Lightening the existential vacuum

^{PUBLICATIONS  PUBLICACIONES}

0) Lightening the Existential Vaccuum
_{Introduction to my Dissertation for my master in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths
English - Link to Academia.edu}


1) Fibers. Skin, Voice and Earth. Written between February and July 2019
_{Published by Droste Effect Magazine in July 2019
Editor in chief: Vincenzo Estremo. Project manager Matilde Soligno
Edited by Matilde Soligno.}

^{English Droste Effect 20 / Español PDF}


2) Somatic experiences of hyper-connection
<sub>This is a text adaptation from a longer written Dissertation titled Lightening the Existential Vacuum, delivered at Goldsmiths, University of London (Department of Visual Cultures, tutored by Irit Rogoff, 2017). The investigation is still on-going.

“The Sound of the Machine” (El Sonido de la Máquina), by Nicolás Gullota & “Almost Never” (Casi Nunca)
English - Español

“Un Mundo Raro” (A Rare World) by Mercedes Azpilicueta
English - Español

“Pose de ida”, by Florencia Vecino
English - Español</sub>
3) How to Make Sense of a Life Surrounded by Cognitive Mining?
_{Text written for Veronika Draexler´s catalogue Post-Everything Ritualism and Hypernaturality for her exhibition at GEDOK Galerie, Munich, October 2019}

<sup>About Veronica Draexler´s work for the exhibition Hypernaturality (2019), printed and published for by GEDOK Munich

English Catalogue /  Español PDF</sup>


4) Gilles Jobi,_VR_I _2018 - now
_{Text written in association with ODIA (Observatorio de Derecho Informático Argentino . Observatory of Argentinean Informatic Law)}

<sup>About Gilles Jobin´s work exhibited in Istituto Svizzero, Rome, in 2018

English MEDIUM</sup>


5) Untitled. After Pandemic
<sub>Text written on digital anthropology and the mutation of our sensitive & empathic capactities due to the on-going digital evolution, after 2020 Pandemics.

English MEDIUM</sub>

<sup>ARTISTS BIO

Nicolás Gullotta (b. 1983 in Buenos Aires. Based in Buenos Aires). He has a BA in Fine Arts from the National University of the Arts, Buenos Aires. In 2009 he participated in LIPAC (Laboratory for Research in Contemporary Practices), dependent on the University of Buenos Aires. He also participated in a workshop by Carlos Amorales at Di Tella University (Buenos Aires 2010). He participates in Residences: Stichting Kaus Australis (Rotterdam, 2013); Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine, 2014); and Gasworks (London, 2015). He received a special mention by the Faena Art Prize in Buenos Aires (2015). In 2016 he participates in the group exhibition “El ejercicio de las cosas” (The exercise of things) curated by Sonia Becce and Mariano Mater at Centro Conde Duque, Madrid.

Mercedes Azpilicueta (b. 1981 in La Plata, Buenos Aires. Based in Milano and Rotterdam). Mercedes Azpilicueta is an artist and performer. In 2017 she received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship from Villa Vassilieff/Bétonsalon, Paris. During 2015 and 2016 she did the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. She has a MFA from the Dutch Art Institute/ArtEZ, Arnhem and a BFA from the National University of Arts, Buenos Aires. She has shown her work at TENT and A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam; Van Abbemuseum and Onomatopee, Eindhoven; Het Veem, Amsterdam; Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Madrid; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Poetry Readings Program, Documenta13, Kassel; Galata Fotoğrafhanesi, Istanbul; Raw Material Company, Dakar; Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen; Centro Cultural Borges and Móvil, Buenos Aires. Her current projects include ‘ENGAGE, Public school for Social Engagement in Artistic Research’ curated by Viafarini in collaboration with Sunugal, Milan; ‘The take over’ i.c.w. Jacco van Uden and Céline Berger, The Hague/Amsterdam; and a new solo performance for REDCAT/CalArts, Los Angeles. In 2018 she will present her first solo institutional exhibition at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art.

Florencia Vecino (b. 1985 in Tandil, Buenos Aires. Based in Buenos Aires). Graduated from San Martin Theatre´s Contemporary Ballet Workshop. She was fellow of the Centre of Artistic Investigations, Buenos Aires (2014) and of the Artist´s Programme of Di Tella University in Buenos Aires (2015). She interpreted works by re-known Argentinean composers such as Luis Garay, Diana Szeinblum, Emilio García Wehbi, Luis Biasotto, Laura Kalauz and Alan Pauls. In 2015 she was invited to participate in the Contemporary Festival Archaelogies of the Future, an International Festival of Contemporary Ballet, Performance and Knowledge.


for more info about
Nicolás Gullotta_ visit http://www.nicolasgullotta.com/
Mercedes Azpilicueta_ visit http://www.mercedesazpilicueta.info/
Florencia Vecino_ visit: http://ciacentro.org.ar/node/1751</sup>

<sup>Image: courtesy Florencia Vecino

“Our time has grown short, narrow, contracted, so the stimulus hardly translates into desire, and desire hardly translates into conscious contact, and contact hardly translates into pleasure"

Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Futurability, 2017</sup>

From a curatorial perspective I am interested in experimenting with exhibition formats that engage different audiences whose sensitivity and attention are being shaped by the overflowing effect of information in contemporary culture. Today´s paradigm brings a sensation of time acceleration intensified by the permanent co-habitation in Cyberspace, transforming the way citizens process information, as well as the time for observing and thinking through cultural practices.  During 2016-2017 I’ve been developing an academic individual research which raises questions around this subject matter. This thinking process was conceptualised through the embodiment of artworks by Argentinean artists Nicolás Gullotta, Mercedes Azpilicueta and Florencia Vecino.

Within the context of digital anthropology and the emergency of a new subjectivity, I was interested in the strength that Azpilicueta and Vecino’s performances had, as tools to mobilise the mind and the body of contemporary automatized individuals. At the same time, I thought of Gullotta´s and Azpilicueta’s videos as subtle mental strategies directed to the viewer with the same purpose. These are practices that stand as alternatives of reflection upon what is referred as the conditions of hypercomplexity (Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi), including time perception, the biorhythm, algorithm and the imperatives of self-design, among other themes. In this context of visual and semiotic oversaturation, the mind and the body are disentangled, making an impact at an individual and a social level. As a wakeup call, Azpilicueta, Gullotta and Vecino’s works make use of the potency of the body as disrupting gestures against all kinds of mechanization.

From the understanding of this big and complex panorama I embedded myself in media theory, sociology and philosophy, to contextualise how algorithmic culture affect the global subject. Moreover, I have also tried to think of the differences in which the global and the local intersect along this paradigm, setting some hypotheses which I would like to develop further in my next research. Overall, my analysis on the artists’ works highlighted the potency of the body in the Internet Era, and speculated around local differences between Latin American, Central Europe and the U.S.

Departing from a body of artworks by Contemporary Argentinean artists, I raised questions related to the contemporary human condition embedded in digital life: psychopathologies, the cancellation of dead time, the characteristics of the new subjectivity, the de-activation of the potency of the body.


<sup>On-going investigation. The second part of the investigation has been developed between Buenos Aires, Berlin, Torino and Milan.

Text:  Renata Zas
Only available in English ATM</sup>