Experimental Design
Pablo Alvarez Colomina
My practice is mainly located between drawing, sculpting, writing and material research.
I use my craft as a means of exploration and articulation of philosophical concepts and politics amongst other fields from the social sciences.
I previously studied Animation & Illustration.
I believe truth is never simple, simplicity belongs to fantasy. Reality is complex, reality is infinitely deep in every direction.
This is why I perceive my work as being permanently unfinished; because I touch on reality. Every piece I produced has led me to another, which perhaps stands a contrary position to the first one. I am proud of being doubtful, as only by having doubts one can get answers.
'You can not learn what you think you already know'- Epictetus.
During the last year, I developed a technique to form glass on the surface of a stone.
The result is clear glass embedded in the rock. It creates an anachronic fossil, it looks like a fossil and at the same time has digital precision.
I see this as an almost perfect medium to carry a timeless message across time, perhaps to future civilizations.
The first reason for this is that not knowing when/where/who a message comes from could perhaps stop us from prejudging it. Prejudgement is ignorance for that which does not agree with one's reality, limiting one's access to reality.
Epictetus said that ‘you can not learn what you think you already know’.
The second reason is that most of our culture is hosted in a server in freezing countries, or is subject to programmed obsolescence. Meaning that most of it won't survive the possible collapse of our civilization. Stones, on the contrary, do not need a team of qualified technicians to clean them, maintain them and update them. They have carried information from Paleolithic times to our days.
The result is clear glass embedded in the rock. It creates an anachronic fossil, it looks like a fossil and at the same time has digital precision.
I see this as an almost perfect medium to carry a timeless message across time, perhaps to future civilizations.
The first reason for this is that not knowing when/where/who a message comes from could perhaps stop us from prejudging it. Prejudgement is ignorance for that which does not agree with one's reality, limiting one's access to reality.
Epictetus said that ‘you can not learn what you think you already know’.
The second reason is that most of our culture is hosted in a server in freezing countries, or is subject to programmed obsolescence. Meaning that most of it won't survive the possible collapse of our civilization. Stones, on the contrary, do not need a team of qualified technicians to clean them, maintain them and update them. They have carried information from Paleolithic times to our days.
Medium:
Stone
Medium:
Paper, Ink and UV reactive pigments.
Medium:
Clay, wood and metalSize:
40cm x 15cm x 15cm
20200706 000111
Series of prototypes for a kinetic sculpture exploring the concept of 'leaving a mark' through the erosion between materials.
A prototype of sculpture about how to ‘leave a mark’. You must leave a mark, if you don’t, then get ready to face death without the peace of mind of the one who did what had to be done. Francis of Assisi said that when we die, we only take what we have given, not what we’ve received. These words made understand that only way to leave a mark is by letting the erosion of your being become part of someone else. David Hume suggested that our identities are composed by those who influenced us, if you Seneca, King
Solomon or Simone de Beauvoir influenced you, then you carry part of their being in you.
A prototype of sculpture about how to ‘leave a mark’. You must leave a mark, if you don’t, then get ready to face death without the peace of mind of the one who did what had to be done. Francis of Assisi said that when we die, we only take what we have given, not what we’ve received. These words made understand that only way to leave a mark is by letting the erosion of your being become part of someone else. David Hume suggested that our identities are composed by those who influenced us, if you Seneca, King
Solomon or Simone de Beauvoir influenced you, then you carry part of their being in you.
Medium:
Paper, Ink, photoluminiscent pigment and photochromic pigment.
One of my least favourite things about living in London is not being able to see the stars. We like them because they make us feel so small and insignificant. They remind us that our problems, fears and dreams don't matter that much. Looking at stars, as with looking into the fire, brings up a very primitive feeling, something that touches the most inner part of the brain. A feeling that the first men and the first women, before the first words were pronounced, also experienced. Perhaps, the first words were created as an attempt to capture this overwhelming feeling, and maybe this was also the reason why the human race stood up, to stand a bit closer to the stars. For millions of years, this primitive experience was a meeting point for all humans with their ancestors. For millions of years, the nightly reminder of our purposelessness kept societies healthy and balanced the daily greed… This changed with the arrival of a mass murderer, responsible for the largest genocide Time has ever witnessed. His name was Thomas Alba Edison, and with his army of tiny fascist light bulbs, he murdered the skies of every city.Â
Across the globe people yelled:
- 'They don't let us see stars!'
And across the universe, the stars complained:
- 'They don't let us see the people!'
Human nights filled with lucid emptiness, which opened the door to fears, dreams, expectations, conspirations, goals… Not being able to see the universe inevitably made humanity believe that we were its centre.Â
Luckily, the daydreamers of the world stood up to it. They took all the astronomy and celestial cartography books they found and, with the help of rulers, compasses and other precision tools, they accurately filled the streets with the constellations and celestials bodies that still get taken away every night. To make the celestial bodies they used a material that had been recently commercialized, originally as an eraser for pencils. They used what we now know as chewing gum. This is the reason why every corner of our planet is covered in chewing gum. Which will be there when your great-great-great-great-grandchildren take their first steps, when they give their first kiss, when their heart breaks, and when their corpses get peacefully eaten by warms. It is not because we don't care about our home. Of course not, it simply is because the stars have been taken away from us, so we placed them on the floor to be reminded of our fragility. Thanks to this we can now meet those first men and women in this experience, meet all of our mamas and papas and say:
-'Hi, there'.
Across the globe people yelled:
- 'They don't let us see stars!'
And across the universe, the stars complained:
- 'They don't let us see the people!'
Human nights filled with lucid emptiness, which opened the door to fears, dreams, expectations, conspirations, goals… Not being able to see the universe inevitably made humanity believe that we were its centre.Â
Luckily, the daydreamers of the world stood up to it. They took all the astronomy and celestial cartography books they found and, with the help of rulers, compasses and other precision tools, they accurately filled the streets with the constellations and celestials bodies that still get taken away every night. To make the celestial bodies they used a material that had been recently commercialized, originally as an eraser for pencils. They used what we now know as chewing gum. This is the reason why every corner of our planet is covered in chewing gum. Which will be there when your great-great-great-great-grandchildren take their first steps, when they give their first kiss, when their heart breaks, and when their corpses get peacefully eaten by warms. It is not because we don't care about our home. Of course not, it simply is because the stars have been taken away from us, so we placed them on the floor to be reminded of our fragility. Thanks to this we can now meet those first men and women in this experience, meet all of our mamas and papas and say:
-'Hi, there'.
