cine

This audio-visual programme is based on the hypothesis that the ecological crisis also manifests itself in the image as a crisis of representation. Like the gap in our modern cultural heritage that convinced us of the difference between culture and nature and taught us to look at the latter from a distance, either as an object of study and exploitation or as a landscape-spectacle on which to project human emotions and adventures, the only stories worth telling.  

Today, some arts are rebelling against this history of ‘disenchantment’ and its impact on visual culture. Wishing to repair the earthly link, they seek other practices of the image that bring with them other ways of being in the world. There is no common pattern to these emerging forms. Some question the word ‘nature’ and argue that there is a continuum between organisms and technologies, infrastructures and ecosystems. Others study the agency or cognition of non-humans or evoke futures of multi-species habitability. Some call themselves films, others audio-visual installations, others film experiences or even experiences of sensory perception. These practices are formally and aesthetically diverse, but draw on a similar vocation: to create visual vocabularies that break with the naturalistic imaginary of modernity and give the world back its enchantment. These new myth-images accompany us, as Bruno Latour would say, on our necessary journey back down to Earth. 

The cycle is made up of four audiovisual works, each of them framed by an introductory activity where we will expand, through the artistic practice of local agents (Coco Moya, Carlos Monleón and Claudia Rodríguez), the central themes they address in relation to the climate crisis and the problems of its representation also in images. With a programme of talks, workshops and collective exercises, they will work in a space for exchange in which to rethink together the current ecological moment. Each day will conclude with a debate between the invited artists, the public and the curators of the cycle.

Note: In order to attend the full programme of activities, prior registration is required.

The screenings are free admission until full capacity is reached.

Tuesday 10th October

• 18:30-19:30h “"In the critical zone. Postnatural landscapes, data centres and trans-scalar alchemies" inaugural talk by the Institute for Postnatural Studies.
• 19:30-20:30h Projection: Armin Linke, "Alpi" (2011, 62min).
• 20:30-21:00h Open discussion to the public with María Ptqk and Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Wednesday 11th October

• 18:30-19:30h  "Club de piedras", speculative workshop with Coco Moya.
• 19:40-20:15h Projection: Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun, "Observing Point" (2019, 17 min) and "Habitat, Geology and Energy Basis" (2021, 15 min).
• 20:15-21:00h Open discussion to the public with Coco Moya, María Ptqk and Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Tuesday 17th October

• 18:30-19:30h "Un canto de nácar", workshop with Carlos Monleón.
• 19:40-20:25h Projection: Sonia Levy, "For the Love of Corals" (2018, 23 min) and "Creatures of the Lines" (2021, 19 min).
• 20:25-21:00h Open discussion to the public with Carlos Monleón, María Ptqk and Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Wednesday 18th October

• 18:30-19:30h “Volver a la naturaleza”,  "natural" writing workshop with Claudia Rodríguez-Ponga.
• 19:40-20:30h Projection: Ana Vaz, "É Noite na América" (2021, 50 min).
• 20:30-21:00h Open discussion to the public with Claudia Rodríguez Ponga, María Ptqk and Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Audiovisual curator: Maria Ptqk.

Curated and coordinated by: Institute for Postnatural Studies.

Maria Ptqk is a curator, researcher and cultural manager. Born in Bilbao in 1976, she has been working in the cultural sector since 2000. She works as a curator, project manager and consultant. She has worked, among others, with Medialab Prado (Madrid), Azkuna Zentroa - Alhóndiga Bilbao, CCCB in Barcelona, Jeu de Paume Visual Arts Centre (Paris), La Gaité Lyrique (Paris), GenderArtNet (European Cultural Foundation), Donostia-San Sebastián 2016. European Capital of Culture, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón). She has been a member of the Basque Council for Culture (2009-2012) and of the scientific committee of the VI Encuentro Cultura y Ciudadanía (Ministry of Culture and Sport). She has curated the exhibitions "Soft Power" with Proyecto Amarika Proiektua (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2009), "A propósito del Chthuluceno y sus especies compañeras" (Espace virtuel du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2017), "Reset Mar Menor. Laboratorio de imaginarios para un paisaje en crisis" (CCC Valencia, 2020), "Ciencia fricción. Life among companion species" (CCCB Barcelona, 2021). She is currently curator of the Getxophoto 2023 festival, advisor to the art publisher and producer consonni and the Chaire Arts & Sciences (École polytechnique, l'École des Arts Décoratifs - PSL, Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso) and member of the programming committee of ISEA Paris 2023 (International Symposium on Electronic Art).

The Institute for Postnatural Studies (IPS) is a centre for artistic experimentation from which to explore and problematise postnature as a framework for contemporary creation. Founded in 2020, it is conceived as a platform for critical thinking, a network that brings together artists and researchers concerned with the problems of the global ecological crisis through experimental formats of exchange and open knowledge production. From a multidisciplinary approach, IPS develops long-term research focused on issues such as ecology, coexistence, politics and territories. These lines of research take different forms and formats, including seminars, exhibitions and residencies as spaces for academic and artistic experimentation.

Various authors, whether from the perspective of science fiction literature, like Octavia E. Butler, or contemporary feminist theory, like Donna J. Haraway, advocate the need to overcome certain concepts that condition our contemporary understanding of the world, such as the Anthropocene, and to propose other alternatives, like the Chthulucene, in order to rethink a relationship between species that leaves behind the primacy of the human being as the centre and measure of all things and explores the potential of this relationship to generate new ways of life and possible new more sustainable and solidarity worlds for all species that inhabit it, that allow us to survive the current situation of climatic emergency. From Haraway’s notion of “companion species”, this film season wishes to examine how cinema—understood as a popular manifestation of contemporary anxieties—explores the relationship between species and the human being’s relationship with their environs from various optics; some more catastrophic and others more hopeful, in consonance with Haraway’s vision.

The cult film Phase IV, a canonical example of the apocalyptic sci-fi movie, introduces us to a dystopia in which ants develop a group mind and consciousness of their power and take over control of the Erath, forcing human beings to adapt to the new civilization in which both species have to live together. On the other hand, Soylent Green, another classic sci-fi movie, and a visionary example of the destructive effects of climate emergency, takes a look at the capacity of the human being to destroy the environment in which the Earth must survive.

From a less catastrophic, although no less unsettling perspective, Little Joe reflects on the capacity of science to force this collaboration between species through genetic manipulation and how its form of perverting the course of nature means that it does not always serve human purposes in the way it was intended. The purported supremacy of the human species is brought into question when the modified plants overturn the relationship of power and find ways of surviving that make use of the needs of the people who created them.

Meanwhile, The Shape of Water, Border and Gunda offer gazes that anticipate a less-human oriented future with more interspecies collaborations. Gunda borrows the narrative and formal structures of the documentary to follow the daily life of a pig, two cows, and a one-legged chicken, reminding us that we share the world with millions of different species that deserve to be taken into account and appreciated by us within their own environs, with their own everyday routines and with the same compassion with which we observe ourselves. Border takes a look at how we construct a non-human identity in contemporary Finland and how to develop networks and structures for coexistence between two species—humans and trolls—despite their shared disturbing past. Finally, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a melodrama telling the love story between a woman and an amphibian man, opening the door to a relationship between species like those told by Octavia E. Butler in her sci-fi stories. In conclusion, this film season wishes to offer and explore ways in which film imagines us, how it thinks of other species and our relationship with them and thus anticipate the various worlds in which we will have to live.

Curated by Jara Fernández Meneses and Estrella Serrano Tovar.

Jara Fernández Meneses has curated film seasons for institutions like MNCARS and Cruce, and formed part of the programming team for Cineteca for four years and is a former member of the selection committees for the Documenta and Animario international festivals. She has written film reviews for Cahiers du Cinema. España/Caimán. Cuadernos de cine, cultural reviews for Serie B and has taught film classes in Kent and Exeter universities in the UK and at the Carlos III university in Madrid. In her free time, she likes to deejay vinyl records of black music and to play dominoes.

Estrella Serrano Tovar has worked in institutions like MNCARS, AECID and the Cervantes Institute. Naturally curious, she enjoys learning new ways of interacting with culture and art, understanding relationships with neighbouring communities as a key part of her work and trying to connect with people with shared interests to undertake new projects. She is the head of the Education and Activities department at Museo CA2M since 2020.