La Caja Blanca takes great pleasure in presenting Mitos Colom’s
debut solo show.
Colom’ latest project draws from a variety of visual languages
(printing techniques & technologies, photography, performance,
video animation and the artist book format), experiments with
their possibilities, creating a unique body of work which is
impregnated with his unmistakably sinister sense of beauty.
The resulting project is an exhibition which gathers large scale
prints of hyper-real monumental buildings, futuristic mechanised
trees, a mystifying video installation which builds on a
performance project which is currently work in progress, and A
catalogue/artist book which documents the images appearing in
the exhibition and provides a ‘bible’ (complete with
introduction, cryptic narrative and glossary) for his audience.
Mitos’ background has given him a solid technical and conceptual
grounding allowing him to innovate by pushing existing
techniques to new limits.
Mitos has shown extensively across Europe, within the context of
group shows and as a member of artistic teams. Some of these
include: Metápolis 2001 in the Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona),
Art Futura 2001 in the CCCB (Barcelona), in A GESA in the
Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró (Mallorca), and Marcel.lí Antúnez’s
show Pol, which won an award in the 2003 edition of Ars
Electrónica 2003. |
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THE ARTIST
Education
1977 _ Born in Palma de Mallorca
2000 _ BA degree, specialising in: graphic design and video,
from the University of Salamanca
2001 _ Masters degree in interface design for multimedia
products, from the Escuela Superior de Diseño Elisava,
Barcelona.
Professional Projects
In 1997 Colom forms an artist collective titled ‘disish...’,
through which he carries out numerous performances between,
including: ‘disish...menú’ presented in the national festival of
performance art in Segovia and ‘Silencio’ presented in Scay’99,
and ‘Red Arte’ in Salamanca, which leads to the production of a
piece included in the project ‘los niños de la montaña’ (by
Carlos T.Mori) shown at the 2000 edition of ARCO 2000 y and the
‘encuentros sobre arte actual’ which took place in Zaragoza.
Between 2000 and 2001 he conducts research into the relationship
between video, audio, sensors and interactivity which leads to
the creation of the interactive installation 'Reflex place’
(vídeo-space controlled by sensores) shown at Metápolis 2001
(Mercat de les Flors) and Art Futura 2001 (CCCB),Barcelona.
Mitos has conducted numerous interventions of live visual
projections where he manipulates images in real time through
software art packages. His video interventions have been
conducted in: souk, antic Ajuntament de Tarragona, Centre Cívic
la Barceloneta, Zentraus especial Sonar 2005, Garito Café, the
Lab, 4Fun, Sant Joan a la Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró... among
many other spaces.
In 2002, Mitos participates in a show by Marcel.lí Antúnez
(founder of the Fura dels Baus), which is shown for the first
time in the Grec Festival and awarded a prize the following year
in Germany at Ars Electronica 2003.
Since 2002, Colom has participated in numerous group shows
including: CCCB (Barcelona), Fundación Pilar y Joan Miró (Espai
Zero), Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona)… among others.
THE EXHIBITION
Under the title Misión 1977 … y se hizo el silencio, Mitos plays
with the aesthetics, jargon and eerie ambiance which
characterised 1970’s the sci-fi novels he read as a young
teenager.
The artist draws inspiration from Si Fi cinema and literature,
such as: Mad Max, 12 Monkeys, Avalon, Blade Runner Kamikaze
1999, Delicatessen, Dr Quatermass’ experiments, Farenheit 251…
etc…
The project began taking shape while the young artist was
attending a master class by the Spanish photographer and urban
myth generator, Joan Fontcuberta, who’s passion for combining
truth with fiction until the two become indistinguishable…
sparked the chore text which all the pieces subsequently evolved
from.
The pieces which comprise it include:
Prints of digital collages on large sheets of brushed aluminium
Animated audiovisual installation
Artist Book as an object
The story of the Voyager Probe contained in the artist book
THE STORY
The story titled Voyager Probe is the starting point for the
body of work which comprises the exhibition, it lends itself as
the theme under which the rest of the pieces have been
conceived, and is captured in the format of an artist book as a
piece of art in its own right.
Below, an extract of the story:
Voyager is in fact the joint name of two probes, Voyager 1
and Voyager 2, both identical in their design, that were
launched in 1977 with the aim of exploring a large region of our
Solar System. […] Both probes carry with them a golden record
that contains a selection of one and a half hours of music from
different world cultures, greetings in 55 human languages, a
greeting from the UN Secretary General of the time and the
experimental “Sounds of the Earth”, a collection of
characteristic sounds from our planet. It also includes 115
images explaining the location of the Solar System in scientific
diagrams, the units of measure used, characteristics of the
Earth and features of the human body and society. The contents
of the record were selected by a scientific committee chaired by
astronomer Carl Sagan who, in reference to the message, declared
that its main intention was not to be deciphered, but rather to
be interpreted in itself as a token of the existence of
humankind and of our efforts to contact other intelligent
species that may exist beyond the Solar System.
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