Abaton

various artists

04.05.18 - 07.06.18

The Blueproject Foundation presents “Abaton”, a programme around the idea of imaginary places that brings together different artistic proposals, which will take place at Il Salotto from May 4 to June 7, 2018. The project will feature the sound installation Chijikinkutsu, by the Japanese artist Nelo Akamatsu, during the entire exhibition period along with other activities, such as performances, film and video screenings, a literary meeting and an audiovisual performance.

Abaton is one of the cities mentioned in the book The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi. A city of changing location, which nobody has ever been able to arrive to and, therefore, no one has known its inside. By definition, Abaton is a sacred place, where the figure of the god was kept in the Greek temples; a place inaccessible to people. In Sir Thomas Bulfinch's version, collected in the dictionary, a place that could hardly be glimpsed by some people, like a vision in a distant horizon.

The references to Abaton, as an unreachable or sacred place, make us think about the place we are, in the present, and in those that we can reach in the imagination. From this premise, to inhabit a place, to be connected to it and to go further, is what the different proposals gathered in this project suggest.

Nelo Akamatsu, with Chijikinkutsu, proposes us to get into a transformed Il Salotto, which serves as a medium, through water, needles and copper wires, to connect us to Earth’s geomagnetism and make us aware of the place we stand. The different artists’ videos and films talk about fictitious or fictional places based on reality; about how specific places are transformed into futuristic, dystopian or surrealistic scenes through narratives overlapping the reality. On the other hand, the body is what activates the abaton and this embodiment will be the for the performance by Manuel Rodriguez, whereas in the performance The Pleiades, by Elena Bajo, the idea of constellation makes us think of an unattainable place, imagined from the human scale and dreams.

In the dictionary of imaginary places, many of the cities mentioned are islands and precisely one island in particular, the Concrete Island, by J. G. Ballard, will be the one that articulate the literary meeting The Library of Islands, an activity of reading and discussion of texts in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró. The program finissage, by Hamill Industries along with Shelly and mans o, will take us into an ephemeral visual space transformed by sound through the installation Cosmophonia - The infrastructure of light.

Complete Programme

Chijikinkutsu by Nelo Akamatsu

Permanent sound installation
→ 04.05.2018 – 03.06.2018

The Pleiades

Performance by Elena Bajo
→ Thursday 17.05.2018, at 8pm

Nothing real, everything imaginary. The Day of glory of RAYMOND ROUSSEL

Raymond Roussel: Le Jour de Gloire by Joan Bofill, 2017 (69min, Spanish)
Cinema session by Enrichetta Cardinale, codirector of Dart Festival Barcelona, in conversation with Joan Bofill, film's director
→ Sunday 20.05.2018, at 6:30pm

Making visible, the invisible

Performance by Manuel Rodriguez
→ Thursday 24.05.2018, at 8pm

A Hole in the Middle of Atlantis

Artists' videos session by Marla Jacarilla
New Madrid by Natalia Marín, 2016, (10min06sec, VO)
De urobóros y quimeras by Juan David Galindo 2017 (16min25sec, VO) 
In Praise of the Beast by Greta Alfaro, 2009 (14min58sec) 
Vientos del oeste/vientos del este by Carlos Vásquez, 2014 (15min46sec, VOSI) 
Montaña en sombra by Lois Patiño, 2012 (13min52sec)
Cartografías y falacias de un lugar cualquiera by Marla Jacarilla, 2011 (5min, VO) 
Film (Hôtel Wolfers) by Dora García, 2007 (11min30seg, VO)
→ Sunday 27.05.2018, at 6:30pm

The Library of Islands

Literary meeting with Víctor García Tur, hosted by Alexandra Laudo [Heroínas de la Cultura]
→ Thursday 31.05.2018, at 6:30pm

In the Limits of the Real

Film session by Albert Elduque
Llocs que no existeixen: Austràlia by Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo, 2009 (27min, VO)
Lessons of Darkness by Werner Herzog, 1992 (54 min, VOSE)
→ Sunday 03.06.2018, at 6:30pm