IMARTE Research Group, UB
DARTS Research Group, UOC
Valentín Roma and Daniel Gasol
Tuesday 22 May 2018 at 7 pm, Virreina LAB
Free entry. Limited capacity

 

For two years, in the context of La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, work has been done on the research project Las verdades ya no son templos, son shares de audiencia (The truth is no longer a simple matter, but a question of audience shares), which examines the relationships between local facilities and Barcelona’s cultural imaginary in the neoliberal era. The project explores the programming and operation of civic centres as public institutions that help construct the so-called “Barcelona brand” paradigm, based on consumption and cultural spectacularisation.

Bearing in mind that, among other things, civic centres were created to shift some of the work involved in civic services away from local government and to provide authorities with spaces for community interaction, we are witnessing how these institutions are transforming to cover other social needs far beyond those originally intended. Furthermore, the organisation of civic centres by district also conditions the user model through several premises, such as income per capita, the businesses in the area and the origin of the neighbourhood, thus constructing classes of civic culture.

Through the relationship between users and centres that defines culture, civic centres are institutions organised by guidelines and programmes that collaborate in this construction and constitution of the term, providing users with a wide range of activities in the form of workshops or courses. This process highlights how civic centres present products for consumption from official bodies that need the public in order to function. In this scenario, users are seen as "audience share" and their attendance indicates the success of the programming.

 

In the context of the Virreina Lab, we invite the IMARTE research group, the Art, Science and Technology Research Group of the University of Barcelona (UB), and the DARTS (http://darts.uoc.edu/) research group of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), to reflect on the only current indicator of the social return on investment made by governments in the area of culture: the number of attendees.

The aim of the debate is to question this indicator that conditions civic centre's proposals and programmes and requires public institutions to consider the volume of users driven by marketing trends more than the use of the facilities as spaces for entities that develop links between politics, district requirements and local residents.

 

Daniel Gasol (Tarragona, 1983), artist and holder of a PhD from the University of Barcelona, studies the mechanisms that construct the dominant discourses on identity, work, class, and consumption, which condition social relationships and perpetuate traditional forms of government.

Since 2015, he has received several grants, such as the P. Juncosa Education Grant (2016), the ETAC International Grant (2016), the Casa Elizalde Visual Arts Grant and UNZIP (2017), among others, and has published several books, such as Polititzacions del malestar (2017) (Politisations of discomfort), #RealitatsEscenificadesDesDeJoanMiró (Staged realities from Joan Miró) and Desbordar Barcelona (Barcelona Overflow), where he works as part of the team in his capacity as a researcher.

www.danielgasol.net
 

Alejandra López Gabrielidis (Mendoza, 1986), holds a degree in Philosophy and specialises in art and digital technologies. She is currently writing her doctoral thesis on the new types of corporeality that arise in relation to the phenomenon of datification, in cotutelle between the University of Barcelona and Rennes 2 University in France. Above all, her interest lies in analysing the interconnected relationships between technical objects and bodies from a paradigm of distributed agency. She tackles these issues by combining theory and philosophy with critique and artistic experimentation. She currently works as a full-time trainee researcher on the project IN>TRA. La práctica artística colaborativa como modelo de experiencia: Nuevas formas y prototipos en los procesos de investigación (Collaborative artistic practice as an experience model: New forms and prototypes in research processes), led by IMARTE, the Research, Art, Science and Technology group of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. She recently translated Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s book, Fenomenología del Fin: Sensibilidad y mutación conectiva (Phenomenology of the End: Sensibility and Connective Mutation), for the “Futuros Próximos” (Near Futures) collection from the publishing house Caja Negra.

http://alejandralopezgabrielidis.com/index.html
http://stomatech.tumblr.com/
http://www.imarte.eu/projectes/

 

Beatriz Regueira Pons (Palma, 1986) works as a trainee researcher in the project IN>TRA. La práctica artística colaborativa como modelo de experiencia: Nuevas formas y prototipos en los procesos de investigación (Collaborative artistic practice as an experience model: New forms and prototypes in research processes), within the IMARTE group. Her theoretical and practical research delves into the plastic interactions of the mind-body-politics continuum from feminist and neomaterialist studies, exploring the capitalist symptomatology of bodies in discomfort. She is currently working alongside the psychologist, María González and the sound artist, Daphne Xanthopoulou in an experimental workshop on construction called Theoria, which mixes meditation, voice and movement.

She is part of the Nenazas group, which creates feminist fanzines and character performances.

https://vimeo.com/user7580425
http://nenazas.tumblr.com/

http://www.imarte.eu/projectes/

 

Eloi Puig (Barcelona, 1966), artist and tenured lecturer in the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Barcelona. He is currently Director of the Visual Arts and Design Department and principal investigator no. 2 in the project IN>TRA. La práctica artística colaborativa como modelo de experiencia: Nuevas formas y prototipos en los procesos de investigación (Collaborative artistic practice as an experience model: New forms and prototypes in research processes), within the IMARTE research group. His interests lie in printed art, the digital use of randomness and the incorporation of shared methodologies in teaching. His current research lines are the links between art and science, and the interpretation of coding concepts and translation. He has taken part in numerous national and international exhibitions.

http://www.eloipuig.com/
http://www.imarte.eu/projectes/

 

Pau Alsina (Barcelona, 1975)  

holds a PhD from the Department of the History of Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, having written a thesis on the emerging systems in artistic practices linked to technoscience. He is a lecturer of Arts and Humanities studies at the Open University of Catalonia where he coordinates subjects related to art and contemporary thought. He is also a lecturer on the Official MECAD/ESDi Master’s in New Media Art Curatorship at Ramon Llull University and he collaborates as a guest lecturer at other Spanish universities.

Since 2002, he has been Director of Artnodes, the UOC’s art, science and technology journal. He is a founding member of the YASMIN network for art, science and technology (ACT) in Mediterranean countries, promoted by UNESCO Digiarts, Leonardo/ISAST, Olats, Artnodes/UOC and the University of Athens. Researcher in contemporary thought, art and digital culture within the GRECS group on culture, technology and society, through which he is currently developing the CSO2010-16502 R&D project on emotions and digital technologies.

 

Aida Sánchez de Serdio (Barcelona, 1977)

has a PhD in Fine Arts and is a lecturer in the Cultural Pedagogies Unit of the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Barcelona. She is also a lecturer and coordinator of the official Master’s in Visual Arts and Education: a Constructionist Approach, as well as a teacher on the arts and education PhD programme. She is a member of the Esbrina research group on Subjectivities, Visualities and Contemporary Learning Environments, as well as the Indaga’t teaching innovation group, both at the University of Barcelona.

She has given talks and published several articles relating to the connection between art, education and research, such as: “Políticas de lo concreto: producción cultural colaborativa y modos de organización” (Concrete policies: collaborative cultural production and modes of organisation), in Transductores. Pedagogías colectivas y políticas espaciales (2010); “Arte y educación: diálogos y antagonismos” (Art and education: dialogues and antagonisms), in Revista Iberoamericana de Educación (2010); “Políticas educativas en los museos de arte españoles. Los departamentos de educación y acción cultural” (Educational Policies in Spanish art museums. Departments of education and cultural action), in Desacuerdos 6. Educación (2011); “Territorios de colaboración: negociaciones educativas-artísticas en la escuela, el museo y la comunidad” (Collaboration territories: educational-artistic negotiations in schools, museums and the community), in Revista educaçao em foco (2012); “Visualidade, Produção de Conhecimento de Pedagogia do Olhar” (Visuality, Knowledge Production for the Pedagogy of Seeing), in Processos e Práticas de Pesquisa em Cultura Visual e Educação, edited by Raimundo Martins and Irene Tourinho (2013), and “Advocating for justice: A multidimensional notion of change in collaborative arts educational projects”, in Stand(ing) up, for a change: Voices of arts educators, edited by Kevin Tavin and Christine Ballengee-Morris (2013).