Anyone interested

Ciudad Sur (‘Southern City’) is a space for shared experimentation launched in 2021 which, taking Móstoles as its starting point, aims to explore the many facets and many riches that generate a sense of belonging in the cities that make up the Madrid’s metropolitan area.   

In this third edition, we will approach Móstoles as post-tourist guides, travelling together through a series of architectures composed of layers of time, experiences and lived moments around what we call free time, based on a proposal of shared experimentation in which this dormitory town will become a holiday destination. 

Leisure, what we call ‘free time’, is one of the things we desire most, a place where we indulge in experiences - lived or projected – which are associated with enjoyment.  

There is a leisure with which we live every day, that which marks the pauses in the flow of daily activity, such as the time we dedicate to sport and its promise of a balanced, healthy, desirable life. But there is also leisure that functions as an escape route, a time and a place where limits are widened: popular festivals, nights out... and of course, the idea of true leisure, and the search for total disconnection: holidays. A long pause that allows us, at least for a while, to pretend to live under another logic, to try to be other people.                                                                                                                

As dormitory towns grew, low-cost ‘getaway’ flights multiplied, definitively linking holidays with the idea of travel. To this end, the tourism industry offers us a myriad of destinations to match our dreams and our wallets, deploying a whole travel imaginary in which this desired ‘freedom’ can take shape. A catalogue of beautiful scenes often constructed in contrast to everyday spaces, based on a play of opposites. From urban grey to the infinite blue skies and seas; from the brick of the city to the white of the Costa Brava, or the warm gold of the sun... But never the ‘brown coast’. This ‘coast’ is Madrid’s metropolitan area, which will be the setting for the activities proposed in this programme, where we will reflect on the evolution of the urban, political and social criteria that have built this city’s landscape of leisure infrastructures. 

The sessions will take place between October 2023 and May 2024: 3rd of October, 7th of November, 12th of December, 16th of  January, 20th of February, 12th of March, 16th of April and 7th of May 2024. 

Coordinated by: Irene de Andrés, La Liminal and Estrella Serrano.

Irene de Andrés was born in one of the world’s most desirable destinations - the island of Ibiza - which has inevitably led her to investigate the evolution of the concept of leisure and the very meaning of travel throughout history, from the first settlers to today’s tour operators. Spas, cruise ships and nightclubs are the key settings for the artist who, through film, sculptural pieces and graphic work, creates journeys through time and through different waters, connecting different historical events that make us reflect on the model of tourist consumption, especially designed for the working class. 

La Liminal is a cultural mediation collective that investigates the city and uses the urban tour as a tool to analyse public space collectively. Our aim is to experiment with the urban landscape in order to propose new readings that focus on those stories that have been made invisible over time, those we have not sufficiently valued, in order to construct alternative discourses that are based on collective learning and that allow for a re-appropriation of the idea of public space as a common good. 

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.

‘I didn't expect such a sound to come out of such a small body. It was very impressive, she wanted to do the same with her voice: not to disguise it, but to dress it with other voices, her voice, her throat, as if another voice was coming from inside her, as if she were speaking, not with another, with herself, having a conversation, for example, about what disappears, from babbling to the last breath without passing through the middle, with a new everyone-voice, what would it be like? A mouth with many tongues, a ventriloquist who comes to us to multiply our voices, to transcribe the sound like when that leaf sounded like a twirler, as if it was telling us come on, let's go, its sound, that amplified experience, we had to draw the sound out of the ground, what does that mean? I don't know, it was like a breathing game, I was obsessed with feeling that sound, focusing attention on what you hear after singing, the throat clearing, the swan song with many tongues, the song that accompanies the moment just before going to sleep, doing it until we were voiceless together.’ 

An amateur choir is a creative project in which any kind of voice is welcome to participate. Every other Thursday, the choir does its own research sessions as well as sessions with artists who work with voice and listening.  

Our Amateur Choir has included Sonia Megías, Itziar Okáriz, Jaume Ferrete, María Salgado and Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca, Rocío Márquez, Alma Söderberg, Ainara Lagardon, Jhana Beat, Lolita Versache, Bea Narcoléptica, Luz Prado, Los Torreznos, Makiko Kitago, Julián Mayorga, Agnès Pe, Paloma Carrasco, Anto Rodríguez, Elisa C. Martín, Elena Murcia Pinto with Marina Peralta Murcia, Inma Marín with Jon Cañal and Tania Arias Winogradow with Milo-Andrey Ulises, Rolando San Martín, Amalia Fernández, Elena Córdoba, Raquel G. Ibáñez, Alex Reynolds, Black Tulip, tacoderaya, Mónica Valenciano, Ruth Abellán and Arturo Moya, Ojo Último, Monserrat Palacios and Fátima Miranda, Sole Parody, Enrico Dau Yang Wey, Coco Moya, Veza Fernández and Noela Covelo.   

Todos los trabayos son

para las pobres muyeres,

aguardando por las noches

que los maridos vinieren.

Unos veníen borrachos,

otros veníen alegres;

otros decíen: «Muchachos,

vamos matar las muyeres».

Ellos piden de cenar,

ellas que darles no tienen.

"¿Qué ficiste los dos riales?

Muyer, ¡qué gobierno tienes!!»

Popular lullaby collected by Federico García Lorca in his Conferencia sobre nanas, 1928.

A group of mothers in the physical post-partum recovery period will come together to create the lyrics, melody and rhythm of songs to help their babies sleep.

Luz Prado (Málaga, 1985) Musician, violinist and performer. She lives nomadically, working on the stage through sound. Her practice is based on a constant dialogue with the violin and the encounter with other artists through DIY, dance and noise.

Ángela Segovia (Las Navas del Marqués, 1987) I write as much as I can. I have been publishing with the La uña rota publishing house for years. I think of writing as an open space, or rather, I make an effort not to close it; perhaps that's why I tend to mix genres and disciplines, although for me it's really all the same thing, just writing. Always writing.

The fourteenth edition of the Autoplacer (‘Self-Pleasure’) Festival will be held on Saturday, the 23rd of September at the CA2M Museum from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. It will feature several performances on the Museum's terrace, including Infanta, Seggs Tape, Miss España, the artist Firmado, Carlota and Animadora, the winner of the Autoplacer 2022 Demo Contest, which will be held again this year in October.

There will also be techno sets playing in the SUI (Sala de Usos Infinitos on the ground floor), featuring a concert by Stephen Please and the special participation of Radio Relativa, a community, independent and experimental online broadcaster, which will be in charge of the Dancefloor's techno music programming, as well as sets by Feet & Gostoso (the creators of Radio Relativa), Loyalty XIX, Gideo and Emilia Grima.

Autoplacer 2023 will also feature various guest projects related to self-publishing, design, illustration and comics in the entrance hall, accompanied by the music of various festival collaborators on the turntables.

PROGRAMMING FOR SATURDAY, 23RD OF SEPTEMBER FROM 12 P.M. TO 9 P.M.

- Featuring concerts by:

• 12:30 FIRMADO, CARLOTA
• 13:30 ANIMADORA
• 17:00 SEGGS TAPE 
• 18:00 MISS ESPAÑA
• 19:00 INFANTA

- Dancefloor with Radio Relativa:

• 15:00 STEPHEN PLEASE LIVE
• 16.00 FEET & GOSTOSO
• 18:00 LOYALTY XIX | GIDEO 
• 19:30 EMILIA GRIMA

- Guest projects

LA INTEGRAL | TURBULENTAS EDICIONES | CUIR MADRIZ | AUTSAIDER CÓMICS | LA GRANJA EDITORIAL | KIT CANÍBAL | PRIETO & CUERVO

- FREE ENTRANCE UNTIL FULL CAPACITY IS REACHED - 

The Conference on the Study of The Image is an event dedicated to collective reflection on the theory, practice, semantic openings and contemporary demarcations of visual cultures. It is structured to include a debate forum, seminar and workshops, as well as a public call for research projects (details below).

This conference offers an encounter between artistic, theoretical, activist and epidemiological perspectives on mental health, in an attempt to think about these intersections through certain collaborative artistic practices and the public’s participation.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a wave of depression and anxiety-related disorders, the question of its impact on particular, very specific communities, as well as critiques of certain medical positions related to their diagnosis and treatment, were increasingly on the table, overflowing traditional legitimising spaces.

Mental health and its connection to neurodivergence are part of an often tense dialogue with treatment methods and curative principles, as well as with denial strategies used against collective causes. Particularly critical areas such as grassroots activist movements and artistic practice claim embodied positions and denounce the violence and stigmatisation of much psychiatric practice. At the same time, ‘over-diagnosis’ is prone to critique, among other things, because it excludes the most socially marginalised groups, making them invisible.

Artistic and activist practices propose definitions and approaches to mental health that focus on more intimate, affective aspects of mental health, as well as the vindication of visions read as neurodivergent and the importance of networks for overcoming collective discomfort. These spaces and feelings built around the idea of community self-management of mental health find in creation a tool for healing, but also for protest.

We are looking for papers that reflect on this framework from the artistic and cultural sphere, based on practical work and/or theoretical research (either in progress or complete), with which to build a collective roadmap around the relationship between art and mental health.

Some suggested topics and themes include the following:

• Artistic narratives and genealogies of madness and mental health.

• Intersectional perspectives: feminism, anti-ableism, anti-racism, etc.

• Alliances from art and activism. Strategies of collectivisation of discomfort, stigma and pathologisation of neurodivergence.

• Artistic practices and trauma.

• Ethics in artistic work and the participation of audiences and communities around mental health.

• Anti-psychiatry histories and practices.

• Pathologisation and de-pathologisation of dissidence.

• Political and affective approaches to illness and pain.

• Repressive spaces and mental health: prisons, IDCs, psychiatric hospitals…

Submissions should include:

• The application form (downloadable HERE), including a summary of the message (250 words)

• Brief project dossier (pdf, doc, docx) with a maximum size of 10 MB

All documentation should be sent to the following e-mail address: ca2m@madrid.org. If you choose to include attachments, please follow the instructions outlined on the application form. Communication will be in Spanish.

NB: Those selected will be specifically notified of the time and date they will be participating; regardless, we recommend that you have the availability to attend the three days of the conference, namely 16th, 17th and 18th of November. Each selected person will receive 300 euros following the end of the conference and submission of an invoice, to which the relevant deductions must be applied. Selected participants will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation arrangements.

This conference is being organised by Inés Plasencia, Patricia Mayayo and Noemí de Haro within the framework of the project ‘The audiences of contemporary art and visual culture in Spain: new forms of collective artistic experience since the 1960s’ (PID2019-105800GB-I00, Agencia Estatal de Investigación).

With the collaboration of:

Cha-cha-cha at dawn at dawn cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha the backside the backside cha-cha-cha

Cha cha beach hammock idler

Idler hammock beach cha cha

Cha cha apple orange pineapple

Pineapple orange apple cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha square palm trees tra-la-la

Tra-la-la palm trees square cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha boats barbed wire boom-boom-boom

Boom-boom-boom barbed wire boats cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha on the phone on the phone cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha cha-cha word

Word cha-cha-cha

In little more than a decade, the body has moved from the sidelines to a become a focal point of contemporary culture. For this shift to fully unfold its potential, it is necessary to pay attention to the way our materiality articulates with our surroundings. Word cha-cha-cha explores turning points in which bodies are given shape by words, and vice versa, through the paradigm of expanded language. Ambivalently, this language of blurred boundaries both produces and is the result of movement, sound, images, automatisms, feelings, economy and modes of social organisation. This programme proposes a series of performances that bear partial witness to the complexity with which these elements intertwine and affect each other.

Language no longer belongs to humans alone but, in a return to the fable of sorts, animals, objects and natural elements murmur in our ears. On the other hand, the certainty of signifiers fades when confronted with the infinite variability of models and the multiplicity of possible interpretations. In this realm where vagueness reigns, every sentence we utter is a spell, a door we open without knowing where it leads. By questioning the mechanisms for naming and their relationship with things, there is also interference with established dynamics, and possibilities emerge that are beyond the imaginable.

Through choreographies, poems, songs, whispers, shouts, rumours, spells, films without images, the clacking of castanets, familiar languages, obscure languages, unusual translations, incarnated books and newspapers, the language of birds and computers, we may temporarily lose our speech and be forced to search for words. Who knows if we will find different ways of expressing thought to, facing, before, below, fitting, with, against, about, from, since, after, during, in, between, towards, until, for, by, according to, without, under, over, behind, versus, via the silhouette of clouds, the bottom of pockets or the dregs of coffee.

Curated by Quim Pujol

Early 19th-century London witnessed the founding of The Picnic Society, an association that would meet regularly in the open air, at which time each member was expected to provide some of the entertainment and refreshments without there being a specific host. Borrowing this concept from the Picnic Society, the CA2M Museum invites a number of curators each year to design a programme for the Museum’s roof terrace.

Every Thursday from the end of May until the end of June, our roof terrace is turned into a space for hosting a programme of activities that combine body and sound with education and participation. 

PROGRAMME

Thurs 25/05 I Llorenç Barber. ACTUM REENACTMENT. Javi Álvarez.

Thurs 01/06 I Juf (Leticia Ybarra + Bea Ortega Botas), Pol Jiménez, Matthieu Blond.

Thurs 08/06 I Park Keito (Kotomi Nishiwaki + Miquel Casaponsa), Joris Lacoste, Noela Covelo. 

Thurs 15/06 I Paula Miralles, Josep Xortó & The Congosound.

Thurs 22/06 I Alix Eynaudi, Clara Amaral, Simon Asencio.

Thurs 29/06 I María Jerez +Élan d’Orphium, Laura Llaneli, Venecia Flúor.

TIMES: 9–11PM, EXCEPT FOR THE SESSION ON 29/06 WHICH WILL START AT 8:30PM

DOORS OPEN AT: 8:30PM. PLEASE BE ON TIME.

SELF-PUBLISHING TABLES

Thurs 25/05 I CAJA NEGRA

Thurs 01/06 I CANICHE

Thurs 08/06 I LA UÑA ROTA

Thurs 15/06 I CONTINTA ME TIENES

Thurs 22/06 I LIBROS DE ARTISTAS

Thurs 29/06 I VARAMO PRESS

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Combining the performing arts and contemporary art, Quim Pujol’s artistic practice denatures language to reveal the ideology that lies behind ordinary modes of expression and to open up other possibilities of association. The latest pieces by this iconoclastic writer and performance artist are El mensaje de otros mundos (2021) and Variedad de variedades (2022). He has participated in exhibitions at arts centres such as the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, La Capella and the EACC. Together with Ixiar Rozas, he edited the book on affect theory Ejercicios de ocupación (Ediciones Polígrafa, 2015). He curated the experimental programme of the Mercat de les Flors (2011–2015) and collaborates with the Observatorio del Placer.

Acknowledgements: Berta Gutiérrez Casaos.