As Soon As If It Was Not
—A video selection for the Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cerrillos (CNAC)
Curated by Pedro Torres
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La visión de los vencidos (The Defeated) -
El origen de las piedras -
A dream from before history (Futuro memories) -
Waiting Search (end to time) -
"So What 2012": Mayan Calendar Edition -
Melancholic Drone -
Land of The Sun -
Volva -
The Scale of Signs -
taH pagh taHbe -
The God of the Labyrinth -
Complex Systems
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Carlos Motta, La visión de los vencidos (The Defeated), 2013.
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Mauricio Sáenz, El origen de las piedras, 2016.
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Joan Bennassar, A dream from before history (Futuro memories), 2014.
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Daniel Monroy Cuevas, Waiting Search (end to time), 2012.
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Michael Joaquin Grey, "So What 2012": Mayan Calendar Edition, 2012.
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Igor Simic, Melancholic Drone, 2015.
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Niklas Goldbach, Land of The Sun, 2015.
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Édouard Decam, Volva, 2016.
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Gabrielle Le Bayon, The Scale of Signs, 2016.
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Maria Antelman, taH pagh taHbe, 2006.
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Yoi Kawabuko, The God of the Labyrinth, 2016.
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Desirée Dolron, Complex Systems, 2017.
About this programme
This video selection was initially curated by Pedro Torres for the Cabina Audiovisual of the Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cerrillos (CNAC, Santiago de Chile).
Carlos Motta, La visión de los vencidos (The Defeated), 2013, 6’46”
Mauricio Sáenz, El origen de las piedras, 2016, 5’31”
Joan Bennassar, A dream from before history (Futuro memories), 2014, 14’44”
Daniel Monroy Cuevas, Waiting Search (end to time), 2012, 8’12”
Michael Joaquin Grey, “So What 2012”: Mayan Calendar Edition, 2012, 10’17”
Igor Simic, Melancholic Drone, 2015, 7’06”
Niklas Goldbach, Land of The Sun, 2015, 11’35”
Édouard Decam, Volva, 2016, 24’39”
Gabrielle Le Bayon, The Scale of Signs, 2016, 5’15”
Maria Antelman, taH pagh taHbe, 2006, 4’2”
Yoi Kawakubo, The God of the Labyrinth, 2016, 15’38”
Desirée Dolron, Complex Systems, 2017, 2’36”
As Soon As If It Was Not gathers together twelve videos by international artists, while it explores the relationship between the past and present, different time scales and real or fictional imaginaries. Twenty-first century science, with the affirmation of the Theory of Relativity and the consequences brought about by the emergence of quantum physics, has put into question the causality between the past and the present/future. Although our daily perception of time is still grounded in a linear flow of events that unfold from the past into the future, time is now appreciated from multiple perspectives and no longer understood as an absolute entity.
At the same time, the present (or future) consequences of an action do not simply or directly result from an immediate past event. In fact, a remote past or a distant future can equally affect and alter the present. The imaginary of the future of different eras is revealing to grasp the way of thinking of that specific moment, and to understand how some realities of the present are actually built on an idea of a future that has already turned into (natural, cultural and urban) ruins. Archeology (of the past) and speculation (into the future), thus, position ourselves within a present tense from which we can signify our own temporal experience.
In this circumstance, the image and language are crucial to interpret time and its possible developments, being them real or fictional. Science fiction gives us the tools to create other possible (or visible) worlds, while it also allows us to play with time. Reality, instead, makes it difficult for us human being to escape from the so called arrow of time, with its inherent irreversibility.
While you watch these videos, minutes–your minutes–run forward, yet as they do, you will have travelled to other times or you could go back to the same point again. Or maybe, you could get lost in time, be indifferent to its flow, be within a flock of birds, inside a labyrinth or an observatory, waiting for the end of the world or talking alone to the rocks.
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This video selection was initially curated for the Cabina Audiovisual of the Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cerrillos (CNAC, Santiago de Chile), where it was on view from 9 November 2019 through 26 January 2020.
Opened in 2016, the Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cerrillos is dedicated to approaching contemporary art practices, through the collaboration with institutions, artists, collectives, other exhibition and creative spaces at a national and international level, as part of the Executive Secretary of Visual Arts of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
As part of the CNAC, there is the Cabina Audiovisual, a space with a programme primarily dedicated to video art as a practice through which experiment with the moving image. Since the early 1970s, video art has played a crucial role in questioning mass media, censorship and centralism as they contributed to the construction of a highly-critiqued imaginary by contemporary art. Today video art is a key resource to retrieve performance, the archive and urban intervention, as well as a tool to rethink landscape, nature and community in contemporary Chile. The Cabina Audiovisual has presented six curated proposals to showcase different artworks from the collection of the Centre for the Documentation of Visual Arts, as well as documentary projects or experimental archives. Finally, it has also been deployed as a platform where to foster encounter between the local scene and international events such as Videobrasil or LOOP Barcelona.
Pedro Torres
A proposal made in collaboration with:
Video programmes
‘How To Tell A Story’?
By associazione culturale Urbs Picta
Animal Games
By Laura Olea López and Suzy Royal
Hicham Berrada. ‘Concordance des temps’
By Pascale Cassagnau
Gabriel Lacomba ‘#crònicapandèmia’
By Jaume Reus
Cao Fei for LOOP
By Hans Ulrich Obrist and Cao Fei
“Time Passed like a Courier with Urgent News”
By Carolina Ciuti
The Dancing States of the Political Body
By Pascale Cassagnau
Watery Witnesses
By Daniela Zyman and Soledad Gutiérrez
As Soon As If It Was Not
By Pedro Torres
