet. His paintings addressed
knowledge replacing the knowable object.” This replacement distorts the feeling of viewers with the angry tone of one who announces the Final Judgment. Visions of
the sublime, this feeling which heralds extra-sensory knowledge. “The mystagogues horror, the infinitely beautiful final destruction, took over the mind of a prisoner and
create a scene and then, in trance-like state, enter into that scene. But when do in this state Siqueiros developed a new lyrical style, no longer painting landscapes
they create mystery? Mystagogues are apart from the common man, and yet they based on external experience, but based upon his own interior horizons.
have something in common with him: they speak in immediate and intuitive relation
to what is mysterious.”
In prison Siqueiros painted like a mystagogue, presaging a plastic and threat-
ening vision of hell on earth. The artist put fire to his tiny, rectangular easels with
his visions of nature on the edge of catastrophe, shaken by its creator. Looking at
notes written on the back of some of the paintings we see that Siqueiros seems to
have lost his dialectic ideology and his secular communism, that he even started
taking on tones of a religious millennialism: a mystic residing on the wavering horizon.
In what he saw as the twilight of humanity, he began to literally make announce-
ments about coming centuries of destruction and death: “The Broken Redeemer,”
he wrote in September of 1963, “and his doctrine of ‘Peace on Earth’ has been buried
in the blood and ashes of two thousand years of increasingly devastating wars.”
Siqueiros wanted to bring his dramatically chaotic view of the world to the walls
of the city, and he finally got his chance with his last mural, “Humanity’s March to the
Cosmos” on a wall of the Poliforum Cultural. The work seems to represent the bib-
lical grand finale as the Apostle John saw it. During an interview with the artist in
1967, Raquel Tibol commented, “In ‘Humanity’s March’ there is lot of violence,
including monsters assaulting human beings or humans suffering terrible anguish.
There are sections that are oppressive and sections that eerily open up the human
figures. Why did you choose to incorporate all of this violence into the mural?”
Siqueiros responded: “It’s a reflection of my mental and political state. I’m living in
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Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos playing his violin. One of Bach’s fugues, maybe? No one moved during that brief
eternity that lasted the whole of the violinist’s stroll through our neighbourhood.
And then he left, taking his gentle toast over to the heart of Tepito.
FELIPE EHRENBERG At its peak, Tepito Indómito was able to organize close to 60 volunteers who
served as liaisons between the victims and the city government. A celebration was
certainly called for. And so a month later, the volunteers and I decided to put together
an enormous party. We called up every band and sonidero musician who played in
In bello parvis momentis magni casus intercedunt. the slums, bars and clubs within a two-mile radius. We held the party at the bar,
JULIO CÉSAR Botellita de Jeréz. And in mid October our volunteer group invited neighbours to
work on a collective offering for the victims of the earthquake: a huge table, some
The earthquake of ’85 destroyed Tepito. It was September 19th, and that afternoon 30 meters long by 4 meters wide, full of fruit, flowers, gifts, pictures and confetti.
at about three o’clock, my kids, their friends and I loaded three cars with clothes, It was beautiful!
medicine and bottled water. Bewildered by the piles of debris we had to dodge, we The lack of water in our area lasted 54 shaky days, days in which everything
shakily parked on the corner of González Ortega and Cerrada Días de León, where changed. Relations between societal forces changed, hierarchies of power changed,
I ended up staying the night. And the next night and the next… That first night, even my hair colour changed. My hair turned grey as I rearranged the pieces of my
under a light drizzle, I founded the crisis relief organization that later became the 42-year-old heart. Every week, I came and went from my hometown, Xico, to Mexico
Centro de Enlace Díaz de León/Tepito Indómito (Díaz de León Center of Liasons City. I travelled a few times to give talks in other parts of the country and abroad.
/Savage Tepito). Just a few days later, we set up three tents, which we turned into And I began to submerge myself in the every day life of Mexico City’s downtown. One
our administrative base, a shelter for victims, and a staging ground to distribute day I realized that the Capital’s artistic sphere, which was becoming more and more
provisions, donations and offer first aid relief. Waves of victims aimlessly walked the disparate from my immediate reality, had started to suffocate me. It was strange, even
intransitable streets. Some hurried to their jobs, others to aid survivors in the down- picturesque to my colleagues that I lived in Xico. I could no longer find myself in
town area of Tlatelolco. Confused, the people of Tepito wandered around, looking them. Finally, a decade later, I moved to Portales in the Benito Juárez neighbourhood
lost, turning over debris to better yank free a piece of furniture, clothes, documents, of Mexico City, but I kept my studio in Xico until 1998.
a family photo. The power had gone out. The phones weren’t working. There was The few walls that had withstood the earthquake in the devastated area of pre-
no water and sodas were worth gold. There was no way to mix the baby formula, graffiti Tepito and its surrounding neighbourhoods were covered and recovered
to make rice, to make soup… There was no way to shower! And the smell of the by murals whose painters were still unknown by mainstream culture. Flocks of
dead! A terrible stench of carrion wrapped around us for weeks… We faced an poets and writers founded a series of clubs and associations in Peralvillo, Bondojito,
unforeseen future. Precarious. Chaos swept over us. Chaos swept over the entire Tepis and Morelos. They published short photocopied or mimeographed texts
country. And so we started to mourn. about life after the earthquake. A multitude of funk dives were established, and rock
The morning of Monday the 23rd, I woke before dawn. Volunteers had to be musicians became a tremendously important escape-valve for an overwhelmed
organized to distribute food and blankets, arrange expired medicine and redirect youth. The city’s southern neighbourhoods couldn’t make sense of this phenomenon.
any claims to the appropriate government office. Our neighbours, now homeless, They only got as far as an obsessive yet distanced curiosity for the “Barrio Bravo,”
crowded in front of our tents. The sun was rising when, in the distance, we heard a or fierce neighbourhood, as Tepito is famously called. In 1998, the Museum of
sweet, delicate sound. The sound of a violin. Everyone stopped their work and chatter, Popular Culture began exhibiting a model layout of Tepito, equipped with tiny
kids let go of their mothers’ hands, and everyone craned their necks to try to see streets, food stands, apartments and sea-food restaurants. The museum entrance
this mysterious violin, which was quickly coming our way. And then, a very tall and thin is as cheap as a metro ticket, and is only a few blocks from Calz in Tlalpan, on the
man with a black goatee and eyes half closed came in through the gate before us, same road that goes to the actual Tepito!
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A year later, on October 10th of 1986, I found myself in San Diego. I was newly and, of course, a roster of sinister jokes (what’s a joke, but the very base element
immersing myself in the art profession again and had accepted to build a large instal- of Mexico’s imagination?!). But as far as I know, theater and dance kept themselves
lation that I titled Tropi-Bang! Then, a little before noon, I got a phone call from Pepe at the margin of the catastrophe and its aftermath. And save for a very few excep-
Vega, who I’d left in charge of our organization. “Did you see the news? An earth- tions, that Rubén will surely enumerate for us, neither film nor visual arts knew how
quake, measured 7.5 hit San Salvador! We’re already gathering things to send them.” to process the catastrophe. By now, the want to register, interpret and think about
“What good are things?” I responded. “The best thing we can offer is our own expe- chaos and catastrophe has practically disappeared. With one exception.
rience, don’t you think? Wait for me, I’ll be right over…” Somewhere between ’64 and ’85 sprouted the Movimiento Grupal. These artists
With the help of Angeles Campos and Jose Lever, I created Operation Barrio to overflowed with creativity. Characterized by conceptual and formal experimentation,
Barrio: 16 former Tepito victims, one allopathic and seven homeopathic doctors. with a confrontational—sometimes militant—flare, their work reached an eclectic
We landed in San Salvador on the 14th, with the 70-year-old grandmother, Amelia public. But despite the long list of texts it produced, it didn’t resonate signifi-
Loredo, at the head of our group, carrying an enormous chrome-framed portrait of cantly with the critics of the time. And so it’s little talked about in the realm of art
Our Lady Guadalupe. We were surrounded by soldiers as we made our way from history. It’s in that time period of profound change, in those three decades wedged
the airport to the San Jacinto Barrio. The country—eye of the hurricane in the Central between two catastrophes, that visual arts in Mexico—specifically in Mexico City—
American wars of the time—was falling apart and living under a strict curfew. We went from being one of the leading voices in the country’s push to change itself
brought the huge tent that had served the victims of the Chichonal Volcano eruption, (in spite of many), to being merely one more commodity: works of art made for
which I turned it into our operational headquarters. We created a handful of teams, the conspicuous consumption of the new rich, who were the only beneficiaries of the
each focused on offering a different type of sustainable aid. Immediately after that, catastrophic neoliberalism that squashed the country after its institutionalization was
we put together a massive cultural arts festival. We stayed there a month. And it was cemented by the PRI-economics of Salinas and De la Madrid.
really only after I came back to Mexico and was able to remerge myself in the recon- Education and social formation determine the ways in which the artist responds
struction and aftermath of Tepis, that I thought clearly about my experiences with to the universe surrounding him, and this is reflected in the content and form of his
crisis. And that’s when I thought to compare the repercussions of the conflict of ’68 work, which, in turn, express his ideas. For Current Art in the Age of Information,
to the earthquake of ’85. Can it be?! education and social formation are even stronger determinants in the moment the
The student conflict, which, as many of you know, has been exhaustively stud- artist projects himself. As an example: The country’s most important centre in gen-
ied and scrutinized, left a rich cultural and artistic legacy. The literature, music and erating artists, the National School of Visual Arts/Academy of San Carlos (ENAP is
visual arts—as well as some documentaries and Jorge Fons’ movie—that were pro- the acronym in Spanish), which was located in the downtown historic district until
duced throughout the conflict and in the following years, forged direct dialogue 1979. An excellent public transportation system allowed easy access to this ancient
with a large slice of society that was able to affect the nation’s forthcoming actions. factory of artists, for the rich and poor, men and women, Spanish, mestizos, and even
Thanks to these works we achieved rich reflections on the earthquake and its after- the vast number of cultures lumped together as the so-called ‘indigenous’. The
math. But in comparison to ’85, the impact of ’68 was trivial, especially in southern calamitous Revolution of 1920 and its chaotic aftermath would be incomprehensi-
Mexico whose painful and prolonged tragedy would see its climax only with the ble to us without the works of art produced by the academy’s graduates, who strove
Maya uprising of January 1994. With regards to the urban population, it’s clear that to reflect and interpret the fray. In spite of the art movements of the status quo, this
it was the empowerment that came from the post-earthquake environment that niche of artists continuously strove to pay attention to the nation’s socio-political on
shifted the dialogue during the election of 2000… as well as that of 2006. goings. Many of those who later led the Movimiento Grupal, Grupo Suma, as well
I understand that my friend and colleague, Rubén Ortiz, is going to talk about as many other collectives, first studied at the academy.
the artistic reproduction of ’85. I think it’s important to discuss the impact—if there Eleven years after ’68, UNAM resolved to exile ENAP to Xochimilco, very close to
was any—the earthquake of ’85 had on our conception of aesthetics. There’s a sea the most privileged area of the city. The school of design went with. It’s complicated
of photo-essays and videos, many chronicles, some literature and popular music getting to the southernmost part of Mexico City by public transportation. This move
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radically changed the socioeconomic profile of the students, who from then on would Let’s use a magnifying glass to better study Mexico’s current. We’re in the era
need a car to get there. Time, distance and cost alienated students of few resources of so called “actual art,” which Denise Dresser so emphatically and confidently
until ENAP was “purified” enough that it became almost exclusively made up of “cre- described before Congress just a few months ago. In politics and economics alike,
olized” kids from suburban neighbourhoods. Equipped with cars and without the need Mexico crumbles at a chaotic pace, it’s social fabric already steeped in catastrophe.
to work as they study, these kids come from families who generally mistrust art and who We’re harassed by the savage polarization of our middle class whose liberals and
push them to pursue a career in design instead. This group suffers from a deficient conservatives hate each other with resentment little seen before. They sense the
education that leaves them ignorant of Mexican art history, and leads them to become precariousness of their immediate future, but are resolved to reject any gesture
less and less responsive to the country’s current state-of-affairs. Their blood-life con- toward national reconciliation.
sists of expensive, specialized, English-only magazines. As a last resort, they respond Determined by a distribution of wealth that only favours a handful of powerful
only to the cyber-reality of the Internet. They’re continuously tuned into the interna- families, impoverishment first and foremost afflicts our first nations, that is to say
tional gallery industry, with its private museums, fairs and foundations. They become our original pueblos, or the deep Mexico that Bonfil Batalla describes and Carlos
aware of catastrophic news and chaotic situations through sound-bites, 80% of which Montemayor studied so closely. Today, violence thrives throughout our entire coun-
are in English and the other 20% offered only through terrible translations: an Iranian try while our cities are besieged with poverty and any wealth lies hidden within
woman’s death by stoning, tsunamis in Asia and floods in Germany, the slaughter of gated neighbourhoods.
seals, the depredation of the Amazon, the cause of the Palestinian (and so many other) It’s not easy to count the number of victims—most dispossessed and dark
conflicts in the Middle and Far East. Al Gore and global warming overshadow events skinned—of this bloody war which tears at the social fabric of Mexico, breaking our
in their immediate environment… Everything of course is laden with attractions governments, institutions, economies and religions, our entire culture. But music
—Aichi’s 1st International Triennial (whose theme was Art and Cities); Miami Beach’s (and not just the narco-corridos) and film (not just ones with Almada) are years
Art Basel (the international art world’s favourite winter hub); or Taipei’s 7th Biennial ahead of the rest of culture with their interpretation and mode of thinking (two
(whose theme is to question the infrastructure of the institution of biennials). recent films, El Infierno by Luis Estrada and Machete by Robert Rodriguez, are an
Cries for help are confused with cries of fashion, which drive us toward chaos. extraordinary pair).
The cyber-levels of our cyber-tension are exacerbated. How can we prioritize so It’s hard, maybe impossible to foresee the effects of this catastrophic conflict
many emergencies? How do we process them in order to transform them into art? when we don’t even know who is poised against whom. Who are “the good” and who
Suffering and compassion are no longer shared; they’re privatized and internalized. “the bad.”? The only thing certain is, as Ramon de Campoamor said, “in this treach-
Incapable of responding to actual, daily reality, artists explore existential anguishes erous world, there isn’t truth or lie: everything is according to the prism through
with English titles. Hermitage makes way to chaos. which it’s seen.”
When confronting the question, “what becomes of our aesthetic sense when
* we approach chaos? I can say that the only contemporary Mexican artist of calibre
I know, the only one who has kept his gaze locked on the chaos which peels off
Chaos comes from the Greek (χάος, abertura). It encapsulates confusion and dis- the catastrophe that he and all of his forefathers have had to bear, is a modest but
order. It’s “the amorphous and indefinite state” that comes before the ordering of extraordinary print-maker, painter and active member of his community, who MUAC,
the cosmos. The Real Academia Española tells us that the mathematical definition over there in the south of the Capital will never invite. Distinguished yet unknown in
of chaos is, “the apparently erratic and unpredictable behaviour of some dynamic sys- Mexico, he is becoming more and more recognized in Denmark, France, Indonesia
tems, though their mathematical formulation is in principle deterministic.” Meanwhile, and Germany. I’m talking about Nicolás de Jesús. Is anyone interested in getting
Google gives us a pluricultural and multilingual slew of artists who undertake chaos to know him? You’ll find your answer by looking him up on the Internet.
and catastrophes. I browsed the topic in various languages; out of all the names that
appeared on my screen, I couldn’t find one single Mexican artist.
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My first presentation was done in 1960. Three signs, signals—glyphs?—obsessively recur in my
early work: the Egg, the Arrow, and the Jester. Diego Velazquez taught me that we artists are
like court jesters. Some confuse jester with clown. Google tells me that the profession “dates
back to ancient times. It arose in Rome along with other corrupting customs—love, luxury,
indulgence—all of which promised pleasure and resulted in a search of ever more intense
physical, moral and intellectual monstrosities: dwarfs, giants, the deformed, etc. The tradition
created a constant demand, and it became so big that a market was created in Rome just for this.
When the profits were big enough, the Orient began producing its own monsters and dwarfs.”
This film is a record about hijacking through a dynamic assembly of fragments and documents taken
from different sources, primarily TV shows. Grimonprez analyzes the relationship between the cata-
strophic events in the collective imagination and their use in the mass media.
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signals beamed in from skies, it was regarded as a somewhat alien presence in the water”. Newspapers baptized the unknown crafts after the household object, and
home, and so the television was often hidden away or disguised within its furniture. thus “flying saucers” turned America’s gaze skywards. Something was definitely
The Hillsborough, with its new Hideaway Styling, allowed the TV to be flipped back out there in the skies…
into a regular salon table, acting as if the new medium did not yet exist.9 Even, or
perhaps especially, in Hollywood, the television was considered a hostile prop on Terror from Outer Space
film sets. Warner Brothers frowned on the appearance of a TV in the living rooms Cold War nerves had caused paranoia in the ranks of America’s Secret Service,
of its feature films, and would promptly order to have it removed. “The assumption,” always in fear of a commie Soviet plot. UFO contactee George Adamski fuelled their
Erik Barnouw writes, “seemed to be that if television could be banned from feature fears with his comment that the superior space people had “a communist-type
films, it could not survive.”10 But not for long: Warner signed a contract to produce government!”13 The CIA set up a panel of top scientists, headed by Dr. H.P.
Westerns for ABC Television and by 1958, there were thirty Western series pro- Robertson. It concluded that it would be strategically wise to debunk UFO reports,
grammed for prime-time TV. Soon the telly would re-imagine what the living room out of fear that the Soviet Union might use them to induce public hysteria in the US.
was all about. Leaving Hollywood for New York’s growing television bustle, Lucille Even The Wonderful World of Disney got involved in the television disinformation
Ball became the first film star to attain more fame as a TV sitcom-actress. I Love campaign. UFO groups were monitored for subversive activities, and contactees were
Lucy portrayed her as a woman permanently on the verge of escaping the family branded as Soviet spies.14
trap but failing delightfully—that was until the following week’s programme! In a In October 1957, Sputnik launched the Space Age. The very first satellite shot
January 1957 episode, on the occasion of her son’s birthday, she makes an attempt into orbit by the Soviets struck a serious blow to America’s self-esteem, causing a
to conquer the domestic space recently lost to the telly. She dons a Superman cos- major media crisis. TV networks were flabbergasted that instead of staying glued to the
tume and makes her entrance through the third-floor living-room window. Alas, tube, their usually captive audiences ran into backyards hoping to catch a glimpse
“supermom” gets caught on the drain-pipe and the “real” Superman, played by of Sputnik beaming across the night sky. The press likened the launch of Sputnik
George Reeves, has to make a special guest appearance to save Lucy from domestic to Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. “Somehow, in some new way, the
disaster. Heroes of the small screen were here to stay.11 sky seemed almost alien,” wrote Senate majority leader L.B. Johnson, the soon-
The tube did not only zap superheroes into the home—the very first television to-be-president.15
signals beamed into the ether also attracted “foreign attention”. In January 1953 In response, the US attempted to blast off with the Vanguard I rocket, but the
the media reported that two mysterious “Men in Black”, who were not from Earth, “Flopnik” or “Kaputnik”, as it was baptized, had hardly lifted four feet off the ground
had landed with a saucer in the Mojave Desert, 200 miles east of Los Angeles. before an enormous explosion sent it crashing back down to Earth in front of a world-
They claimed to have learned English by listening to TV broadcasts.12 Already in wide television audience. When the Soviets sent their dog into orbit, paranoia peaked
1947, civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold had observed nine elliptical, disc-shaped vehi- within US ranks. After all, “Pupnik” Laika could potentially be carrying a hydrogen
cles travelling in formation over Mount Rainier in Washington at extraordinary bomb! To America, the Soviet dog was a harbinger of war being waged from space.
speed. He described the objects as resembling “a saucer skipping across the “What’s at stake is nothing less than our survival,” warned Senator Mike Mansfield,
while Edward Teller, “father of the hydrogen bomb”, went on television to suggest
9
See www.zapomatik.com: HILLSBOROUGH WITH NEW HIDEAWAY STYLING, Jam Handy Organization
for RCA Victor, 1958, 2:30', USA (courtesy Prelinger Archives: www.prelinger.com).
10 13
Barnouw, E., Tube of Plenty, The Evolution of American Television (New York ⁄ Oxford: Oxford University Adamski, G. & Adamski, L., Flying Saucers Have Landed (London: Werner Laurie, 1953).
14
Press, 1990). Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Ithaca/London: Cornell
11
Lucy and Superman, episode 166 of I Love Lucy (first broadcast 14 January 1957, USA). See also, University Press, 1998), 190—1. See also, Haines, G.K., “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947—90: A Die-
Mellencamp, P., High Anxiety. Catastrophe, Scandal, Age & Comedy (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana Hard Issue”. Accessed 26 December 2010: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-
University Press, 1990). publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html
12 15
Redfern, N., The FBI Files, the FBI’s UFO Top Secrets Exposed (Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 1998). Dickson, P., Sputnik. The Shock of the Century (New York: Walker & Company, 2001, 117—28.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 420 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 421
that the future now belonged to the Russians.16 In the wake of Sputnik, a renewed surpassed television: driving back through New Hampshire from a short vacation
saucer craze hit the American public. Newsrooms became overwhelmed with in Canada, the interracial couple Barney and Betty Hill were abducted by a flying
reports of sightings. “TOTAL TERROR FROM OUTER SPACE!” ran one caption in the saucer hovering above, which evidently had dropped in from the Zeta Reticuli star
trailer for the 1956 Hollywood production Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. system.18 Officially the very first alien abduction case reported in the US, it opened
Pandora’s box. Or was it a can of worms?
The Fear Industry
During the Cold War, television was eagerly exploited to perpetuate a culture of fear in 1960s: Stay Tuned
search of political gain. Live broadcasts in particular became ideal to shape political In the early 1960 s, another Cold War was in full swing: that of television threatening
rhetoric, as was evident in the very first live televised summit that developed into a to liquidate its older sibling. Cinema was losing out to the small screen as many local
Cold War stand-off between Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice-President film-houses were forced to close their doors. While Hollywood struggled to redefine
Richard Nixon. Notoriously dubbed “The Kitchen Debate”, the newly invented Ampex itself against the encroaching presence of the new medium, Alfred Hitchcock, as
colour videotape recorded the historical event in a model kitchen at the 1959 cinema’s delegate, took on the ambivalent challenge of the TV format. A displaced
American National Exhibition in Moscow. During the statesmen’s rough-and-tumble Englishman in Hollywood, Hitchcock readily donned the role of the double agent,
debate—ranging from dishwashers, to nuclear arsenal, to the role of women— sneaking into the American living room as a master of prime, only to deride it. His wry
Nixon boasted that the wonder of television gave America the technological edge introductions to his TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-62) were peppered
over the USSR. While Nixon bragged about 50 million TV sets for 46 million families with domestic paranoia that mirrored a catastrophic culture in the making. The height-
in the US, the more feisty Khrushchev outsmarted Nixon with a quick retort, ironi- ened tension of the US—USSR relationship and its induced fear of nuclear terror
cally displaying a true mastery of live television. With flamboyant disdain, showman forever loomed on the horizon. So, when the master of the macabre, as Hitchcock
Khrushchev declared that the Soviet space endeavors were far superior. came to be known, chose to cross over into television, he took every opportunity
In June 1961 the Soviets successfully sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit, to mock this evil twin of cinema, one that had morphed into a “propaganda box”:
making him officially the first man in space. As the US space programme lingered “Television is like the American toaster,” he quipped, “you push the button, and the
behind, its media machine played on the communist scare of “The Red Planet same thing pops up every time.” But Hitchcock’s real obsession lay with commer-
Mars” attacking America.17 By now the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons created cials that had infected the format of storytelling. After all, “the story may be unhip,
a doomsday context that brought humanity to the brink of annihilation. The politi- but those crazy commercials are pure poetry,” he joked, adding that they “keep
cally repressed subconscious haunted America in the form of an invisible power you from getting too engrossed in the story”. Much to the horror of his sponsors,
from a hostile universe invading the home. Superheroes and creatures from outer Hitchcock loftily denounced the accursed ads, and with sardonic mischief urged
space colonized prime-time TV. Sci-fi programmes such as The Outer Limits and the early TV viewer to zap away from “these deadly boring commercials: I don’t mind
The Twilight Zone took control of transmission: “There Is Nothing Wrong With Your you leaving the room during the commercial, but I expect you to be in your seats
Television Set. Repeat: There Is Nothing Wrong With Your Television Set. You have for my parts of the program!”19 Media and Marketing Decisions magazine pointed
crossed into the Twilight Zone!” But then, in September of that same year, reality out that the habit of physical zapping, running off to the toilet or grabbing a beer
from the refrigerator during a commercial break, was practiced by 30-40 per cent
of television viewers.20 At one point Hitchcock had jokingly appealed for longer
16
Edward Teller’s comments and similar commentary from US senators and journalists may be heard in the
film Sputnik Mania (2007) by David Hoffman, as well as in the film Double Take (2009) by Johan Grimonprez.
18
See also, Dickson, P., Sputnik. The Shock of the Century (New York: Walker & Company, 2001), 117—28. Fuller, J.G., The Interrupted Journey (New York: Dial Press, 1966).
17 19
Spiegel, L., “From Domestic Space to Outer Space: The 1960s Fantastic Family Sit-Com”; and Sobchack, Grams, M. Jr. & Wikstrom, P., The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion (Maryland: OTR Publishing, 2001).
20
V., “Child/Alien/Father: Patriarchal Crisis and Generic Exchange”, in, Close Encounters. Film, Feminism Fountas, A., “Commercial Audiences: Measuring What We’re Buying”, in Media and Marketing
and Science Fiction, eds. C. Penley, et al. (Minneapolis/Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Decisions (January 1985), 75—6.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 422 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 423
commercials: “they are so short that one must be very agile to get to the kitchen industry as only statistics for ad revenues, were now suddenly taking control by flip-
and back!” But a handy solution was already in the making: adeptly tuned into the ping away from commercials.25
growing TV society, Swanson and Sons advertised their first TV Dinner in 1954.21 At this point the habit of zapping away from commercials was at epidemic levels,
The story goes that executive Gerald Thomas didn’t know what to do with 270 tons practiced by 80 per cent of television viewers. The threat of commercial devastation
of left-over Thanksgiving turkey. Inspired by the aluminum food trays used in the alarmed the advertising industry.26 The trade press claimed that “advertising as a
airline industry, he picked up on the idea of filling the trays with turkey and mar- profession is very much in crisis”.27 In panic, the industry called for “zap-proof”
keting them as a TV Dinner for 98 cents apiece. And so another new cultural icon commercials to dampen the power of the serial clickers in avoiding their product.28
zapped itself into the living room, transforming the eating habits of millions of Ad agencies clamored for new research angles to give them a quick handle on the ad
Americans.22 With the convenience of a food tray, one could easily stay parked in avoiding epidemic.29 Stay-tuned strategies emerged to eliminate channel flipping
front of the tube without the need to run off to the kitchen, and thus the art of din- and hook viewers to the TV set in order to carry them through a commercial break.
ner conversation was rapidly replaced with “sappy sitcoms” sprinkled with com- Ad spots were reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds. Time crunching led to “hot
mercial interruptions.23 switching” to reduce programme breaks, which were moved from programme end to
An extra to the pre-packaged TV meals was the marvel of “canned laughter”. mid-programme. Opening themes were reduced or simply eliminated. Superstars
Live audiences did not always laugh at the right moment, or laughed either too long like Michael Jackson and Madonna were recruited for cross-over appearances in ads.
or too loudly. So the “Laff Box”, a backstage device with a variety of push-button Spots masqueraded as regular programming, and product placement was integrated
laughs, was brought in as a substitute for live audiences to ‘‘sweeten’’ shows with into actual programmes.
pre-recorded laughter.24 Similarly, the advertising industry was sugar-coating its No need to zap any more; the network did it for us.30 Dense editing à la MTV,
image of a happy consumer to an emerging TV society. with strong lead-ins and closing cliff-hangers, made sure eyeballs were kept glued to
the screen. Comedy Central’s Short Attention Span Theater tacitly encouraged viewers
1980s: An Advertising Industry in Panic to flip over to other channels, knowing they could rejoin the programme without losing
The remote control though, didn’t gain any real ground until the 1980s, as previously the thread of the show.31 MTV tailored the new viewing habits into an animated series
channel-hopping was limited to just a few networks. By the mid-1980s, however, featuring two slackers who were addicted to their zapper: Beavis and Butt-head.
the vast cable industry and the video recorder had made the remote control a
necessity. Being used to targeting their television audiences, the advertising industry
25
became alarmed by the zap-behaviour of TV viewers who were inaugurating a radi- Meehan, E., “Commodity Audience, Actual Audience: The Blind Spot Debate” in Illuminating the Blind
Spots: Essays Honouring Dallas W. Smythe, eds. J. Wasko, V. Mosco & M. Pendakur (Norwood: Albex,
cally different pattern of television usage. Viewers, traditionally sold by the media
1993) 105-16
26
Kostyra, R., “Zapping—a modest proposal”, in Media and Marketing Decisions (March 1985), 94—5.
21 27
Phipps, R.G., The Swanson story: when the chicken flew the coop (Omaha: Carol and Caroline Swanson Stewart, D.W., “Speculations on the future of advertising research”, in Journal of Advertising, vol. 21, no. 3
Foundation, 1977). (1992), 1-18.
22 28
Shapiro, L., Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (New York: Penguin Books, Bellamy, R.V. & Walker, J.R., “Zapped into Action. Advertising Industry Response to RCD Diffusion”, in
2004). See also, Mingo, J., “How TV dinners became tray chic”, in How the Cadillac got its fins: and other Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland, eds. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (New
tales from the annals of business and marketing (New York: HarperBusiness, 1994), 197—200; Schwarz, F.D., York/London: The Guilford Press, 1996), 49—69.
29
“The epic of the TV dinner”, in American Heritage of Invention and Technology, vol. 9 (Spring 1994), 55. Advertising Age (30 July 1984).
23 30
Research conducted in 2000 by Baylor College of Medicine (USA), showed that more than 42 per cent of Gleick, J., “Prest-O! Change-O!”, in Living in the Information Age (2005), 147; “Advertisers Are Getting
dinners eaten at home involved TV watching. “The History of TV Dinners”, accessed 26 December 2010: Worried”, in Rolling Stone (28 February 1985); Ferguson, D.A., “Channel Repertoire in the Presence of Remote
http://facts.trendstoday.info/food-and-drink/the-history-of-tv-dinners Control Devices, VCRs, and Cable Television”, in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (Winter 1992).
24 31
Sacks, M., “Canned Laughter: A History Reconstructed. An Interview with Ben Glenn II, Television Historian Eastman, S.T. & Neal-Lunsford, J., “The RCD’s Impact on Television Programming and Promotion”, in
and Expert on Canned Laughter”, in The Paris Review Daily (20 July 2010). Accessed 26 December 2010: The Remote Control in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport, CT: Praeger,
www.mcsweeneys.net/links/sacks/5sacks.html 1993): 189-209.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 424 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 425
Obsessively on the hunt for videos that didn’t suck, they satirized the very act of governments to put aside their differences at the Geneva summit meeting with
flipping channels. Critics claimed it was “Sesame Street for psychopaths”, but the Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president. Gorbachev’s aspiration, though, was to quit
programme did succeed in making MTV less prone to zapping by keeping viewers the nuclear poker game, one, which already had 1.5 million Hiroshima-sized chips
glued to the “idiot box”, as it came to be called.32 Ever savvy about influencing our on the table. However, when he suggested the unprecedented move to liquidate
perception of reality, the political arena followed suit. Case in point was the US invasion all nuclear arsenals worldwide, Reagan bluntly counter-proposed with his Strategic
of Panama in December 1989: it was carefully planned to occur during The Super Defense Initiative (SDI). “Star Wars”, as it was dubbed by the media, was publicized
Bowl, a “low-zapping event”, assuring that the war would be consumed without as a “planetary defense shield” against incoming Soviet ballistic missiles, but many
much public outcry. UFO researchers claimed differently. In fact Star Wars was only a public cover for
Incongruously, reality itself was about to turn into a zapping zone. Viewers’ zap- its real mission: shooting star-ships out of the heavens in order to retro-engineer its
ping behavior also forced the TV industry to refashion newscasts into accelerated foreign technology.34
MTV-style info-bits. News broadcasts got structured along the lines of the home Crushing military expenditures had brought the crumbling Soviet superpower
shopping channel, with one video programmed after another in a constant rotating to the brink of bankruptcy. In similar fashion, the militarization of the American
flow. CNN adopted similar strategies by repeating newsworthy morsels of infotain- economy, which nearly doubled under the Reagan administration, had left the US
ment 24/7, so viewers wouldn’t miss anything on their channel-hopping tour. The with “ramshackle cities, broken bridges, failing schools, entrenched poverty, impeded
“drop-in” style allowed zappers to grab a beer from the fridge any time for a double life expectancy, and a menacing and secretive national-security state that held the
dose of instant gratification.33 Moreover, television turned public space inside out: entire human world hostage”.35 Symptomatic of this context was the waning US
network executives began to substitute dramas for reality shows, reality for enter- space programme: NASA’s space shuttle fleet remained grounded in the wake of
tainment, and ultimately the viewer for the protagonist, beer still in hand. Reality the January 1986 Challenger disaster. Instead of exploring outer space, outer space
was literally zapped… was suddenly colonizing us.36 Steven Spielberg’s ET (ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982)
had already nestled himself comfortably in an American suburb, checking out the
An Alien Force Among Us fridge, getting drunk as he was channel-surfing UFO flicks on the telly. Meanwhile,
Whereas the media networks hijacked reality for entertainment, the global political waves of alien abductions invaded the American bedroom. The media now por-
game entertained a fear factor for reality. On 21 September 1987, in a speech before trayed the contactees as abductees zapped inside the UFOs, their bodies’ intimacy
the United Nations General. breached. Obsessed with the human reproductive system, the ETs had their hands
Assembly, former Hollywood actor turned US president, Ronald Reagan hint- full harvesting ova and sperm to create a hybrid race in space.37 In May 1987, a
ed at the possibilities of a hostile extra-terrestrial threat to Earth: “Perhaps we need couple of months before Reagan’s infamous speech at the UN, the alien account
some outside universal threat. Our differences worldwide would vanish if we were Communion by abductee “experiencer” and author Whitley Strieber reached number
facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you: is not an alien one on The New York Times best-seller list.38 The cover with the image of a bug-
force already among us?” He had used the same analogy in 1985 as a rationale for eyed “Grey” alien was suddenly catapulted into the mainstream. “Abductees evoke
a nostalgia for a future we seem to have abandoned,” writes Jodi Dean, “as the
32
Gleick, J., “Prest-O! Change-O!”, in Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader, E.P. Bucy (Florence:
34
Wadsworth Publishing, 2004), 147. See also, Young, C.M., “Meet the Beavis! The Last Word From America’s Corso, P.J. & Birnes, W.J., The day after Roswell (New York: Pocket Books, 1997). See also,
Phenomenal Pop Combo”, in Rolling Stone (24 March 1994); Hulktrans, A., “MTV Rules (For a Bunch of www.drboylan.com/ as well as www.disclosureproject.org
35
Wussies)”, in Artforum (February 1994). The series was created by Mike Judge for the MTV Channel and Rhodes, R., Arsenals of Folly. The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Random House, 2007), 308.
36
aired from 1993 to 1997. Penley, C., et al., Close Encounters: Film, Feminism and Science Fiction (Minneapolis/Oxford: University
33
Eastman, S.T. & Neal-Lunsford, J., “The RCD’s Impact on Television Programming and Promotion”, in of Minnesota Press, 1991).
37
The Remote Control in the New Age of Television, ed. R.V. Bellamy & J.R. Walker (Westport, CT: Praeger, Hopkins, B., Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987).
38
1993): 189-209. Strieber, W., Communion, A True Story (New York: William Morrow, 1987).
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 426 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 427
dark underside of official space, as a return of the repressed dimensions of astronaut missed out on grabbing a beer from the fridge during commercial break. But no
heroics. They point to the shift from outerspace to cyberspace, and the widespread urgent need for “physical zapping” any more as the remote control was by now largely
crisis of truth as we begin dealing with the virtual realities of the information age.” sold as a standard feature with every TV set. Zapping devices became so omnipresent
The abductee narratives seemed to mirror the alienation felt towards an ever- that households confused their video remote for the stereo remote, and the stereo
increasing complex and uncertain reality of a corporate techno-culture taking over remote for the television remote. Next usability became unwieldy: the lack of
the world. “They bear witness to a lack of control, insecurity, and violation, to a lack accepted interface guidelines guaranteed that the amount of buttons kept multiply-
of response from those who are supposed to protect and care.”39 ing. Remote control anarchy reigned.45 TV-Guide noted that the zapper had also
Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack, who co-chaired with physicist David E. entered couch potato politics as “the most avidly used and fought over device in
Pritchard the 1992 Abduction Study Conference40 at MIT, observed that the restric- the electronic cottage”. 46 Howard Markman, head of the University of Denver’s
tive epistemology of a prevailing scientific paradigm was perhaps not adequate and Center for Marital Studies, identified channel-surfing as “one of two major marital
incomplete to account for what was happening. At the core of the abduction phe- issues of the ’90s, the other being the scarcity of time together”.47
nomenon “experiencers” were coping with an “ontological shock”41 that funda- As the nineties powered on, the global village was bargained off to a corporate
mentally challenged the “consensus reality” of a western scientific worldview. Both media society. Worldwide players like Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation
traumatic and transformative, the abductees recounted a narrative of radical ecology and!” the Century Fox, gobbled up thousands of publishing houses and radio stations.
connected to the fate of this Earth that had been ravaged by rational materialism Now able to sell global audiences to their advertisers, they spiced up the political
and greed. In a post-conference interview Mack called for a “politics of ontology”42 spectacle, serving their economic greed, and entertaining with it the public’s per-
to acquire a shift in worldview that can expand our understanding of reality—or rather, ception of history and manipulation of reality alike. War turned into a staged reality
realities, in plural. An exploration into the possibilities of human consciousness ought TV show when in January 1991 the bombing of Baghdad hit CNN live. Special effects
to reconnect to “profound questions about how we experience the world around us were no longer the monopoly of Hollywood. The real became a bad-taste parody of
and how as a society we decide what is real”.43 The abductees’ narratives of eco- the video game, as smart missiles zoomed in on their targets. “Join the Navy” adver-
logical redemption sounded light-years away from Reagan’s plea for a Star Wars tisements were cancelled as the news itself provided a twenty-four-hour commercial
build-up. Reality itself was now at stake, and with it a planet in peril. for the armed forces. “Surgical war” seemed almost pre-packaged by the news as a
commodity hyped around smartmissile technology. Spectacle replaced critical dis-
1990s: Couch Potato Politics tance and obscured the reality of the war being waged in the Gulf. Suddenly the news
Geller and Williams concluded that by the 1990s there were more American homes industry had transformed itself into a surreal shopping zone serving a corporate
with a TV than homes with a refrigerator.44 Subsequently some people must have world in the interest of a global war industry: apart from television’s claim to reality,
what the media was selling was history itself. Soon reality would be mistaken for a
commercial break.
39
Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Ithaca ⁄ London: Cornell By 1993, CNN live was now a zapping option in 200 countries, its most
University Press, 1998), 100-3, 122-3. watched catch show Larry King Live beamed around the world, hosting presidents
40
See Pritchard, A., et al., Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
41 45
Mack, J.E., Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 12, 52. “Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox June 7, 2004: Remote Control Anarchy”. Accessed 3 January 2011:
42
“Post-conference Interview with John E. Mack, M.D.” in Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien www.useit.com/alertbox/20040670.html
46
Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at MIT, C.D.B. Bryan (New York: Knopf, 1995), 254—78. Arrington, C., “The zapper: All about the remote control”, in TV-Guide (15 August 1992), 8—13.
43 47
Mack, J.E., Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (New York: Crown Valeriano, L.L., “Channel Surfers Beware: There’s a Channel-Surfer Zapper Afoot”, in The Wall Street
Publishers, 1999), 46—50. Journal (24 November 1993). See also, “How to Wrest Control of Your Set”, in The Chicago Tribune (19
44
Geller, M. & Williams, R. (eds.), From Receiver to Remote Control: The TV Set (New York: The New December 1993) 8; “How Americans Watch TV: A Nation of Grazers”, in Channels Magazine (New York:
Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990), 7. C.C. Publishing, 1989).
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 428 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 429
and alien abductees alike. One episode invited alien abductee researcher David with alien powers, they couldn’t be trusted to protect their citizens from being
Jacobs together with Whitley Strieber, author of Communion, to discuss the phe- spacenapped right out of their beds. A Roper Poll claimed that at least one in fifty
nomenon. “Why don’t they come here right now; my God, what a move that would Americans, whether conscious of it or not, had been abducted by aliens.54
be!” stirred Larry King.48 As George Bush Sr.’s ratings fell after the first Gulf War As the Cold War gave way to the Gulf War and the New World Order, America
and faced with his up-coming presidential campaign against Bill Clinton, he too de- found itself refashioning its imaginary “other”. With the fall of the iron curtain and
cided to appear on Larry King Live. By now the public’s trust in the powers-that-be the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, America’s war industry was running
had drastically waned. Apparently, more people believed in aliens than in the pres- out of villains55 and had to look elsewhere to cast a next fear factor. The political
ident: an early1990s Gallup poll performed by the Center for UFO Studies Journal unknown and the insecurities around big-brother technology and the imaginary
found that UFO believers outnumbered the voters who placed Reagan, Bush Senior other had yielded infowar56 and the image of the hostile alien. No longer was it the
and Clinton into office.49 Politics suddenly appeared to have been taken over by James Bond-versus-Russia scenario, but Mickey Mouse versus an evil ET.
aliens, suggested by the cover story that ran in the tabloid Weekly World News of Nevertheless, the US government was already speculating to sell its ideology on an
7 June 1994: “12 US SENATORS ARE SPACE ALIENS!”50 A month later the Hollywood interplanetary level as a National
blockbuster Independence Day zapped the White House to smithereens.51 Security Agency (NSA) Report on Alien Contact suggested: “What if someone
from another world demanded to be taken to our planet’s leader? That leader, the
A New Fear Factor report insisted, must be the President of the US. There are economic concerns.
When re-runs of the popular sci-fi classic The Twilight Zone were programmed Suppose the US purchased, on an exclusive basis, say, antimatter fuel from the
in the early nineties, they had to compete for airtime with the monster-hit The alien trade representatives—in return, to neatly tally up the intergalactic balance of
X-Files,52 the show that propelled conspiracy theory into mainstream. Challenging payments, we might cut them a deal. All the Pepsi they can drink, all the Big Macs
the authority of official truth and reality that kept a lid on corporate frauds and gov- they can eat. From the first moment of contact, the report recommended that the
ernmental lies, conspiracy culture simply mirrored the political inadequacies of a US government exclusively supervise, monitor and control all communication with
system that failed to offer alternatives to a world that was being bargained off by other planets.”57
greed. UFO communities were now convinced that the powers-that-be were cov- Yet, on a micro-political level alien abductees came out of the closet to populate
ering up all evidence of aliens.53 And, worse still, as governments were in league small-screen talk shows. Quickly ridiculed as tabloid sensation, they were readily
debunked by a society that underscored a fear of the unknown. The “ontological
consensus” had to be held in check. In a 1999 study John E. Mack remarked that
48
See: http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com
49
Cousineau, P., UFOs: A Manual for the Millennium (New York: Harper-Collins West, 1995). In Aliens in
54
America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace, Jodi Dean makes reference to a 1994 dis- Hopkins, B., “The Roper Poll on Unusual Personal Experiences”, in Pritchard et al., Alien Discussions:
cussion of American disillusionment: “People talk as though our political system had been taken over by Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference Held at M.I.T. Cambridge, Ma., A. Pritchard et al.
alien beings See “Antipolitics ’94”, in The New York Times Magazine (16 October 1994), 37. (Cambridge: North Cambridge Press, 1995), 215—16.
50 55
Dean, J., Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace (Ithaca ⁄ London: Colin Powell was quoted as saying at the time: “I’m running out of demons… I’m running out of villains.
Cornell University Press, 1998), 156-7. I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung”, in Arsenals of Folly. The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, R. Rhodes
51
The Simpsons episode Radio Bart stages a broadcast to the Springfield locales where Bart pretends to (New York: Random House, 2007), 292—3.
56
be the leader of a Martian invasion who has eaten the US president. Obviously a spoof on Orson Welles’s Denning, D.E., Information, Warfare and Security (Reading: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1999); Stocker,
famous broadcast The War of the Worlds, it causes his dad to burst into a panic attack (Matt Groening and G. & Schöpf, C. (eds.), InfoWar, Ars Electronica (Vienna/New York: Springer, 1998). See also, Sobchack, V.,
James L. Brooks). “Child/Alien/Father: Patriarchal Crisis and Generic Exchange”, in Close Encounters. Film, Feminism and
52
The X-Files: a science-fiction series running on FOX network from 10 September 1993 to 19 May 2002. Science Fiction, eds. C. Penley, et al. (Minneapolis/Oxford: University of
53
“Is the Government Hiding Facts On UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life?; New Roper Poll Reveals that More Minnesota Press, 1991).
57
Than Two-Thirds of Americans Think So”, in Business Wire. Accessed 8 August 2010: Blum, H., Out There: The Government’s Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials (New York: Simon & Schustre,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_ moEIN/is_2002_Oct_15/ai_92843602/ 1990), 150—1.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 430 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 431
our western society is perhaps as “reality deprived” as the main character of the sent a DVD copy on a supply ship to the International Space Station, where astronauts
Hollywood movie The Truman Show (1998). Trapped inside a seamless bubble, are now enjoying Homer’s calamities.64 Homer Simpson was not the only zapping
Truman’s life is scripted by television corporate executives who profit from the lim- calamity. In 1997 wrestling control over the zapper started getting really out of hand.
itation of his horizon. “Abductee experiencers might be thought of as ontological In downstate Illinois a thirteen-year-old honors student plunged a butcher knife into
pioneers, who not unlike Truman, break out of the bubble of a constricting world- her fifty-two-year-old step-grandfather’s chest after he switched channels. In October
view.”58 Mack cited physicist Michio Kaku, who described our universe like a bubble, a woman in Florida shot her husband when he switched channels to watch The
created within a “multiverse” of bubbles. Perhaps someday we may leave the bub- Philadelphia Eagles versus The Dallas Cowboys. She wanted to watch the news.
ble of this universe to enter other universes, where the laws of physics could be A seven-year-old boy watching RoboCop (1987) shot and killed the family maid
quite different, not unlike Alice stepping through the looking-glass or Truman prick- when she switched channels in order to watch Young Love, Sweet Love. In November,
ing through his bubble.59 an off-duty Detroit officer shot and killed a twenty-one-year-old mental patient who
he thought had pointed a gun at him. It was a remote for the video recorder.65
Boldly Going Where Everybody Had Been Before But 1997 was also a busy year for ufologists: Roswell, New Mexico, celebrated
Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life had already warned us: “Maybe the sky is really green, its 50th Anniversary of Ufology, to mark the infamous saucer crash of July 1947 nearby.
and we’re just colourblind!” The Simpsons’ family paradigm reigned from the mid- Already on 13 March, earlier that year, the Phoenix Lights were widely sighted in the
nineties onwards. The metatextual gags played out in the TV series zapped across skies over Arizona and Nevada by thousands of people. Former Arizona Governor
the entire media landscape. One episode, The Springfield Files,60 featured X-Files Fife Symington III, after initial denial, confirmed he too had witnessed a “craft of
agents Scully and Mulder as special guests. The team pulls up in Springfield to unknown origin”.66 Meanwhile, smash hit Men in Black, released in July, showed a
investigate Homer Simpson’s ET encounter and finds him jogging on a treadmill in New York teeming with resident aliens. And that same month, when Jodie Foster’s
his underwear. Another script saw couch-potato Homer, avid addict of the televi- character deciphers a signal from outer space in the movie Contact,67 CNN host
sion remote, beer in hand, calling NASA to complain about the boring space cov- Larry King makes an appearance as none other than CNN host Larry King.
erage on television. NASA, frustrated over its drop in TV ratings, invites him to join As the twentieth century drew to a close, people from the military, intelligence
the next mission, which turns into a Nielsen rating hit.61 But during his Deep Space and science communities stepped forward to expose the UFO secret. In 1999 a
Homer62 our accidental hero loses control of his potato chips and crash-lands— high-level French study committee of experts, including General Bernard Norlain,
boldly going where everybody had been before: Springfield, the one and only town retired commander of the French Tactical Air Force and military counselor to former
exempt from dystopian anxiety.63 The real NASA actually loved the episode, and Prime Minister Mitterand, and Andre Lebeau, former head of the National Center
for Space Studies, the French equivalent of NASA, published the COMETA Report.
58
Mack, J.E., Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (New York: Crown In it, they criticized the US for its policy of disinformation and military regulations
Publishers, 1999), 36—7, 60. See also Chiten, L., Touched (65min/colour, 2003), a documentary about prohibiting public disclosure of UFO sightings. In May 2001 the Disclosure Project
John Mack’s work. convened a conference of witnesses to the National Press Club in Washington, DC,
59
Kaku, M., Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos with the aim of persuading the US Congress to disclose the UFO cover-up.
(New York: Anchor Books, 2006).
60
Groening, M. & Brooks, J.L., The Springfield Files, 8th episode of the 8th season of The Simpsons (originally
aired on FOX networks, 12 January 1997).
61 64
Nielsen ratings are audience measurement tools developed by Nielsen Media Research in the US. D. Mirkin on the The Simpsons, season 5: DVD commentary for the episode Deep Space Homer, Twenty
62
Groening, M. & Brooks, J.L., Deep Space Homer, 15th episode of the 5th season of The Simpsons (originally Century Fox, 2004. See also, Turner, C., Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era
aired on FOX networks, 24 February 1994). and Defined a Generation (New York: Random House, 2004).
63 65
Springfield, in reality, can be found in thirty-four states throughout the United States in a way that suggests The Village Voice, 1997, at www.villagevoice.com/
66
a reflection of common society, as we know it to be. See Brown, A.S. & Logan, C. (eds.), The Psychology of Kitei, L., The Phoenix Lights… We Are Not Alone (84min/colour, 2008), based on the book of the same name.
67
The Simpsons: D’oh! (Dallas, BenBella Books, 2006). Zemeckis, R., Contact (150min/colour, 1997), adapted from Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 432 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 433
2001: The Unknown Unknowns68 than 3 billion mobile phones—one for every other person on the planet—foreshad-
Then ET returned with a new face. If anything, on that fateful morning of 11 owed the convergence of media into one portable device.72 With this new remote
September 2001, Hollywood’s imagination came back to haunt America’s political control, we were perpetually online, connected and multi-tasking, living in a world
unconscious: symptom (flying saucers beaming out of nowhere) met with reality suffering from ADHD and devoid of sleep. Firmly placed at the center of the network,
(the dark underside of repressed world politics striking back at the symbolic center of the individual could now “tap”, “pinch” and “flick” touch-pads, navigating and skip-
its economic power).69 But this time there was no Hollywood redemption. Zapping ping through their personalized prime-time of other people’s lives. If the launch of MTV
became useless as all channels were beaming the very same images of the col- in 1981 sang that “Video Killed the Radio Star”,73 then the YouTubes and Facebooks
lapsing “Towering Infernos”, over and over again. No longer did the media have to were transforming who or what the “video star” was. Set within logics of consumerism,
keep up with reality, but rather reality was now keeping up with the media. Directly these websites promoted the idea of user-generated content, only to gobble it all up
after the attacks, the alien morphed into the “Arab terrorist” while politics spun a for themselves under outdated copyright laws. Trapped within private databases,
web of lies to sell war in the name of democracy. Hollywood, on the other hand, felt reality was now defined by search engines and tags, connectivity and buffering-times.
implicated in the acts of 9/11. “Within days, studios were re-calling, re-cutting, and Navigating the Net not only redefined, but also magnified our addiction to chan-
cancelling movies.”70 Symbolic of this twist of events, at the behest of the US Army nel surfing, where the ubiquity of pushbutton technology enabled endless clicking
in October 2002, government intelligence specialists met with top Hollywood film- and ceaseless popups. A perpetual distraction, this illusion of abundance staged
makers and writers at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of by techno-magic hid the ugly face of an info-dystopia. Images of Abu Ghraib, 9/11,
Southern California. Their mission: to imagine possible terrorist scenarios. Finally, swine flu, the BP Gulf oil spill and the economic crisis composed our new contem-
the story of The War of the Worlds had come full circle. The new disaster movie was porary sublime. Political debate had shrunk into mere fear management. No longer
re-imagining the 9/11event, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005) deliber- happy innocent consumers of a bygone TV era, we were now both avid consumers
ately evoking the collective trauma. of fear74 and the protagonists of an increasing ubiquity of systems of surveillance.
Replacing our “consensus reality” with a surplus reality, the virtual was sur-
YouTube Me and I Tube You passed. The world and life within it was already being genetically modified and
Just over a year after the first video was uploaded onto YouTube in April 2005, the photoshopped. Corporations were abducting our very essence. DNA, life’s building
number of uploads was growing at a rate of 65,000 a day.71 Facebook, whose approx- blocks, were becoming their property, patented and privatized for profit. With its
imately 500 million members totaled 7.6 per cent of the human race, became the genetically modified variant, food became alien.75 From what we digested, to what
online emblem of the virtual society at the dawn of the twenty-first century. More we ingested, Big Pharma invaded the intimacy of our bodies with a vested interest
in the propagation of the swine flu epidemic; immune systems offered the promise
68
In reference to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s news briefing of 12 February 2002 at NATO of a multimillion-dollar market. From biological viruses to digital viruses, advertisers
headquarters in Brussels:“… there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there were now looking at the possibility of digimercials, by which viruses would dissem-
are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also inate logos into the electronic environment.76 Where will this take us? Case in point:
unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
See www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2636 (accessed 5 January 2011).
69 72
This is paradoxical given that the number of victims from 9/11—tragic as it may be—totally eclipses the Jenkins, H., Convergence Culture (New York: Routledge, 2006).
73
far greater number of deaths in Iraq since the invasion, let alone the total number of victims from the direct MTV was launched on 1 August 1981, with the video clip “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the band
and indirect involvement of the US in the overthrow of *” countries, as well as the attack of 50 countries The Buggles.
74
since World War II. See Kealy, S., “Maneuvering in the Shadows of Absolute War”, in Signals of the Dark: Art Klein, N., The Shock Doctrine (New York: Knopf, 2007).
75
in the Shadow of War (Toronto: Justina M. Barnicke Gallery & Blackwood Gallery, 2008), 61. Smith, J.M., Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the
70
Hoberman, J., “The New Disaster Movie”, in The Village Voice (17—23 May 2006), 62—4. Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating (Darington: Green Books, 2003).
71 76
Lovink, G. & Niederer, S. (eds.), Video Vortex Reader, Responses to YouTube (Amsterdam: Institute of Schrage, M., et al., “Is Advertising Really Dead? Part II: Advertisers, digimercials, and memgraphics: The
Network Cultures, 2008), 34. future of advertising is the future of media,” in Wired (February 1994), 71—4.
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 434 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 435
twenty-five-year-old Matthew Nagle, a quadriplegic permanently paralyzed from the
neck down, had a 4-millimetre-wide silicon chip placed on the part of his brain that
co-ordinates motor activity. Using only the power of his mind, Nagle took a day to
learn entirely new computerized skills, such as zapping his TV channel, adjusting
the volume, moving a computer cursor, playing a video game, and even reading his
email.77 Add some recombinant DNA cortex rewiring on a nano-level and, instead
of mistaking reality for a commercial break, life will literally become an advertise-
ment, the ultimate commodity. In his novel Nymphomation, Jeff Noon speaks of
genetically modified flies, programmed to transmit commercial slogans in their
flight paths.78 When this happens, zapping will be pointless.
Close Encounter?
The contemporary condition of what it is to be human calls into question the rele-
vance of politics and reality, one that has collapsed under the weight of an infor-
mation overload and mass deception. Paranoia suddenly seems the only sensible
state of being, where it is easier to ponder the end of the world than to imagine
viable political alternatives. J. Allen Hynek—the person who coined the term “close
encounters”—has pointed out that from the vantage point of the thirtieth century,
our knowledge of the universe may appear quite different: “We suffer, perhaps, from
temporal provincialism, a form of arrogance that has always irritated posterity.”79
The question then should not be “is there intelligent life out there?” but rather “is
there intelligent life on
Earth?” After all, wouldn’t it be us who are actually the aliens.
January 2011
77
Called the “BrainGate”, the chip was pioneered by John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University.
See Kaku, M., Physics of the Impossible (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 95—6.
78
Noon, J., Nymphomation (London: Corgi Books, 1997).
79
Hynek, J.A., The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1972).
SITAC IX | Theory and Practice of Catastrophe 436 DAY 3 | Aesthetic Imagination in the Face of Chaos 437
Clinics
How could the different modes of cultural production become
more than mere specialties and be articulated between themselves both
within the field of social work and with other types of production?
How could antiquated cultural spheres that are closed off within themselves
open up or be broken? How could new agencies of singularisation
SITAC IX
that function as an aesthetic sensibility be reproduced for the transformation
of everyday life and the transformation of the economic and social levels
together at the same time? 1
The clinics projected for IX SITAC Theory and practice of catastrophe were designed
with this desire in mind: implicating other agents of contemporary production,
and creating an interest in the study/observation of the complexity of everyday life
through which to counteract or re-signify its reverberation in the artistic field. For this
edition, we involved a philosopher, a writer, and a group of designer-environmentalists
DIRECTOR SOL HENARO who would offer different perspectives from their diverse experiences of knowledge
and allow us to approximate and/or problematize this notion of the catastrophic.
Contemporary thinking can’t limit itself to specific disciplines. The producers that can
be sensitive to the world are those who are able to transition between disciplines
and erase limitations in order to open up their mind and field of action/intervention.
The clinics worked with hybrid formats. A group of collaborators met together in a
seminar format to work through some outlines of thinking and some of the questions
raised by SITAC’s director. These spaces of contemplation, reflection, and dialog
were conceived as parallel opportunities to SITAC in order to continue unravelling the
concepts, problems, and other meanings in order to activate arguments and reflective
critiques involving the upcoming itineraries-gestures:
a) Corporality and Catastrophe with Fabian Giménez Gatto
b) Apocalyptic Narratives and the Ugly Future with Gonzalo Soltero, and
c) A workshop on adaptation designed by TOA (environmental operations workshop)
After the three days of SITAC’s conference on Saturday, February 5th 2011, about 48
people got together in order to evaluate and share their experiences. Among the
group was each of the clinic’s coordinators, as well as participants from the three clin-
ics all gathered at the SOMA’s patio looking to open a dialog and produce this way
1
Suely Rolnik y Félix Guattari. Micropolítica. Cartografía del deseo. Traficantes de sueños, serie mapas.
Madrid, 2006. P. 35
3
Véase, Baudrillard, Jean, “El cuerpo o el osario de signos”, en El intercambio simbólico y la muerte,
1
Jean-François Lyotard, Economía libidinal, Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, p. 9. Caracas, Monte Avila, 1993.
2 4
Jean-François Lyotard, Ibid., p. 11. Kristeva, Julia, Poderes de la perversión, México, Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1989, p. 11.
5
Baudrillard, Jean, El intercambio simbólico y la muerte, Caracas, Monte Avila, 1993, p. 133.
6
Baudrillard, Jean, De la seducción, Barcelona, Planeta-Agostini, 1993, p. 36.
7 8
Guibert, Hervé, Ghost Image, Los Angeles, Green Integer, 1998, p. 74. Derrida, Jaques, Ecografías de la televisión, Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 1998, p. 145.
3. Perhaps the best example of how we use narrative to explain reality is catastrophe
itself. In the aftermath of an event there flows a stream of contradictory stories. Let’s
look at the epidemic of influenza (H1N1), which hit Mexico in 2009. During the height
of the epidemic, fear made us willing to believe the farfetched stories that ran through
the gossip channels: that it was a conspiracy from the IMF or giant pharma; that it
had to do with Barack Obama’s recent visit; or even that it came from outer space.
HEDAS: Adaptive Design Tools Carmen Flores, Juan Cristobal García Garrido, David Gutérrez Castañeda, Emireth Herrera, Alejandra
López-Yasky, Israel Meneses Vélez, Benedeta Monteverde, Joana Moreno, Jazael Ogluin, Eduardo Ortiz
Ramírez, Marcelo Rangel Velenzuela, Alejandro Rinón Gutiérrez, Diego Teo, Daniele Zoli.
Session I: Introduction: review and registry of radical adaptive strategies within both
the urban and natural context, (review of the principles of life, or the strategies
recurrent in nature as modes of adapting to change).
Session II: Adaptation: interpretation of the selected adaptive strategies.
Session III: Workshop: design of three structures based on the adaptive processes
previously described; development of drawings and models.
Session IV: Closure: cross-pollination: design integrating into a single object the struc-
tures developed in the previous session.
Sol Henaro agradece a los prestadores de sedes: OMR / el 52, SOMA, Casa del Lago,
a Fabián Giménez Gatto, Gonzálo Soltero, a los integrantes de TOA y a todos los
que participaron en cada una de las clínicas. / Sol Henaro thanks OMR / el 52,
SOMA and Casa del Lago for their support in providing the space for the clinics; as
well as the clinic coordinators Fabián Giménez Gatto, Gonzálo Soltero and TOA; and
all the participants of each clinic.