"In the context of the environmental crisis and the need for a just, eco-social, energy transition, can the socio economical) debt of the global North be equitably taken into account? Can techno-diversity and biodiversity interact differently? Can systems of power move beyond the inequalities of capitalism and the reproduction of neocolonial extractivism of minerals and data? Can the privilege of digital memories over ancestral memories be overcome? Enter the spider's dream, a space with codes of another ritual... It is high time some of us change our habits and not the climate!"
Tomás Saraceno.
The exhibition is conceived as a performative intervention into the Serpentine's power supply, what the artist refers to as the "Ballad of Weather Dependency". Energy for the exhibition is generated by, and dependent on, solar panels newly installed on Serpentine's roof. The artworks on display adapt according to the daily levels of energy generated. The actions of the participants, the weather and fluctuating levels of energy play a crucial role in the exhibition.
"World(ing)WideWeb(s).Life", 2023. Installation view at "Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life", Serpentine, London, 2023. Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno.
Saraceno has long called for close observation of spiders as a source of wonder and inspiration. The extraordinary architecture of their webs and their myriad behaviours encourage a move from arachnophobia (a fear of spiders) to arachnophilia (a love of spiders).
Inside, Saraceno present a constellation of intricate spider webs woven in his Berlin studio, in collaboration with multiple spider species.
"We're honoured to partner with The Royal Parks to extend Tomas Saraceno's exhibition beyond the walls of the Serpentine South Gallery and into Kensington Gardens. The most ambitious show in the UK to date by the Argentine artist, Saraceno will put his decades of research bridging the natural and social sciences, and visual arts into action as a fully participatory creative intervention that is as alive as the audiences it touches. Saraceno is moved by a desire to raise awareness on the climate emergency through practical solutions, and by activating the natural setting that surrounds us, this partnership promises to deliver on Serpentine's mission of building new connections between artist and society."
Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of Serpentine.
A new work repurpose a disused confessional booth, traditionally found in churches, as a space for communing with the vibrations of a spider.
Upon entry, visitors are invited to relinquish their mobile phones before encountering a projected film by the spider diviners of Some, Cameroon that presents their intergenerational practice of ngam du. Relieved of our phones and the ability to map and document our place in the world through real time data, visitors are invited to slow down and use other senses. During ngam dù, binary questions are presented to a ground-dwelling spider whose responses are interpreted via its rearrangement of a set of cards that have been placed at the entrance to its burrow. Local diviner Bollo Pierre 'Tadios' invites visitors to ask the spider a question via their web portal titled Nggamdu.org. In an era of rapid technological advancement, Saraceno points to the practice of looking to bioindicators: organisms that can signal shifts in weather, climate, pollution levels, and ecological well-being.
"In the shadows", 2023, & "Cloud Cities: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces", 2023. Installation view at "Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life", Serpentine, London, 2023. Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno.
Central to the exhibition is Saraceno's filmic installation "Fly with Pacha, Into the Aerocene" (2020-23) which documents the artistic performance and flight of an aerosolar balloon sculpture over the salt flats in Salinas Grandes, Argentina. The flight marked the first ever fossil-free human flight without batteries, helium, hydrogen or lithium and was recognised as the most sustainable flight in human history by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), setting 32 world records. This was the result of extensive, collaborative research carried out by the Aerocene Foundation (an interdisciplinary group founded by Saracen that seeks to devise new infrastructures of planetary mobility and ethics) and the indigenous communities of the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin in Juju who are fighting for the preservation of land and water which is threatened by the mining of lithium - a material used predominantly in batteries for mobile phones, vehicles and other electrical devices - for an energy transition mainly in the global North at the determinant to the global South.
Outside in the Royal Parks, visitors encounter interactive sculptures from Saraceno's Cloud Cities series that engage with the park's rich biodiversity of birds, insects, foxes, ducks and other species. Highlighting the decline of urban wildlife populations and their role in the collapse of ecosystems, newly commissioned cloud-like sculptures populate the park, the rooftop and façade of the building, offering spaces of interspecies encounters and co-habitation.
A cycle-powered web server invites riders to generate energy as they listen to a reading of the Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South from the Peoples of the South, which 'rejects false solutions that come with new forms of energy colonialism, now in the name of a Green transition. For those pedalling, the social cost of energy and water regimes to power the internet is made immediate and physical.
On the 25th of January 2020, 32 world records, recognised by FAI were set by Aerocene with Leticia Noemi Marques, flying with the message “Water and Life are Worth More than Lithium” written with the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc, Jujuy, Argentina. This marks the most sustainable flight in human history. Fly with Aerocene Pacha, a project by Tomás Saraceno for an Aerocene era, was produced by the Aerocene Foundation and Studio Tomás Saraceno. Supported by Connect, BTS, curated by DaeHyung Lee.
"Constantly alive", the exhibition invites viewers to consider the distant effects of local actions. With the Aerocene App (via aerocene.org), visitors can become part of a community that imagines how it would be to float through and with the air, powered only by the sun, free from fossil fuels and lithium. With the Arachnomancy App (via arachnophilia.net), participants are invited to consult with real spider/web oracles through Arachnomancy card readings. A dedicated exhibition portal (websof.life) will host contextual material and petitions by collaborators of Web(s) of Life.
During the time of the exhibition, the conversation with Saraceno's collaborators continues. The artist's ongoing commitment to these communities will also take the form of implementing a new model of art stewardship, known as Partial Common Ownership. This model has been devised to honour the relational nature of artworks that are inspired by communities engaged in critical societal struggles such as climate justice.
Made in collaboration with Serpentine's Future Art Ecosystems team and RadicalxChange - a movement for 21st century political economies - a new partial common ownership system for time-based ownership of art will be launched at the closing of the exhibition. This aims to highlight the possibility of art to create more symbiotic forms of conceptual and economic interdependence.
