A chain reaction is a sequence of events, each caused by the previous one. It is also the name given to a chemical reaction in which the product of one event is the reactant in the next, and so on. A chain reaction implies a certain energy input, which generates an expansion of events. A chain reaction can be triggered by small impulses yet eventually generate vast transformations. Similarly, a chain reaction can be used to establish new references or new relations; in short, to contribute to new ways of looking, thinking and acting.
A video programme can also be seen as a chain reaction, one in which the first shot leads us on to the next so that our viewing of it is necessarily influenced by the preceding series of images, as well as by those that follow. Chain Reaction is the title given to this programme of videos, which brings together a selection of films from the Cal Cego Contemporary Art Collection. Cal Cego is a collection based, not on media or formats, but on artists and discourses. The Cal Cego Collection contains videos, projections, video-installations, photographs, installations, drawings, paintings and works in other formats more difficult to classify. Cal Cego is not based on fixed, immovable, pre-established cartographies of artists; its aim is, rather, to work as a compass, guiding the production of meaning. It is from this standpoint that a contemporary art collection can also be seen as a chain reaction in which genealogies of artists, works and discourses are generated, genealogies that cannot be read without taking into account the relations, associations, counter-positions, overlaps, revisions and even conflicts that they generate with each other.
The Chain Reaction video programme begins literally with a chain reaction, one created by the Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss through everyday objects. It continues with Ignacio Uriarte’s unusual choreography performed by files on shelves, followed by a definition of the self in relation to others in a video by David Shrigley and the performance of an animal obeying orders in Douglas Gordon’s film. Still on this animal theme, we come up against a pack of dogs face-to-face as Francis Alÿs uses his video camera to take us into the field of art. Christian Jankowski explores similar terrain as he converts spectators into sheep. Next, the art system is presented with acute vision and humour by Jesper Dalgaard and, finally, Bestué/Vives deliver yet another chain reaction, in this case one full of artistic references, without leaving the everyday, domestic sphere.
