 http:// www.terredinessuno.com
La Fundación is hosting the exhibit, Terre di Nessuno ("No man’s Land"), a critical reflection on mass media culture and consumer society, presented by José Iges and Concha Jerez. Through the use of interference from official speeches, interviews, recorded sounds and voices, the exhibit examines issues such as the devaluation and accumulation of consumer goods, the sets of mass media culture and memory loss.
The exhibit is interactive, and so each visit is different from those previous. These visits are "created" in the space and time as the viewing public walks through the installations made up of objects, pictures, speeches, sounds and human voices. In this project the creators, Concha Jeréz and José Iges (artistic partners for thirteen years) have combined installation, video, film, radio, photography, photocopies, texts, illustrations and digital technology. The exhibit organizer is Alicia Murría. Terre di Nessuno attempts to redefine the role of the viewer and the conditions of perceiving a work of art within the multimedia society of today. An additional goal is that of reviewing our concepts about control and surveillance. THE WORK OF JOSÉ IGES AND CONCHA JEREZ These artists have blended musical resources with strictly artistic resources. In fact, José Iges defines himself as an artist whose school has been radio, the field of music, with an early awareness of contemporary music, specifically, electro-acoustic music. The influences of minimalism, dadaism, and theatre of the absurd are evident in his work. Concha Jerez, who has worked with Iges for thirteen years, also has a solid music education, with great experience in conceptual art, or "the art of concept", as she refers to it, an art which she combines with arte povera. Since the mid-seventies Jerez has been experimenting with new technologies and installation art (performance), through drawing, words, sound, video, actions and "intermedia" projects, as well as the use of texts. Since 1989 both artists have been working on common projects, parallel to their individual work. The result has been some twenty projects dealing with the areas of audiovisual installations, performances, intermedia and multimedia concerts, interactive installations, work on the web and radiophonic art pieces. A CRITIC OF MASS MEDIA CULTURE Reviewing Terre di Nessuno draws one directly to the issue of mass media structures, types of media manipulation, and media culture. Television sells its own autonomous reality, a world in which "reality tends to be replaced by a staged reality", (Iges quoting Ignacio Ramonet). According to the exhibit organizer, Alicia Murría, Iges and Jerez use the concept of interference (visual, sound, textual or symbolic) to investigate official speeches, interviews of anonymous persons, sounds recorded from the street or coming from toys and alarm clocks, while not forgetting the human voice that reads texts and emits meaningless phonemes, all of it occupying a particular space and time. The visual interference comes from graphic images of useless products, kitsch objects or pieces of dolls. Thus, the objects are depreciated through their simple accumulation. Through the use of moving images, light and sound, the visitor can travel through sections of space, both virtual and real, loaded with remote meanings which have yet to be gathered. MULTIMEDIA SOCIETIES, SOCIETIES UNDER SURVEILANCE Another key to this exhibit about "no man’s land" is the control and surveillance practiced in multimedia societies through sophisticated electronic systems. The artists are specifically referring to the surveillance typified by an apparent safety, surveillance by a large network, well-equipped for controlling purposes. Murría explains that it is "a type of multimedia Intranet that connects the audio, video, and light equipment and allows the visitor, from the moment of crossing the threshold, to interact and/or alter the course of the exhibit. The idea of labyrinth is mixed with the picture of a popular game that everyone knows, Parcheesi. Thus, the spatial limits of this no man’s land is turned into a "territorial game whose rules are constantly altered, adding a factor of disorientation to anyone who might try to look for points of reference in the different installations, or in the spaces between them." The space of Terre di Nessuno, as a large multimedia program, is totally interactive. In the words of Alicia Murría, "we are not talking about a traditional exhibit, since, in this case the events taking place in the various areas result from the actions, movements and options of each participating viewer, the number of viewers themselves at any given moment and any incoming phone calls. The performances and set designs are composed of an endless number of elements from various "residual" territories. As Murría describes it, "what the visitor is going to find in his/her physical journey are differentiated and interconnected spaces in which video projections of all kinds are mingled to form a collage of the present; sounds in which one can hear bits of official speeches; false patriotic hymns (broken hymns); pieces of conversations; tongue-in-cheek gestures, such as invented flags; figures selected from the comedy of art; mirrors that place us into other realities, or realties unfolding into infinity; irregular columns that support nothing; lights which, instead of illuminating areas, blind us; and a repertoire of real news together with false news stories in which this territorial game acts as a conductor wire. However, instead of orienting us with the known rules of the game, we are disoriented by altered rules. It is the viewer himself/herself who must activate devices and sensors at an individual pace and put into motion a disconnected world of endless folds, one in which a simple telephone call can result in new audio, visual or textual situations offered to us."
Concha Jerez, biographical data
Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1941. She holds a diploma as intermediate artist. She studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid and also has a BA degree in Political Science from a Madrid university. Since 1991 she has been Associate professor at the School of Fine Arts, University of Salamanca. Since 1973, she has done a wide variety of individual projects in several countries: Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Since 1976 she has centered her work on developing the concept of Installation, working In Situ, in specific large-scale spaces -many of which are Intermedia in style- until the beginning of the eighties when she increases her activities with Performance. Since the end of the eighties, her artistic compositions have been tied to radio, having created pieces of radiophonic art for stations such as RAI, ORF, Radio France, YLE, ABC Australia, RNE and WDR in Cologne. Among her individual activities: fifty large-scale Installations (many of them Intermedia installations using audio and video, among other media); twenty-two exhibits, numerous Actions, forty-one Performances, nineteen of which are joint pieces with José Iges, her artistic partner since 1989. She has also done an Internet piece with Iges, seventeen Intermedia Concerts and twenty-three Intermedia Installations of audio and video. From 1985 to 1990, aside from artistic activities, she collaborated with the Ministry of Education and Science in training art professors, giving seminars and workshops in perfecting skills, art specializations, and the integration of art into schools. From 1986 to 1988 she worked with the Youth Institute in (Gijón, Spain), directing, advising and developing workshops for young artists. She has given classes and workshops in centers such as the former Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid), the Youth Museum (Gijón), the Palace of Music (Valencia), the Reina Sofía Art Center, the Fine Arts Circle (Madrid), ARTELEKU (San Sebastián), the Institute of Aesthetics and Art Theory (Madrid), the School of Fine Arts (University of Granada), and the School of Fine Arts (University of Valencia), among others. Her publications include twenty monographic titles and two CD-ROMs, in addition to her participation in other joint publications, such as the following: Fuera de Formato (1983); Taidehalli /Performance (1985); Schloss Solitude, Plane Und Projekte (1986); Balcón 2 (1988); Artics (1989); Broaden/In/Gates (1992); Do(K)S (1993); La Nevera (1993); Ríos Invisibles (1994); Atlántica (1998); Art Visión (2000) and Transversal (2002), among others. José Iges, biographical data Born in Madrid, 1951. Industrial Engineer, Doctorate in Information Science, composer and intermedia artist. After his private musical training he began creating electro-acoustical pieces in the Alea Lab, Madrid, and later at the Pau University, France, from 1977 to 1978. From ’77 to ’79 he studied under Luis de Pablo at the Music Conservatory, Madrid. He has been a member of the Seminars in Art and Computer Science and of the Elenfante Group. As a composer and a "live electronic" instrument player he has played frequently with the groups mentioned, as well as with LIM and, since 1984, with the singer Esperanza Abad. In 1989 he began his work with the artist Concha Jerez, a collaboration which has diversified into radiophonic art pieces, performances, installations and intermedia concerts. His composing is strongly marked by his radio pieces. In this field his works have been aired in international fora such as the Prix Italia (1989) and the Karl Szucka Award (1998). He was awarded second prize as a composer at the "Prix Musical de Radio Brno" in 1988 and also as a producer at the "Prix Italia de Radio" in 1991. As a programming director at National Spanish Radio (RNE), he directs the current RNE Classical Radio program, the "Ars Sonora" space, centering on sonorous art and particularly, on radiophonic art. He has produced more than eighty pieces of this genre. He is member of the group "Ars Acústica" of the UER (European Union of Radio broadcasting), for which he is currently acting as coordinator. His artistic work and production work has been complemented by numerous articles, lectures, courses and workshops. Among these: Workshops on Radiophonic Art, which he directed in Barcelona (La Caixa, CIEJ, 1990), Cuenca (School of Fine Arts, 1995), and Mexico City (Third Latin-American Biennial for Radio, 2000); also workshops on "Art in the Electronic Space" (Gijón, Municipal Foundation for Culture, 1995); Courses and seminars at the Department of Computer Science, Madrid, at the Basque University, as the School of Fine Arts (University of Granada), at the Reina Sofia Art Center, Madrid, at the Municipal Foundation for Culture, Valladolid, and at the Music Conservatory of Cuenca. He has written articles for magazines in the field such as Scherzo, Ritmo, Creación, Atlántica, El Urogallo, Musica/Realtà, Doce Notas and Fisuras, among others. He has contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He is author of a narrative piece, "Animales Domésticos" (Libertarias, Madrid, 1987), of a biography, "Nuigi Nono" (CBA, Madrid, 1988) and of a doctoral dissertation, titled "Radiophonic Art" (1997). In 1997 he was responsible for choosing the collection of Sonorous Art for the media center of the Fundació Caixa de Pensions (Barcelona). He was a member of the Arco Electronic Commission for the ARCO art fair from 1996 to 1999. Organizer of installations and sonorous sculptures such as El espacio del sonido /El tiempo de la mirada (Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, San Sebastián, 1999) and Resonancias (Málaga Municipal Museum, 2000). Coordinator and creator of the Series of Concerts in Contemporary Music at the Vostell Marpartida Museum (Cáceres), since 1999. Likewise, he has coordinated the series "Intermedia Concerts" (Amárica Room, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 200-2001) and "Fluxux Concerts" (MNCARS, Madrid, 2002). |
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ExhibitionTerre di NessunoOpening date: September 24, 2002, 7:30 p.m. Length of exhibit: Location: Tues. through Fri. From 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5 p.m.- 8 p.m. CataloguePhotos of the installations and text by Fernando Labad, José Iges, Juan Antonia Ramírez, Pedro López, Alicia Murría, Concha Jerez, René Farabet, Gloria Picazo, and Ana Vega. Spanish |
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Office of Communications and Educational Programs Obdulio Martín Bernal (director) Carmen Mañueco (phone: 91-584-0424; Email: carmen.manuecogrinda@telefonica.es) David Felipe Arranz (phone: 91-584-4827; Email: david.arranzlago@telefonica.com) FAX: 91-532-3287 |
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