gallery | “Organic Machine”: Teatros del Canal’s Proposal to Explore the Frontiers of Neighborhoods

“he The world is completely artificial. It seems hard to admit, but it’s the truth.” Nicholas Maigret, Artist and curator and founding member of the French Research Group disnovation.orgHe repeats it several times. Name some examples: Microplastics Found in the stomachs of living beings, and pollution Cities that make rainwater undrinkable anywhere on the planet are hermit crabs trapped in waste (canned food, leftover light bulbs). The project presented by this group with Nicholas Nova, Anthropocene animalsCollecting up to 60 specimens, this is an all-new atlas of plants, animals, minerals, fungi, and other hybrid species, all born in an age when the Earth has been modified by man. “We’re trying to think of new organisms that we find on this planet.”

he The Anthropocene pestiari It is one of the 23 art proposals that can be seen in various spaces of the Madrid Canal Theatres through April 23 as part of the third edition of the course Connect the channel. French sponsorship Charles Carcopinothis proposal, which was born in the midst of a pandemic to show a reflection of the present and future world from an artistic perspective, focused on this occasion on life and its limits, every day more widespread, under the title organic machine.

Carcopino is a visual artist who regularly collaborates on Blanca Lee’s stage creations. Creator and studio director of the House of Arts and Culture in Créteil (a town south of Paris), focused on digital visual creation, and has been curator of the three editions of Canal Connect: Crazy machine (2021), mystic machine (2022) and now organic machine (2023). This is the third edition dedicated to the living, for the relationship between Biology with technology And the transformation that three aspects make in our lives: big dataAnd to threaten Anthropocene And increasing our sensitive capabilities thanks to technology,” he explained in his presentation of the exhibition.

“The idea,” I explained minutes ago white lee, Director of the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, “to show how art, science and technology come together to create new forms of storytelling, but also to suggest reflection on the present and the future.”

23 facilities

Plants interacting with machines or installing humanoid robots in the intensive care unit that react to the audience’s presence are some of the protagonists of the show. The cycle is also complemented by four round tables, a workshop and five stage performances reflecting on these same issues, led by the world premiere starring an AI-created creature, SH4DOW – Who is the Shadow Master?, Danish artist Michael Fock. In Improvisation with the Artificial Persona, Fock reflects on the confrontation between people and their virtual persona, which is created from data shared with the AI.

The relationship between factories and technology

One issue that many utilities address is The relationship between technology and factories. So he does Unpredictable ecosystemsstabilizing Maria Castellanos It is made up of three mini-greenhouses in which different plants, isolated from other stimuli, interact with machines that learn the plant’s behavior thanks to artificial intelligence from sensors that pick up its electrical impulses. Castellanos, who worked with different scientists on his project, aims to monitor how the Machines and plants evolve together without human mediation.

Scenethe artistic name of Gregory Lasserre and Anais met den Ancxt, present two interactive art installations, accusmaflower And delicate materials, Both under the idea of ​​natural elements (plants, wood) transformed into Musical instruments by touch Of the people they interact with, words or sounds, because they are sensitive to electrostatic energy.

Identity building

the Building a personal identity In the age of virtual reality is another of the great topics that organic machine. seflexionfrom brazilian Anissa Franco suggests a A metaphor for the excessive and uncritical use of Personal PhotosAnd Privacy and lack of intimacy. On a large screen, a file appears Personal Photos of the last 500 people who entered the room and allowed a small camera in the middle of the space to capture their facial features in a few seconds. The faces fluctuate, increase and decrease in size, as if all the faces coexisting in the composition had a certain life of their own.

Identity building, how to have people identity in the real world and another in virtual reality -that of social networks- is also an issue that he addressed Double Reflectionsof the artists Enes Alva and Joanna Jaskowska, an augmented reality installation designed by Hyper Studio. composed by 14 digital mirror (which are actually ipads) The installation interacts with the attendees, presenting them with a textured image when viewed through various filters or digital masks. “Our goal is to show how in the real world there are motifs (jewelry, clothes, hats) that we use to represent who we are, while in the digital world we use other motifs, such as social media filters, that cannot exist in the real world, but they also build our personality.” Jaskowska explains. “We always refer to it as an artificial world, a networked world, but with this fixation we also want to think about how this digital world could not exist if it were not based on existence.” Refers to spectators who approach the mirrors and allow filters to be placed on them.

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to prepare it, Artists have created hundreds of filtersmany of which are not used in the installation and are available on their Instagram profiles.

All issues raised on Canal Connect are product of A joint work of artists, scientists and technology experts which attempts to anticipate risks or opportunities that may arise in the not too distant future with elements that are already part of the present. “The future will catch us, whatever we do,” he tells me. Carcopino concludes, “Organic machines alter, repair, and augment life, while those with artificial intelligence become autonomous.”