The Universes Project

Over the past few years, I have been part of an interdisciplinary project with the Mexican composer Ivan Ferrer Orozco and the Spanish video-artist Iván Puñal García. The project consists of a series of performances/installations/works, entitled Universes, that combine visual and aural elements with live music through the interaction of all the involved creative dimensions. At a time when dystopian narratives have become trendy again, after the last mid-century’s craze, and permeate a significant part of contemporary culture (from TV series such as Black Mirror to novels such as Suzanne Collins’ 2008 Hunger Games) this project represents a form of reflective optimistic dystopia. The series take their name from the work of the American ethologist John B. Calhoun, which is approached from a critical perspective. Calhoun’s interest on the impact of overcrowding on behavioral patterns and his notion of “behavioral sink” become fundamental intellectual milestones that ground our reflection. Such a critical reading of his work and writings is combined with interest on garden structures and growth patterns as well with a general exploration of the Derridean critique of the notion of the frame as a parergon, as that boundary between the artwork and its background and context that guarantees its metaphysical autonomy.