It seeks to create in the mind of the user a critical reflection on the situation that little by little the hand of man has been aggravating causing an imminent environmental change of which we are increasingly aware, but which does not stop worsening over the years deteriorating our planet and all its possible ecosystems.
Description of project by Matadero Madrid and Fundació Sorigué.
Art at the service of science
- The Sorigué Foundation and Matadero Madrid present “Blind Sensorium: Visual Anthropology”, the first solo exhibition of the photographer and documentarian Armin Linke in Spain.
- This exhibition is the result of a research project accomplish by Linke for ten years around the concept of the Anthropocene -the theory about the new geological era caused by the action of human beings on Earth-, in which has had the support of the Fundació Sorigué.
- The artist presents a rigorous and reflective approach to the evidence of this geological phenomenon, through a film presented for the first time in Spain, conceived as an art essay that examines the multiple aspects of the Anthropocene.
-The exhibition also presents photographs, audios, and texts, the result of the intersection between politics, science, economy, culture, and technological innovation as a result of Linke's research and his team.
Madrid, March 8, 2021.- The Sorigué Foundation and Matadero Madrid present the first solo exhibition of the photographer and documentary maker Armin Linke, “Blind Sensorium: Visual Anthropology” that can be seen in Nave 0 of Matadero from March 12 to March 20 May 2021.
Linke, who for more than twenty years has been researching the Anthropocene, proposes this exhibition as a visual witness to the incidence of human beings on Earth, its climatic and economic consequences. From a rigorous perspective, as well as reflective, he invites us to become aware of the critical situation of the planet and the conflictive role that human beings and modern societies play in its transformation.
The video installation “Blind Sensorium” is a synthesis of the fieldwork carried out by Armin Linke and his collaborators Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi, with the support of the Sorigué Foundation. In it, they have used both photographs and recordings to produce visual anthropology of climate change.
Linke and his team have followed and interviewed scientists, politicians, and activists, and have had access to laboratories, data centers, political negotiation rooms, natural resource extraction zones, and locations that are transcendent for Earth's ecosystems.
The Sorigué Foundation, by the vision of the Sorigué business group, has supported this research by Linke, enabling extensive fieldwork and the development of the project presented at Matadero.
About the sample
In "Blind Sensorium: Visual Anthropology", Linke combines film, photography, audio, and texts. The centerpiece of this exhibition is the film 'Blind Sensorium', which is presented for the first time in Spain, and which carries out a visual analysis of the conflictive spaces of climate change and the intersections between politics, science, economics, culture, and logic. of technological innovation.
Furthermore, it is conceived as an art essay that examines the many aspects of the Anthropocene. This term, which has gained popularity in recent years, refers to the set of environmental changes derived from human activity on Earth and is used as a scientific instrument to pressure the authorities to develop effective policies to stop the overexploitation and deterioration of the planet. However, it is not yet a term accepted by the entire scientific community. The "Anthropocene Working Group", of which Armin Linke is a prominent member, has been working for years with the main objective of making the term official.
Through photographs, this exhibition captures the massive profusion of data, where the physical infrastructures, consisting of computer centers, data highways, and server rooms, are largely invisible. These abstract processes become visible only as a new form of an image, such as scientific data maps or operational images, linked in turn to vast technology infrastructures. Linke's photographs show that the modern world is a massive profusion of data, where the material infrastructures, consisting of computer centers, data highways, and server rooms are largely invisible: the knowledge generated by this technological sensorium is characterized by the blind spots of his involvement in the accelerated exploitation of nature.
Armin Linke's work is also an artistic reflection on the changing role of photography in a world increasingly governed by abstract processes, and its material and conceptual infrastructure.
About Armin Linke
For more than twenty years, Armin Linke has explored the question of how humanity uses technologies and knowledge to transform the surface of the earth and adapt it to its needs. His films and photographs document human-caused changes to land, sea, and the entire biosphere.
Linke was a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) and IUAV Venice, as well as a research associate at the MIT Cambridge School of Architecture and Planning, USA. He is currently visiting professor at ISIA Urbino and an artist-in-residence at the KHI of Florence - MPI.
Some of the most prominent international exhibitions are The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen at ZKM Karlsruhe, PAC Milan, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Center de a Photographie Genève; Prospecting Ocean at CNR-ISMAR in Venice, 16th Istanbul Biennial, Photo / Industry 2019 in Bologna, BOZAR / Center for Fine Arts in Brussels or Carceri d'Invenzione at the XXII Triennale di Milano.
His recent project Blind Sensorium. Il Paradosso dell’Antropocene, conceived in collaboration with Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi, and curated by Anselm Franke, was presented as part of the "Matera European Capital of Culture 2019" program.
Linke's Alpi installation on the contemporary alpine landscape won the special award for best work in the "Episodes" section of the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2019, with Image Capital, a joint research project with Estelle Blaschke, Linke won the Kubus Sparda Art Prize.
About Fundació Sorigué
The Sorigué Foundation promotes the vocation of return to society of the Sorigué business group, a group that is committed to the circular economy and is a benchmark in the urban services sectors - green infrastructure, waste management -, construction, engineering and technology of water and materials, and that it has been committed from its origins to innovation and sustainability.
The foundation carries out its activities in the social, cultural, and educational fields and is particularly known for having one of the most distinguished private contemporary art collections in Spain, made up of more than 450 works by national and international artists of the relevance of Juan Muñoz, Cristina Iglesias, Antonio López, Julie Mehretu, Bill Viola, Anselm Kiefer, and Doris Salcedo, among others.
The didactic and educational vocation of the foundation is channeled through a series of parallel activities to the exhibitions and an active policy of loans to national and international institutions.
Support for Armin Linke's “Blind Sensorium” project also reflects the Sorigué group and its foundation's commitment to environmental challenges. This exhibition aims to generate synergies and collaborative projects
About Matadero
Matadero Madrid is the center of contemporary creation of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Madrid City Council. Created in 2006 and located in the old slaughterhouse and cattle market of the city, it is an area of great patrimonial and architectural value, of enormous personality and a citizen reference.
In its different warehouses, an extensive program is developed consisting of exhibitions, theater, festivals, live music, cinema, and audiovisual projects, conferences, conversations and workshops, residencies for artists, educational programs, and activities for families. All these activities are built through the diversity of the institutions that make up the center and transversal, interdisciplinary lines of work and in connection with international networks. The center brings together the visual and performing arts, cinema, literature, digital culture, architecture, and design in search of interdisciplinary proposals.
Matadero Madrid is proposed as a space for conversation and debate, to promote critical thinking and contribute to the renewal of artistic ideas and languages. It works as an attentive radar to react flexibly to the social challenges against which culture is activated as a tool for change, and vindicates the experiment as an indispensable instrument for the emergence of a new culture.
