The 11th edition of A*LIVE, the multi-layered, transversal and expansive public event programme of A*DESK in collaboration with the Museu de l’Art Prohibit, on 6/11/2024 at 7:30 p.m.

In the ongoing debate about access to knowledge, censorship, fake news, distraction tactics, screen dependency, and the decline in critical thinking, A*LIVE 2024 delves into the concept of Radical Cuteness.

Radical Cuteness

The influence of memes and “cute” in popular culture is a radical part of collective imagination, from examples of sexualization of military propaganda, violence, to ways of radicalization in different areas through tenderness. Radical Cuteness aims to unmask the mechanisms that, based on subliminal strategies of seduction – the adorable, the childish, the tender, the vulnerable, the fragile, the soft – influence, disturb and confuse in order to reprogram minds. This approach questions the cultural and political meanings behind these aesthetics. Such disruptive mechanisms are increasingly more internal than external and go beyond prohibition to deploy their control from a veritable psychological warfare that the digital environment only intensifies. We see it through the massive presence on the Internet of very popular and attractive DIY products, in which subliminal aspects shape the collective consciousness, introducing supremacist messages.

A*LIVE 2024, Radical Cuteness

A*LIVE 2024, Radical Cuteness
Subliminal Strategies: Prohibition and Control: Unraveling the Power of Psychological Warfare in the Digital Age

A*LIVE 2024, Radical Cuteness delves into these themes from an agile and dynamic structure. To do so, it has Nuria Gómez Gabriel as master of ceremonies and host of the event; the screening of the video Nation Estate (2011) by the artist Larissa Sansour; a performance conference by Noura Tafeche and Alex Quicho. The graphic image and visuals of the project that introduce the different sections are by the artists Momu & No Es.  A*LIVE 2024 event is completed with a Q&A section, led by the responsibles of A*DESK, Montse Badia and Maria Muñoz.

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Núria Güell closes the first cycle of the public programme Geysers (curated by Montse Badia) with a lecture entitled NATIONAL HERITAGE. New temporary exhibition at the MNAC, 2024.

The artist makes public her extensive research into the little-known function of museums as custodians of works of art that undergo some judicial process. A search inside and outside the museum and the result of multiple conversations with professionals in the management, security and registration of works of art in heritage centres.

Núria Güell’s proposal takes the form of a conference in which she compiles this entire process, to evoke an exhibition curated, no longer by art specialists, but by the courts of justice.

Núria Güell understands her artistic practice “as a socially and politically necessary practice in which the cultural fact and the established are put into play.” Her work process starts with the research and analysis of data and situations, continues with the posing of questions and, finally, with a proposal for action with real impact.

In her research at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, she focuses on a little-known but common function of museums: that of safeguarding works that are in judicial custody, that is, those assets (works of art) that judges proceed to secure as litigious assets when a seizure or confiscation is decreed in a legal case.

Núria Güell delves into this role of custodian, which clearly falls within the functions of the museum (as defined by UNESCO, “the institution at the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage”) but which, at the same time, reveals the other side of the notion of heritage associated with humanistic values, knowledge, beauty or goodness. Precisely because of their value, works of art are also subject to looting, falsification or illegal acquisitions.

In order to delve deeper into the frictions generated by definitions of heritage value arising from non-legitimised narratives, Núria Güell’s proposal takes the form of a conference in which she compiles her entire research process, to evoke an exhibition curated not by art specialists but by the courts of justice. With this project, Núria Güell invites us to re-evaluate the dichotomy between idealised notions of cultural preservation and the legal complexities underlying the custody of art in a contemporary social context.

Video of the lecture

This intervention is part of the Geysers programme

Raquel Friera’s work is based on performative strategies, historical re-readings, the presentation of parallelisms and slight shifts that configure critical views on relevant issues of the current moment.

In her previous works, the artist has made re-enactments of classic performances (by Bas Jan Ader, John Cage or Tehching Hsieh) in which the re-enactment made by a female figure generates shifts of meaning and new readings. She is co-creator, together with Xavier Bassas, of the Institute of Suspended Time that explores and proposes alternative forms of time that go beyond mere productivity.

The public presentation of the research carried out by Raquel Friera in the Geysers programme takes the form of a performance and fits into the framework of the current debate on the function of museums. The historical investigation of these functions takes Raquel Friera to the mid-nineteenth century, to the Louvre in Paris and to the National Gallery in London. And there he finds paintings (such as Giuseppe Castiglione’s Salon Carré, Louvre (1865) or Frederick Mackenzie’s The National Gallery at Mrs J.J. Angerstein’s House, Pall Mall (1824)) that show museum halls full of visitors who, in addition to looking at the works hanging on the walls, are also having meetings, naps or picnics. In this use of the museum as a public space, it was not only the free admission that was key, but also the layout of the rooms, which had movable and autonomous furniture that visitors could arrange according to their needs.

Crowded museums performance video

Raquel Friera’s performance, Crowded Museums (2023), recreates an interview conducted by the members of the Select Committee with the keeper of the National Gallery (1850) in which they discuss the tensions placed on the museum as a public space (with groups bringing food and drinks, small children dirtying the floor, inappropriate behaviour, etc.). The report itself already suggests a possible solution: regulations and access fees.

In this way, Raquel Friera’s performance addresses a hotly debated topic: the functions of the museum, in order to recreate the historical drift of museums, from a public space to a space of consumption.

Museums and res publica. From the performance Crowded Museums by Raquel Friera

Cortical, by Sevi Iko Domochevsky and Daniel Benza

A*LIVE Supression. The algorithmic bias

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This intervention is part of the Geysers program at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, curated by Montse Badia.

Cristina Lucas’ work explores the power mechanisms that determine our lives. Currently, her interest is focused on the fracture between society and nature and the urgent issues arising from climate change. Based on the observation that the elements and minerals present on our planet are also present in our body, the artist begins to investigate and work artistically with these elements (zinc, magnesium, iron, etc.). In her research at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, she follows the trail of one of them, cobalt, an element with which pigments are created (the well-known cobalt blue), also present in our body as a component of vitamin B12 and, finally, a key mineral in the electrical and technological industries. In the museum, the artist finds a work that perfectly synthesizes this point of intersection based on cobalt: Mural for IBM (1978) made by Joan Miró and Joan Gardy Artigas, with colors that include cobalt blue.

March 16, 2023 (12pm)
Performative lecture 16/3/2023

Cobalt

Ro Caminal

This intervention is part of the program Geysers at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya curated by Montse Badia

Ro Caminal, an artist who explores the world of representation and works in the space of intersection between the visual arts and anthropology, begins her research in room 48 “Orientalisms” of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, where she focuses on a work in concrete: In the presence of the Lord (1891) by Francesc Masriera. The work allows her to start a process of questioning representation and the look as colonial devices. Starting from the reference of the thinker Edward Said, who understood Orientalism as a form of binary thinking that produces a knowledge that opposes the West/East, Ro Caminal presents an alternative poster, which complements and revises the original, while putting the emphasis on some aspects that allow the work to be reinterpreted based on critical keys

Location: Room 48 “Orientalisms”

Oriental fantasies of yesterday and today. Reviewing history should also include reviewing its visual legacy