THE FACE OF THE EARTH
Video Contest Call / Espacio Pla


Espacio Pla will select 36 videos to be shown in the framework of a reboot of Eduardo Pla's video installation Videomundo Virtual.

Videomundo Virtual was an artistic production conceived on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, in 1995. It consisted of a sphere-shaped structure with six TV sets that reproduced scenes from various parts of the world showing the work of the Organization.

The possibility to recreate the installation within an environment of artistic reflection proposes a connection between two different moments in history around the concept of Globalisation: the first, the year 1995, when an optimist rethoric about the near future was a must, a moment when solidarity, fraternity and prosperity would connect all the inhabitants. It is worth highlighting that it was the time of the creation of the European Union; the consolidation of the NAFTA -the free-trade agreement among USA, Canada and Mexico-; the Zapatist insurrection, and the strikes in France that sparked off the alter-mundialization movement.

The second moment, twenty years later, is the year 2018, that shows that the concept takes more explicit shapes and dimensions. After such events as the global crisis of 2008 or the Arab Spring, the former illusion turned into events that give us new perspectives on the issue.

The selected videos will replace those of the original installation to render account on the new imago of this "unified civilization".


TOPICS

- Integrated World Capitalism
- The problem of image
- Precarious lovers
- Seduction vs. production


Integrated World Capitalism

Globalisation can be understood from different angles; however, the concept encompasses a set of specific problems that define many features of our civilization. Namely, the passage from a liquid economy to the production of industrial subjectivities, desterritorialisation, experience mediation or information peddling in neoliberal programs.

These programs, that originated during the cold war, aim at centralizing power by means of different operations on the social fabric; with strategies that span from war to advertising campaigns that create consumer profiles and/or ideal settings for a profitable elistist market.

The most effective tool of the neo-liberal thought applied to the IWC process is the capability of engaging or overriding other ways of thinking or organizations that contradict its intentions. This problem also affects language at its matrix and impacts the field of criticism, where everything seems to be a trap.


The problem of the image

The changes brought about by the mentioned programs require to work on the imago of society, on its capability to imagen and view the world. There is nothing new in it, it has had a long development with a starting point in the barroque period with the spread of images of the Counter Reformation alongside the invention of the press.

At the present time this task lies on the joint responsibility of mass media and the production of cultural goods that influence advertising. Already in 1986, Laymert García dos Santos expressed:

"The media are a kind of language wall that steadily proposes models of images through which the receipient can shape himself -unity images, rationality images, legitimity images, images of justice, of beauty, of science."

Nowadays, the problem of the image takes the dimension of the complexity of mass media, by means of which it is possible to generate and spread images bringing in both the perspective of machines (satellites, drones, cell phone cameras), the digital image and Virtual Reality.

In the field of art and aesthetics this implies dealing with reified signs, with media and tools loaded with an a priori political rethoric. Therefore it results mandatory to find scenarios and develop ideas that escape the scavenger structures of capitalism, which is an enormous demand.


Precarious lovers

The concept of maximum productivity, the exponential decrease of leisure time and its hastened perseption produce scarcity of mental time and poor conscience. To this respect, Bifo Berardi speaks of the reconfiguration of social relationships and technical development that ends in general desensitization with ethic implications: "Sensitivity exists within time and cyberspace has grown in such a dense form that the sensitive organism (as conscious singularity) has no time to draw meaning and pleasure from the experience."

This is also one of the features that affect artistic production:

"Artists no longer look for rupture. In its place they search for a road that can lead them to a balance between irony and cynicism, a way to postpone for a moment at least the execution, the death penalty."

"The words complaint and compromise have no sense if you are a fish about to be cooked."

In this call we are interested in reviewing and addressing the key problems of the issue proposed, and will welcome artistic works that offer some kind of resistance to the idea of "unique thinking".


Beyond all optimism and pesimism, the production of art is a way to resist a system that proclaims efficiency and productivity, whether sufficient or not.


Seduction vs. Production

"That against which the discourse has to fight is not the secret of an inconscience but rather the superficial abyss of its own appearance and, if it is to win on something, it is not on the phantoms and hallucinations full of sense and contradiction, but rather on the shiny surface of nonsense and all the games it enables." BAUDRILLARD,J. (1984)

The factors mentioned compose a special fabric that gradually arrives at a crucial point alongside its evolution and increased complexity, or at a sort of vector of collective intelligence. The sum of these vectors enables us to find the reverse side of a given problem, and to apply other forms of logic and strategies to approach it.

In this sense, it is worth mentioning the struggle of women, that is nowadays a major phenomenon since it questions, at its foundations, many of the conventions on which society lays; conventions that seemed static and unmovable until then. It is the feminist logic in itself what poses such climax of vectors.

Beyond the gender question and any sexist evaluation, appeal to the feminine aspect of humanity appears to be a possible way to address the traps of language that hinder both thought and social action.

Likewise, this call is an invitation to arouse the feminine aspect of thought, as well as any other non-hegemonic ones.


Selection process

The call is open from April 23 through October 10, 2018. Each month, 6 videos will be selected which will be screened the following month.

Videos should be sent via email to: lafazdelatierra.call@gmail.com
They will be screened on a 32" TV set with 1366 x 768 px resolution.

The selection committee will be formed by a jury of artists and curators from several disciplines.

With the consent of participants, the selected videos will be included in a blog that will act as a log for their display, and will also include a register of the process, rehearsals and analysis on the curatorial exercise.