The prototypes in this exhibition are products of the meeting point between four artists and four scientific research projects
The title of the exhibition, “máquinas de ingenio” (ingenious machines), is a reference to the name given to the inventions incited by the advancement of science after the Renaissance. These devices, which represent the technical avant-garde of their time, are very much experimental in nature: they are prototypes, trials in the testing phase that today we call “permanent beta”. They are also practical and localised, as they provide specific responses to the needs of their social context. And they are also the fruit of combined talents: collaborative works, created in “workshop mode”, involving artists, craftsmen, scientists, designers, philosophers, poets, engineers and mathematicians. Or perhaps people who bring together all these skills, known as “polymaths” (from the Greek polumathēs meaning diverse knowledge).
In a similar vein, the prototypes in this exhibition are products of the meeting point between four artists and four scientific research projects. The intertwining of studies on robotics, neuroscience, nutrition and energy engineering dialogue through the languages of art and speculative design, result not in a sum of specialities but in a flow of connected practices, not in a work or final product but in an environment of practice and reflection on contemporary technoscientific culture, with its strengths and challenges.
The exhibition will also be accompanied by an extensive programme of activities. Through diverse voices, experiences and areas of expertise, the aim is to delve into the relationships between different forms of knowledge and address issues linked to our current society, such as artificial intelligence and food sustainability.
The prototypes have been developed within the CIRCE (Creative Impact Research Centre Europe) programme, created by the Ministry of Culture and Media (BKM) of the Federal Republic of Germany to strengthen the economic role of the cultural and creative sector. Tabakalera joins other research centres in Europe in incorporating this programme into its ongoing ACTS (Art/Science/Technology/Society) line of work, initiated in 2020.
In addition to the prototypes from the CIRCE programme in 2023, the documentation of the projects carried out in the Tabakalera ACTS line of activity since 2020 is also on display. One of them, Supraspectives, carried out by the Quadrature collective in collaboration with the Donostia International Physics Center (DICP), is also exhibited in the form of an installation.
