There are a series of key patterns at the service of ergonomics that contribute to this, such as the materials that are implemented: hybrids and highly technical, hydrogels, rubbery, sparkling, elastic, flexible, vibrating, stimulating, sensitive, vaporous and light materials, invigorating, as well as colours; soft, pastel, gentle and candid tones. This emits a sense of security and the consciousness that we have conquered matter, that we have defeated it. We like that kind of docility in life, that domesticated nature gives us power. This fascinates me. Ergonomics is a vital tool in our way of relating to objects and it happens to us that our current world tirelessly references and promotes the idea of beauty, youth and innocence, hedonism and pleasure, as well as the forms that are inspired by it. genital, vaginal or phallic. This transmits an idea of pleasure to our vital context, what we can call the delusion or fiction of the future achieved. There is a sub-layer of perception of eternity through technological progress that bewitches us, I am very interested and rooted in cyborg culture, the sensuality of objects is vital to perceive it. It seems like a delicious monstrosity and I don’t want to talk about anything else.
That is why I build prosthetic, ergonomic heavens in my works and with a certain component of desire that refer to a state of limbo and pleasure from the synthetic perspective. I evoke those states of euphoria, with objects that refer to adaptation and the genitalised, with pieces that recall progress, are nourished by technology and that lead to a state of spirituality.
How important is digital art in this stoical moment and why?
Vital. First of all, for life. Second, for art itself. I remember an article I wrote 15 years ago, it was for a magazine about video art, I was already talking about the importance of digital media for the art scene, it was easy to see, I don’t think it was anything visional, you just had to observe the potential of that medium and what was beginning to happen with digital media. The artistic discourse now is constructed from digitally, although not exclusively but decisively, for many reasons. The contemporary art scene, artist, collectors, galleries, dealers, cultural managers, cannot look other way to the presence of digital art in the 21st century if they want to tell what is happening. I am a defender, I have been a promoter of digital art festivals on two occasions, I have collaborated with quite a few as artista and curator and my most intimate environment is dedicated to it from a certain vanguard. Cultural actors who have not yet assimilated it will have no choice but to do so.
Digital art is wonderful for people, it has been shown that it is a medium related to our new way of decoding life. We have an intimate and close relationship with digital devices, and leaving aside that like everything else, their abuse has an obvious counterpart, it is a medium from which citizens increasingly enjoy art. It is difficult and you should not try to also replace the exhibition and the physical work, as I say in my classes, we need to touch things, smell them and perceive the space between the works and their dimensions, but there is no doubt that digital art is here to stay and proposes a way to collaborate and express the fascinating world, obviously unstoppable. Needless to say that due to the Pandemic, this issue has been accelerated. During the hardest confinement of 2020, for example, my work had a good international presence in various digital exhibitions, digital art fairs, online museums, zooms, live streams, even confined to my home I did artistic residencies in places as far away as Azores Islands. When you read this interview tomorrow (greetings to our readers of the future) this will mean nothing, but in 2020 and 2021 it was a bloom.
What are your future plans?
Doing new pieces is my plan always. I work a lot so I can tell you about my most immediate projects: After five years of work, I am finishing shooting my first feature film Adaptasi, which I will release in 2021. It is my most ambitious project, we have filmed in Dubai, Sri Lanka, Madrid and Indonesia. In addition to the film, Adaptasi is an expanded Project, it involves a new exhibition body of work that combines projections and an installation that are part of the aesthetic world of the film.
We are also organising the 2021 exhibitions: Heaven at Exgirlfriend Gallery, my gallery in Berlin, for the Berlin art week this September, this summer the Pylon Hub Lab exhibition, a space that I love, also in Germany, the exhibition in autumn from my gallery in Milan, Dimora Artica and the Centro Párraga exhibition in November. Also the collective with Espai Tactel Gallery and then another in Berlin with Frontviews that will then travel to London and about which I can’t say anything else yet. 2022 will be the year of the film and I will combine the work in the studio and the exhibitions, with the distribution of the film in festivals, theatres and for the gallery format.