Concepto Dispositivo

Pictures by Tabakalera and Javier Fernandez Perez de Lis

The way we look at objects modifies our relation with them. We are used to a kind of devices, that we have naturalized, using them as if they were meaningless, transparent. But they are not. When I approach my works and in my collaborarions with other artists, I can not help pointing these issues. Or making them visibles.

Devices are for me a tool for something else. I think that making visible our way of looking things help us to understand them. It is not a question of style.

In my collaboration with Equipo re, I was asked to prepare a mounting for a serie of materiales from different media: artworks, booklets, pictures, fotocopies, videos, books... But I should try to give their own place. The idea was to organize the materials in diferent projects, actions or pieces and not in big categories. This is why the space was made of small units in diferent highs.

The basic unit was a wood board (OSB) in its original size. It was used in horizontal as a table, vertical as a noticeboard or with an angle as a showing table. The idea was to use it as a support in a raw way as much as posible. The OSB also speaks of the building. Tabakalera uses this material to signalize the different levels and for the posters. Using OSB in the exhibition is a way of parasite the building, using the same language, as a desease can do. At the same time the diference inside/outside fade a little bit.

Although the structure of the materials (translated into device) stresses the particular act, the action, the work, the activism instead of the big group, we can see three different areas regarding the relation with the spectator: "The animal question", "Death" and "Health"

Each of these areas sugest a different relation with the viewer. This is why one of my concerns was to make visible the distance. I did that by using different highs that represent the different hierarchies: to go down to the animals level, to get in front of the death, to note the distance, the imposition of health knowledge.

The intention was that the viewer, walking through the exhibition, change her relation with the objects, looking in front, down and up. And all these materials are displayed in boards, that could have enter from the corridor.

But they enter bringing with them manifold stories, the ones that shape anarchivo.

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