FEED THE CHIMERA

In recent years the Universidad Popular explored illusionism and magic. With this idea in mind, we are now proposing to follow up our research and take it to the limit, to the fabulous. This year we will work with the idea of the chimera, understood as improbable illusion and also as an impossible being made from different bodies. We have conjured up bodies that multiply, that question the idea of the human and the artist, mixing science and art, like the Quimera Rosa collective; or those that safeguard the chimerical fire, like Fermín Jiménez Landa. We invite anyone interested in thinking about these unexplored ideas and in feeding the monster.

This year we will also be featuring a series of publications which will be available for browsing and consultation in the CA2M library. In addition, just before each session, participants are invited to take part in a shared reading of a book chosen for the occasion.

CA2M organises educational activities on contemporary art and thinking that can be framed within the tradition of community colleges. The courses it offers address some of the key issues for a proper understanding and interpretation of art today. These activities can be divided into two parts: the first consists of the presentation of a theme by a guest speaker and the second part involves a debate open to the audience. But this structure can also change to adapt to more experimental formats depending on the guest at each session.

SESSIONS
 

30 OCTOBER
Quimera Rosa | Trans*Plant: a journey through the chimerical looking glass
 

"We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism;
in short, we are cyborgs."
Donna Haraway, Cyborg Manifesto
 

The material and products for cultivating new symbiotic beings are prepared in a bio-hacklab. While the preparations are taking place, the chimeras take the public on what they call the OncoMouseTM journey, by means of a live commented AV presentation. OncoMouseTM is the first animal created in a lab and then patented. The first cyborg, the first laboratory chimera.

You are invited to a performative and participative bio-art lecture. This commented journey is based on three years of biomedical research in an artistic-scientific setting, on the ethical issues we came across and our investment in self-experimentation, trans-disciplinary approaches and the trans-feminist gaze in art practices.

_ Quimera Rosa is an art collective exploring the body, technology and identity.
 

6 NOVEMBER
Fermín Jiménez Landa | Save from the Fire
 

- What work of art would you save if there was a fire in the Prado Museum?
- The fire
(Response attributed to Jean Cocteau)
 

In this lecture on fire we will talk about a year of local euphoria, carpentry, security guards, falleras mayores, hearths and homes, bonfires and wildfires, Airbnb and afters, rituals of purification and ashes. A commission the artist received to create a falla for the official programme of Valencia’s annual festival was dispersed in infinite parts interrelating folklore, night-time, conceptual art and quick fixes. Humans lit bonfires to cook food and to keep themselves warm but they soon discovered that it also prolonged the light of day, ignoring the rhythm marked by the turning of the planet, altering circadian cycles and creating a perfect time for fables, tall tales and stories.

_ Fermín Jiménez Landa is an artist.
 

13 NOVEMBER
Moon Ribas | The Seismic Sense
 

In this lecture Moon Ribas will talk about the possibilities of hybridising bodies and technology and how these bodies act within art. Moon Ribas will speak about the creation of a seismic sensor and how it allows her to perceive earthquakes anywhere in the world through vibrations in real time. With the purpose of sharing this experience, Ribas translates her new seismic sense to the stage, transposing earthquakes into sounds in Seismic Percussion or into dance in Waiting For Earthquakes.

_ Moon Ribas is a contemporary artist.
 

20 NOVEMBER
Pablo Esbert y Federico Vladimir | How to Engender Your Own Dragon
 

Pablo and Federico give a lecture-concert on dragons and other collectively created creatures. Using speculative fiction as a tool and their own work as artists, they address questions on trans-individuality, the post-human, automation and non-traditional forms of narrating ourselves.

The dragon is a fictional creature that appears in the imaginary of many different societies throughout the course of history. It is a hybrid being that interlaces nature and culture, a cocktail of earthly and fantasy animals. The dragon lives in a fantastic narration in which diverse subjectivities can coexist and interrelate without the usual prejudices underwriting realist narrations. It is a monster that helps us to be critical and creative, to imagine challenging representations of “us”. It is also a fiction in which, similarly to contemporary practice, different artistic disciplines coexist, like a trans-disciplinary hydra with many heads.

The dragon is a creature made up of various individuals whose monstrosity prevents it from being too balanced, too organic or too polished. A being of beings in continuous transformation which aspires to the impossible: to devour its spectators in order to incorporate them.

_ Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc and Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld are artists.
 

27 NOVEMBER
Marc Sempere | From Art to Ritual
 

For several years now the artist Marc Sempere Moya has been examining the limits between the individual and the collective. Here he is proposing a circular performative lecture in which we can explore the possibilities of rituals today in both theory and practice.

We will discover some of his works, his recent theoretical investigations and his performative projects.

We live in a world in which rituals barely exist anymore, and in which everything is pure representation. Is there any possibility of recovering a world that lives in common? Of recovering a "relational identity"? Of living in a chimera?

_ Marc Sempere Sempere is a multifaceted artist who works, researches and popularises relationships between the oral tradition and free culture through music, performance, theatre, film... and paellas!

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Anyone interested in art today.
 

No prior knowledge necessary.
 

More information: actividades.ca2m@madrid.org / 912 760 227