Kinematope by Pablo Valbuena. Trasforming the space with light and sound

Espacio Fundación Telefónica presents Kinematope [Technical Landscape], the installation Pablo Valbuena has developed especially for one of the exhibition halls of the Espacio (shown completely clear for the first time since its opening). A sound and light circuit runs along the ceiling of the gallery delineating the three hundred meters of cabling that distribute electricity of the room and are vital for use and operation. It can be seen on the 4th floor of the Espacio from the 18th of March to the 15th of May 2016.

The intervention reveals a landscape of facilities that, despite its functional relevance, is hidden from the eye of the beholder. As explained by critic Pau Waelder "Systems that define the conditions of the room (lighting, connectivity, temperature), hidden in the ceiling, are present in the projected shadows given by the structure of LEDs and speakers that shape to work. Shadowland draw ephemeral spaces and volumes on the walls and columns as sound and light move around the room, following movement patterns and changing rhythms. "

As is common in the work of Pablo Valbuena, the artist matches the actual space with the virtual space he creates. Thus two layers of meaning coexist in a seemingly contrary same empty space: the permanence and solidity of architecture with the ephemeral and ethereal light, the material with the immaterial, the real and the digital, the static and the dynamic, etc. Valbuena projects a new space that passes above the existing one and that, far from being constructed with physical materials, is based on perception. "I think I don't work in the physical space, but in the mental space of the beholder," he says.