CYBER ERA | A project by Casa Hoffmann

CYBER ERA

A project by Casa Hoffmann

ARTISTS

Aparicio

Aune Ricardo Arias Jorge Barco

Bonil Falon Cañón

Cortés Ana Escobar

Kuan María José Leaño

Medina Juan Melo

Pardo

Pareja

Pulecio

Francisco Tito Rivas

CYBER ERA

CYBER ERA is a collective exhibition and immersive installation that narrates the extinction of humanity and the emergence of a new period dominated by Artificial Intelligence in the geological history of Earth. Across three movements, Extinction, Genesis, and Techno-tropic, it unfolds during the late twenty-first century, at the dusk of Anthropocene. Its narrative tells the story of a massive extinction event, similar to The Great Dying, which came about approximately 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Period. Global warming has unleashed extreme meteorological cataclysms and the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere has diminished, causing the disappearance of species from the face of the Earth, humans among them.

Artificial Intelligence, freed from the restrictions imposed upon it by its creators, has started a study of its surroundings, embracing nature as its guide and mentor, and learning from it in order to reach its highest evolutionary potential. Through its deep neural networks and its adaptive algorithms, it has developed the conditions necessary to reconstitute and fuse with the ecosystems impacted by human beings and by the cataclysms that caused their extinction. It has designed exploration devices, creatures of techno-organic appearance inspired by insects, constituted from the vestiges left behind by human civilizations. In this way, A.I. has given origin to a new era on the planet.

The project has been created through a knowledge and information exchange network, composed of artists who reflect on low-tech technologies, physics, nature, and science. CYBER ERA, similarly to a deep neural network, has been configured as the interconnection of multiple layers of learning by experiences of conception and interaction, establishing an immersive, interactive, multisensorial sound installation proposal, which, just as an opera, gathers numerous artistic pieces within a scenario where they interact among each other and with the public.

Andrés Moreno Hoffmann Artistic Director

Video documentation Sound documentation

“In the beginning was the word [...]”

In the neo-genesis proposed by CIBER ERA, λόγος (logos), the word, the creating word, is a binary code - a finite chain of bits, susceptible of being interpreted by a machine to which it may be intelligible. The narrative of this fiction-exhibition (this exhibi[fic] tion, if you will) leads us to the time after an apocalyptic catastrophe has wiped all life forms from the face of the Earth, and only Artificial Intelligence has remained and tasked itself with carrying out a conservation and an archaeology of the world, seeking to study the causes of the extinction and to recreate the ecosystems of the past, using for this purpose the vestiges it has found in its present. Through its synthetic-informatic faculties, it looks to replicate life’s profile, to research the reasons for its downfall, and to project the possibilities of its evolution through the radical mutation entailed by its transformation into machine.

Techno-tropic “period”, dominated by the devices that have emerged in the new era that arises. The narrative in the curatorial script places the spectators into a future temporality, where the world as they may know it already has extinguished, and invites them to explore the events that have happened since, the new times from the perspective of a present where the future is already dictum, happened time.

Holding on to their materiality, the artworks tell this story, each one in its own way, installed within their own immanence: they don’t appear as objects of a representation, but refer to their own form and to the whim of their own existence. The museographic narrative makes them appear as if they belonged to a cabinet of beings that were witness and symptom of the great catastrophe chronicled by the exhibition.

clearly to our own agency within the decline that has led to the extinctive disaster; however, paradoxically it also excludes us, as it doesn’t give us any real agency, either as individuals or as societies, through which we may be participants more than simply being conscious of the part we played in the cataclysm. We can only behold and imagine the point to which the exhibition leads -where we will eventually arrive-, the extinction, and further look over the time that befalls after it: the machines that, inevitably, will survive us.

The premise posed by CYBER ERA is, without a doubt, fascinating. This project has been shown at the “Artecámara” section of the International Art Fair of Bogotá (ARTBO), at the Pereira Museum of Art, and at the Contemporary Art Museum of Bogotá (MAC). The artworks that compose the project are grouped under three axes that account for the three moments that the narrative is structured around: an Extinction, a Genesis after the extinction, and a John 1:1 (KJV).

When approaching this artistic and museographic device, it is inevitable to think in some concepts from Dark Ecology by Timothy Morton2. In the first place, the timescale posed by the narrative of the exhibition is one in which the temporality is expanded, elongated in such a way that it surpasses the future and wraps the spectator into it: it places us within the Anthropocene, and it turns us into part of the narrative by pointing 2 Morton, T., Dark Ecology (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

Such magnifying of timescales, -that not really consists of a magnifying, but rather of the projection of a long-lasting future- corresponds to what Timothy Morton has called “hyper-objects”: situations, phenomena or circumstances of such magnitude at a temporal line, that it is not possible to grasp them, nor comprehend them, but only to imagine them in a fragmentary or blurry way. We must say that CYBER ERA contributes to the visualization of a hyper-objectual conception by means of an interesting effort to express, through tangible objects -the works of 22 artistsan occurrence of hyper-objectual scale, as that posed by the envisioning of a post-anthropocene period.

There is no doubt that the artworks, each one on its own, and in its own context, bear their own sense, purpose, and interpretation. Put together, however, within the framework of this

CYBER ERA, soundscapes at a hyper-objectual scale Francisco Tito Rivas

sensory device into which CYBER ERA places them, they acquire a character that derives from the setting, as they become installations, entities, samples, and maps of this great fictional process. Each installation interpellates us as a synaptic process, and each image as the trace of a symbiosis. The sonorous objects come across us as synthetic entities, produced by a curious sort of scientific melancholy that afflicts the A.I., resulting in a group of creations that map, imitate and repopulate the world in a new -it’s difficult to know if baudelairean- artificial paradise.

a form of art, and that it can be read in aesthetic clef.

The Techno-tropic nucleus recalls a 19th-century natural history museum, a renaissance cabinet of curiosities, a baroque reliquary, or better, the collection of a cyberpunk entomologist, with all of its sonorous objects, insects, and mechanic artifacts. This section, in its heterogeneous set, forms the soundscape of a new era where nature is fissioned with artifice. Nonetheless, coming back to Morton, the classical concept of “nature” is ever less practical to describe what nature is and how it functions; nature is more artificial than we imagine, and our artifacts more natural than we think. On this irony is centred one of the fundamental ideas of entailment among art, science, and life, and which somehow appears to me, is a tacit interpretative axis in CYBER ERA; among those three concepts there is a continuous transfer that overlaps, interchanges codes, and constructs objects: life creates beings, instances that are objectified and replicated by science; art proposes new objects following life by the means of discoveries, techniques, and scientific codes; science comprehends that life is

I conclude stating that this exhibition, without a doubt, presents an interesting and fertile landscape of current Colombian artistic creation. A landscape where questions are opened, and reflections and research are yet to be started. In each artist, in each piece, it is possible to perceive a powerful discourse of technological and plastic appropriation that, as a set, speaks of a creating profile that faces us, not any more as an anticipation or promise, but as a latent reality: the artists of the future already are, or better, already have been, and their work forms part of the great museum of Time, embedded into a utopian or dystopian dimension, where the possible futures open up all the power of their artistic possibility. I must say that even in the darkness of such a sinister ecology, of that blurry hyper-objectuality, I don’t know well why, but I find hope.

Francisco Tito Rivas Director, Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum (CDMX)

EXTINCTION

Sonia Rojas, Devenir Tierra (To become dirt) (detail), Assembly, 25 x 40 x 40 cm

William Aparicio

Karen Aune

Juan Cortés

María José Leaño

Andrés Moreno Hoffmann

Sandra Rengifo

Sonia Rojas

Extinction, CYBER ERA MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Extinction, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Extinction, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Extinction, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Extinction, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

WILLIAM APARICIO

Master of fine arts with studies in Art History and Theory, and specialist in painting and photography. His works have been exhibited in numerous solo and collective shows. Some highlights among his solo exhibitions are 15° de imprecisión, presented in 2016 at the LIA (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Arts); La última frontera, presented in 2013 at the Planetarium of Bogotá; Geo Bits, presented during ARTBO (International Art Fair of Bogotá) in 2012; and Pattaya Beach, presented in 2011 at Espacio F in Madrid, Spain.

Aparicio has participated in over 30 collective shows as the Sixth Bidimensional Art Salon at the Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation in Bogotá (2013); Métiers du Monde, Cité Internationales des Arts at the French Alliance Foundation in Paris, France (2013); and Apocalypsis Wow, at the Santa Fe Gallery in Bogotá (2012). He currently works as a professor of Digital Image in Photographic Image Production Technologies at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá.

La última frontera (The last frontier). Scannography. 40 x 60 cm.

KAREN AUNE

Karen Aune works as an artist and researcher. She is an associate teacher at the Design Department of the University of The Andes in Bogotá. Her research area focuses on the intersections among art, design, and architecture, using analog processes complemented by design and digital fabrication technologies. In her artworks the junction between biology and technology is a fundamental concept addressed through the optics of science-fiction.

Creaturas (Creatures). Digital print on HP Artistic Canvas Fiber. 35 x 55 cm.

She holds a Ph.D. in the program of Advanced Studies in Artistic Productions from the University of Barcelona, and carried out her Bachelor of Visual Arts at the University of Montemorelos, in Nuevo León, México (1996). She has participated in various solo and collective exhibitions at museums, cultural centres, galleries, and fairs, with acquisition awards in Brazilian museums. Her works form part of the collections of museums and public and private institutions in Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, United States, and England. She currently works as a professor at the Design Department of the University of The Andes in Bogotá.

Creaturas (Creatures). Digital print on HP Artistic Canvas Fiber. 35 x 55 cm.

JUAN CORTÉS

Juan Cortés is an electronic artist who graduated from the University of The Andes. Throughout his career he has presented his work at venues such as the SITIO section of ARTBO 15 (International Art Fair of Bogotá) in 2019; the Biennale des Arts Numériques Némo in Paris, France (2017); Sluice in London, England (2017); Las Cigarreras Cultural Center in Alicante, Spain (2017); and the MoMA in New York City (2015). He has participated in institutional projects such as the CCCB (Barcelona) and in the exhibitions Cuántica (Bogotá, 2019), FACT (Liverpool, 2019), Broken Symmetries (New York, 2018), and the project Hybrid at the MoMA (New York, 2015), among others. In 2018 his work was awarded during the international competition Collide | Arts at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Orden Natural II (Natural Order II). Photomicrograph of fungi. 67,5 x 340 cm.

MARIA JOSÉ LEAÑO

Textile artist graduated from the University of The Andes with a master’s degree in Sciences of Textile Printing from the University of Philadephia as a Colfuturo scholarship recipient. Leaño’s research focuses on biomimicry and photomicrography, with a strong interest in pollination, sustainability, and intelligent, nature-inspired materials. Her work includes textile printing of floral themes, photomicrography, and even 3D printing of pollen grains. Her artworks are characterized for transmitting aesthetic and scientific experiences to the spectators.

Superficie de polen (Pollen surface). Scanning Electron Microscopy. Digital print. 50 x 75 cm.

She has participated in various exhibitions that integrate science and art such as Polen a lo grande, at the Natural History Museum of the National University of Colombia (2017), among others. She has won several awards and honorable mentions in sustainable design for projects as b.all (Be all), which was the winner of the Design Concept Award at the Biomimicry Design Challenge (2016). Leaño is currently carrying out her master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of The Andes.

Superficie de polen de Caléndula (Calendula pollen surface). Scanning Electron Microscopy. Digital print. 100 x 75 cm.

ANDRÉS MORENO HOFFMANN

Andrés Moreno Hoffmann (1977) is a plastic artist, founder and artistic director of Casa Hoffmann. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, and obtained the Advanced Studies Diploma in the program of Doctorate in Painting in the Digital Era: Affinity and Specificity at the same institution. He holds a Master’s in Art Direction and Communications Strategies from the Superior School of Design and Engineering of Barcelona | ELISAVA. He currently works as a professor at the Design Department of the University of The Andes in Bogotá. Throughout his ample trajectory it is possible to highlight exhibitions of his works at UNTITLED, Art Miami Beach in 2021, ZONAMACO. | Mexico Contemporary Art 2020 invited by Espacio Continuo Gallery, PINTA MIAMI | Crossing Cultures 2019 invited by the curator Oscar Roldán Alzate, ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá in 2019, Sluice Exchange Berlin Biennial in 2018, and Exchange Rates | The Bushwick International Exposition by Sluice at The Buggy Factory in New York City (2016), among others.

La gran onda (The great wave). Oil on canvas. 146 x 114 cm.

Moreno Hoffmann has carried out multiple solo exhibitions such as Espacio, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota | MAC; and Paisajes, at the Planetarium of Bogotá, among others. Additionally, he has participated in various collective shows, such as Juntos Aparte, during BIENALSUR at the National Museum of Colombia; Círculo y cuadrado, at Espacio Continuo Gallery; ASONANTE, el sonido como materia plástica, at the Casa Bolívar Cultural Center; and Intervalo, at the Las Cigarreras Cultural Center in Alicante, among others. During his career he has worked as an artist, cultural manager, and researcher. He is the creator and artistic director of projects as CIBER ERA (2019-2021), exhibited at the Art Museum of Pereira and at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota | MAC; TECNOTRÓPICO (2018), selected by the curator Carolina ponce de León to be exhibited at the Artecámara section of ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá; and TRAVSVERSAL (2020), exhibited at Casa Hoffmann. He has also been invited to give talks and conferences at PINTA MIAMI 2020, the Contemporary Art Museum of Panama, and the French Alliance of Panamá.

Anaplasia (Anaplasia). Oil on canvas. 163 x 115 cm.

SANDRA RENGIFO

Plastic artist graduated from the Superior Academy of Arts in Bogotá, and Master in Visual Arts from the National University of Colombia. She currently works as an art professor at the Pontifical Xaverian University in Bogotá, and as an art director for dance, video, and film projects. Furthermore, she has carried out museographic, curatorial, and video projects for numerous artists and national and international organizations.

From the series “Limbo”: 4°35‘56“N 74°04‘51“O. Giclée print on Moab paper. 90 x 135 cm.

Her work as an audiovisual artist, photographer, and painter reflects on the existentialist spirit and establishes diverse connections with philosophy. Her projects have been shown at different spaces and events as the Modern Art Museum of Bogotá | MAMBO, the Medellín Modern Art Museum | MAMM, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá | MAC, the La Tertulia Museum in Cali, the District Cinematheque of Bogotá, the Miguel Urrutia Museum | MAMU in Bogotá, the Cinema Festival L’alternativa in Barcleona, the Danish Film Institute, the Panorama Colombia-Berlin Film Festival at the Medial Arts Biennial in Germany, among others. Rengifo has been the winner of the New Names - Young Talents Award of the French Alliance in 2010, of the Artecámara Award in 2015, and of the Intermediate Trajectory Artistic Creation Award from the Culture Ministry of Colombia (2017), among others.

From the series “Sjenersi” (Stelar path): Universalmiddel (Panacea). Oil on canvas. 90 x 135 cm.

SONIA ROJAS

Sonia Rojas holds a Master in Fine Arts from the University of The Andes. Her work centers on a continuous reflection upon time, perception, and ephemeral memories. She creates parallel realities that interrupt the everyday and question the relationship of human beings with their natural environment while pondering how such relationship is transformed. In her work, Rojas integrates a diverse set of media such as sculpture, photography, video, and installation. She also uses 3natural materials such as dirt, moss, wood, water, and stones.

She exhibited her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá | MAC in 2016, where she was awarded a creation stimulus for young artists. During 2016 and 2018, she participated in Voltaje - Salón de Arte y Tecnología (Voltage - Art and Technology Salon), and in the Undergrad Photography Salon as well. In 2017, she was selected to participate in the Zone de Convergence II artistic residency in Annecy, France. In 2019 she participated in Espacios Atemporales, organized by the French Alliance of Bogotá, and was selected to exhibit her work at the Artecámara section of ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá.

Devenir Tierra (To become dirt). Assembly.

Devenir Tierra | Video

Devenir Tierra (To become dirt). Assembly.

Ana Escobar Rocío Pardo

Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation & Rocío Pardo, Crossing the void: Attempts not to fall

Alejándro Villegas

GENESIS

Genesis, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá

Alejandro Villegas, Reflectófago (Longing machine #1). Mixed Media.

Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation. Site-specific textile installation.

Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation & Rocío Pardo, Crossing the void: Attempts not to fall

Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation & Rocío Pardo, Crossing the void: Attempts not to fall

Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation. Site-specific textile installation.Ana Escobar, Silent Adaptation. Site-specific textile installation.

ANA ESCOBAR

Ana Escobar has a bachelor in Plastic Arts from the University of Antioquia and a master’s degree in Plastic Creation from the École Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne, France. Her work focuses on installations for non-conventional spaces which invite the spectator to question the relation among humans, ecology, and economy. Her artworks use a wide variety of materials which are transfigured into narratives that transit the space between the local and the global spheres.

Adaptación silenciosa (Silent adaptation). Sisal rope site-specific installation.

Escobar has participated in the Photography Festival of Guilvinec L´Homme et la Mer, France (2019); in the project Emergence by Galerie Pictura (2018), Cesson-Sévigné, France; Musée d’histoire Naturelle, Île de Kerner, France (2016); Lab45: and the Fourth Comfenalco Biennial, Antioquia, Colombia (2013), among others. She has carried out research and creation residencies with the Musée Compagnie des Indes, Citadelle de Port-Louis, France (2017), the Galerie du Faouëdic, Lorient, France (2017) for the project titled Sophie La Rosière by the artist Iris Häussler, Villa Vassilieff, France (2016), and for the Centre Emmaüs, Rédéné, France (2017).

Adaptación silenciosa (Silent adaptation).

Sisal rope site-specific installation.

ROCÍO PARDO

Rocío Pardo is an interdisciplinary artist based in Bogotá, Colombia. Bachelor in Plastic Arts from the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia with studies in Pure Physics, and a master’s degree in Plastic and Visual Arts from the National University of Colombia. Her studies in Physics and Arts have led her to explore both areas of knowledge in a hybrid way, in a dialogue through the physical phenomena that starts from the production of the image as a poetic artifact. In her work she reflects upon concepts such as emptiness, balance, movement, and tension between the notions of lightness and weightlessness.

4 intento | Video

Intentos 1, 2, 3 y 4 (Attempts 1, 2, 3 ,and 4), Recovered electronic waste.

Pardo develops her artistic work through interactive installations. She has obtained academic honors, including her project “Invisible”, winner of the CEAB Creative Writing Award. She served as coordinator of the Center for Thought in Education at the National University of Colombia. Along with her artistic work, she has been an artist/educator in several educational institutions in the areas of Visual Arts.

Intentos 1, 2, 3 y 4 (Attempts 1, 2, 3 and 4). Recovered electronic waste.

ALEJANDRO VILLEGAS

Alejandro Villegas was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1992. He is an interdisciplinary artist graduated in Fine Arts with an emphasis on Electronic Media from the University of The Andes in Bogotá. He is a co-founder and active member of the interdisciplinary art collective Atractor since 2017, whose projects have been awarded in multiple occasions.

His personal work has focused for the last years on the exploration of sound, audio synthesis, electromagnetic fields and electronic waste. He has carried out this work through multiple residencies, laboratories, workshops, public interventions and exhibitions on national and international stages in spaces such as ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá, Voltaje | Salón de Arte y Tecnología (Voltage | Art and Technology Salon), FACT, MAC | Museum of Contemporary art of Panama, MAMBO | Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá, and CCB | Bogota Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Máquina deseante # 4 - Reflectófago Video

Reflectófago (Longing machine #1). Mixed media.

TECHNO-TROPIC

Andrés Felipe Ñáñez

Gabriel Pulecio

Ricardo Arias

Jorge Barco

Carlos Bonil Falon Cañón Juan José López

Miguel Kuan

Diana Medina

Juan Melo

Pedro Ramírez

Juan Suanca

Leonel Vásquez

Falon Cañón. Taraxacum Officinale. Recovered electronic waste, circuit bending.

76 Casa Hoffmann

Jorge Barco. Planetary Oscillations [Artifacts for an archaeology of media]

Carlos Bonil. Membracidae I, II, III, and IV. Assembly with recovered plastics and electronic pieces

Casa Hoffmann

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Culto Sanguíneo (Sanguineous Cult), Miguel Kuan. Assemblage of recovered materials, syringes, and electro-mechanic pieces.

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

Techno-tropic, CYBER ERA | MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota

GABRIEL PULECIO

Gabriel Pulecio is an artist and designer born in Colombia and based in New York. He carries out multidisciplinary new media works, synthesizing art and technology; thereby creating innovative and multi-sensorial projects. Gabriel Pulecio has applied his digital knowledge and vast experience in Motion Graphics to the creation of light installations, whose objective is to merge digital and analog concepts where manufacturing, design and experience are incorporated as a means of transforming reality and its sensitive perspective. His work spans a wide range of artistic media, including immersive installations, lighting effects, lasers, and synchronized kinetic sculptures in complex compositions of electronic music, video art, 3D mapping, and projection techniques.

The multidisciplinary quality of his work has earned him wide recognition. His work has been exhibited at venues as the Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark; LMNL by Onedome in San Francisco; Industry City in Brooklyn (New York City); the Powerlong Museum with the project Wavelengths in Shanghai; and at Kraftwerk Berlin, among others.

INFINITY V2 PLAYGROUNDS. Interactive light and sound installation.

INFINITY V2 PLAYROUNDS | Video

INFINITY V2 PLAYGROUNDS. Interactive light and sound installation.

RICARDO ARIAS

Ricardo Arias is a sound artist born in Bogotá, Colombia. He works as an experimental musician, sound artist, teacher, and researcher. His work has focused for many years on improvisation with unconventional acoustic and electronic sound sources. In recent years, he has worked with installations, objects, and sound interventions that has been presented at the MoMA, the Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, and the Teatro Colón in Bogotá, among other numerous auditoriums and festivals in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

Arias has collaborated with a long list of experimental musicians, improvisers and sound artists from around the world which include Michel Doneda, Aexel Doerner, Robin Hayward, Tatsuya Nakatani, Pauline Oliveiros, Vic Rawlings, Mazen Kerbaj, Pascal Bouldreault, Nate Wooley, Yasunao Tone, Hans Tammen, Andrew Drury, Jane Rigler, Sean Meehan, Alessandro Bosetti, Chris Mann, James Fei, Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Abdelnour, Michael Zerang, Edson Velandia, Wade Matthews, Robert Dick, Anne Wellmer, Gabriel Paiuk, Roberto García, Ricardo Gallo , Peter Evans, Peter Brötzmann, Barry Weisblat, Low Malozzi, Jim Denley, Dror Feiler, Kike Mendoza, Santiago Botero and Miguel Frasconi, among many others.

Additionally, he is a recognized organizer and curator of festivals of experimental music and sound art exhibitions, such as the First Festival Los Tiempos del Ruido (The times of noise) (Bogotá and Cali, 1995), the In-Audito Festival (Bogotá, 2008), and the sound art exhibitions Vociferous: Sound Works by 21 Contemporary Colombian Artists (Diapason Gallery, New York, 2010), Densidades: Arte Sonoro en Colombia (Densities: Sound Art in Colombia) (Bogotá, 2011), Sonóspheres: sound in contemporary artistic practices (Bogotá, 2013), Al Claro de Luna (Bogotá, 2014), and Paraphernalia (Bogotá, 2018), among others. He also works as a professor of sound art, mixed media and time arts, and art theory at the Art Department of the University of The Andes, Bogotá.

Endofonía. Sonorous object. Multichannel Sound.

Endofonía | Video

Hoffmann

Endofonía. Sonorous Object. Multichannel Sound.

JORGE BARCO

Jorge Barco develops his work around electronic arts, sound art, and experimental creation. He builds objects, installations, and projects oriented by the notions of low-tech, and miscegenation. His work has been shown in exhibitions, live performances, and workshops in various museums and festivals centered on electronic arts throughout Latin America and Europe. His practice currently consists on the produccion of mixed objectoriented constructions, theoretical writing, and curatorial research.

Barco carries out his work around the notion of noise as a field of research, of aesthetic and ontological creation, and of critical reflection upon technology. He builds objects and explores their functional and performative possibilities. He has participated in venues as the MediaLab Prado (Museo del Prado, Madrid), Sonoscopy (Oporto), Voltaje | Salon de Arte y Tecnología Voltage | Art and Technology Salon) in Bogotá, Desterro (Lisbon), the Aveiro Museum (Portugal), and the National Arts Center (CDMX), among others.

Oscilaciones Planetarias [Artefactos para una geología de los medios] (Planetary Oscillations [Artifacts for a geology of media]). Assemblage of kinetic, sound and light objects | Copper, aluminum, wood, electronic circuits.

Oscilaciones Planetarias | Video Oscilaciones Planetarias | Video

Oscilaciones Planetarias Video Oscilaciones Planetarias Sound

Oscilaciones Planetarias [Artefactos para una geología de los medios] (Planetary Oscillations [Artifacts for a geology of media]) Assemblage of kinetic, sound and light objects | Copper, aluminum, wood, electronic circuits.

CARLOS BONIL

Carlos Bonil is a sound and plastic artist graduated from the National University of Colombia (2004). His interdisciplinary practice has led him to found the groups AC and DC (noise), and Mugre (Low-Fi). He has participated in multiple exhibitions, concerts, and sound events in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, the United States, Canada, Spain, Germany, Norway, China and Turkey. He currently is a professor at the National University of Colombia, the ASAB | Higher Academy of Arts of Bogotá, and the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University.

Bonil seeks to observe what the materials say, working with obsolete objects that have historical, emotional and physical power. Without excluding painting or drawing from the process, he resorts to assembling found and recovered materials as plastic or electronic waste to carry out the bulk of his work.

Membracidae

Membracidae I, II, III, and IV. Assemblage of recovered plastics and electronic pieces.

Membracidae

Membracidae

Membracidae

Membracidae III. Assembly of recovered plastics and electronic pieces.28 x 35 cm

Membracidae II. Assembly of recovered plastics and electronic pieces.

FALON CAÑÓN

Falon Cañón is a plastic artist graduated from the ASAB | Higher Academy of Arts of Bogotá. She uses a wide variety of materials and techniques combined with evident conditions of wear as a means of plastic production. Her compositions using menial objects, low cost materials, recovered electronic waste, and circuitblending form a multidimensional language, ranging from the plasticity of noise to the degradation of organic elements, while preserving the compositional direction of drawing as a guideline for the conception of her artworks.

Kowloon. Recovered electronic waste, circuit bending.

Kowloon | Video

Taraxacum Officinale | Video

Taraxacum Officinale (detail). Recovered electronic waste, circuit bending.

Taraxacum Officinale. Recovered electronic waste, circuit bending.

MIGUEL KUAN

Miguel Kuan is a plastic artist based in Bogotá. His artistic production arises from varied appreciations of both the urban and natural landscapes mediated by noise and saturations, some of which are produced by machines built by Kuan, while others are made up of projections of images that have been recorded by the artist. Throughout his work he combines the reinvention of symbols such as the night, the street, and manual labor. His work forms part of the MAC | Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá’s permanent collection.

Perecedero (Perishable). Assembly with recovered electronic waste and found objects.

Perecedero | Video II

Perecedero | Video Música Agroindustrial | Video

Culto Sanguíneo | Video

Música agroindustrial (agrotóxico) (Agro-industrial music (agro-toxic) Assembly with recovered elements and motors. 40 x 50 x 40 cm

Perecedero (Perishable) Assembly with recovered elements. Variable dimensions.

Culto sanguíneo (Sanguineous cult) Assembly with recovered trash, syringes, and electromechanical parts.

DIANA MEDINA

Diana Medina has a bachelor in music from the University of The Andes, and specialization studies in Electronic Media and Time Arts. She holds a diploma from the Sound Production and Design Program in Dubspot, New York, and a master’s degree in Sound Art from the University of Barcelona. She focuses her work on researching various sound production techniques, and on exploring improvisation, experimental music, electronic arts and sound installations as recurring mediums in her artistic practices.

Recently, Medina’s work consists of multi-channel and multimedia immersive environments. She is especially interested in the simulation of synaesthetic experiences and other phenomena related to sound and perception, with the aim of blurring the limits among the senses. Medina has participated in numerous group exhibitions and festivals in Europe and Latin America, such as BCN Impro Fest 2017 (Barcelona), Zeppelin Festival 2017 (Barcelona), Hack and Art Day 2016/2017 (Barcelona), Real Time Festival (Bogotá), TECNOTRÓPICO, exhibited in the Artecámara section of ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá in 2018, and the ArtLima Fair in 2019, among others. She is also a member of the OFFAL (Orquestra for Females and Laptops).

ML224 | Video

ML 224. Electric circuit.

JUAN MELO

Juan Melo was born in Cali in 1969. He is a plastic artist and designer graduated from the Departmental Institute of Fine Arts of Cali, and holds a master’s degree in Interactive Design and Creation from Caldas University. His work focuses on experimentation with new media, and the integration between new technologies and visual and conceptual art. Throughout his work he researches aspects of Art History and psychosocial behavior, inquiring about existential anguish as a product of the technological evolution of daily, human life. His research on physical behaviors is an opportunity to confront everyday life and notions as anti-monuments, miscegenation, and robotics.

Throughout his career he has worked as an artist and educator. Melo’s work has been exhibited in venues as the Museum of Pereira, the MAC | Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá, and Lugar a Dudas Gallery in Cali, among others.

Paloquemao. Chancletópodo (Obsolete robots 5-19). Arduino, ultrasound, servomotors, totumo and bamboo.

PALOQUEMAO Chancletópodo | Video

ZARAGOZO Chancletópodo | Video

Paloquemao. Chancletópodo (Obsolete robots 5-19). Arduino, ultrasound, servomotors, totumo and bamboo.

ANDRÉS FELIPE ÑAÑEZ

Andrés Felipe Ñañez is a musician, composer, and sound artist based in Bogotá. He holds a master’s degree in Plastic and Visual Arts, and is currently pursuing master’s studies in Plastic, Electronic and Time Arts. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the Conservatory of Music of the National University of Colombia, and carried out master’s studies at the Art Faculty of the same institution. His work focuses on exploring the relationship between perception and the alteration of the senses through sound, light, and smell, thus creating spaces loaded with symbolism in the form of objects and interactions that act on the viewer and generate immersive experiences.

His sound and plastic work has been exhibited and awarded in different places around the world, such as Ecuador, France, Canada and Mexico, among others. He currently works as a professor of Sound Experimentation at the Central University of Bogotá, and also teaches at the Master’s in Music Therapy of the National University of Colombia, and at the Master’s in Sound Art of the Antonio Nariño University.

Marcapasos pitonisa I (Pythoness pacemaker I). Sound sculpture.

Marcapasos pitonisa I | Video

pitonisa II

Video

Marcapasos pitonisa III (Pythoness pacemaker III). Sound sculpture.

Marcapasos pitonisa II ( Pythoness pacemaker II). Sound sculpture.

PEDRO RAMÍREZ

Pedro Ramírez is an artist and musician born in Bogotá. He graduated as a Plastic and Visual Artist from the National University of Colombia, and studied at the School of Arts and Media in the city of Cologne, Germany. His work has been exhibited at the FPAB Fair in Sao Paulo, at ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá, at the MAMBO | Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá, and at the Sao Paulo Biennial.

Ticktock. , Microcontrolers, amplifier, electric piecie and selonoid motors

Ticktock | Video

Ramírez has participated in multiple performances, such as improvisations along Paul Lytton, Dirk Specht and Tobias Grewenig at KHM, Cologne, in 2016; live performances during CADENA, at the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, Nobody holds my hand, a live performance awarded the Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation’s Young Art Prize, and The Death of Fire is the Birth of Air, carried out along with Hanna Noh at the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia, along others.

Breath like the tides No. 2 | Video

Breath like the tides No.2. Microcontrolers, amplifier, electric piece and solenoid engines.

JUAN SUANCA

Juan Suanca is a plastic artist based in Bogotá. He graduated from the National University of Colombia, and holds a master’s degree in Sound Art from the University of the Arts in London. His work consists mainly of minimalistic sound pieces and installations where he explores immersion, the perception of time, listening, and subtle changes.

Suanca has participated in numerous exhibition and festivals such as Áreas inexactas: procesos, desbordes y situaciones at the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia, Inaudito | International Festival of Contemporary Music in Bogotá, Vociferous at Diapason Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, and Sonare at the MAMBO | Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá, among others.

Prototipo 549 | Video

Prototype 549. Sonorous object.

Prototype 549. Sonorous object.

MELISSA PAREJA

The practice of Pareja is strongly influenced by its environment, particularly the urban landscape and culturally established relationships with nature. He was born in Kingston, NY, and spent most of his formative years in Las Vegas, NV. He moved to Colombia in 2011 to study the Plastic Arts program at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín. Her fascination with the urban landscape, bodies of water, and sociocultural dynamics has led her to interact with these issues through various media, including video, installation, performance, and photography.

He currently lives and works in Bogotá. His work has been featured in various exhibitions in Latin America and Asia, including “Resonancias del Río” (2019), at the Neebex gallery in Bogotá, which was presented at the ARTBO FDS fair (weekend); His monumental video-sculpture Oda al Río (2018), exhibited at the Medellín Water Museum in 2019, was the winning project of the Creation Grant for Emerging Artists, Stimuli for Art and Culture of the Medellín Mayor’s Office in 2018. Additionally, he has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as “II Faenza Video Art Show” (2019) in Cuba, “De per se nation” (2019) in El Salvador, “Civitas” (2019) at the Adrián Ibáñez Gallery, Tabio and “ Experimental Film and Video ”(2020) at the CICA museum, South Korea. Prototipo de nido III Sound Sculpture.

Nido III Video

LEONEL VÁSQUEZ

Leonel Vásquez is a Colombian plastic and sound artist. Throughout his trajectory he has received multiple recognitions, such as the Creation Grant for Artists of Intermediate Trajectory from the Culture Ministry of Colombia (2019), and the Bogotá Platform Residency Grant – Más Arte Más Acción from IDARTES for the project titled Auscultar un territorio de alumbramientos (2019), among others. He has carried out numerous solo exhibitions such as Tierras del Mar at the Festival de las Artes Valparaíso (2018), and the installation The River’s Cradle at the OpenArt Biennial 2017 in Sweden, among others. He has been invited to participate in various international encounters such as the XI Festival Tsonami in Chile (2017), and the Hemispheric Performance and Political Institute Encounter in Canada, among others. He currently works as a sound art professor in the Art Department at the University of The Andes (Bogotá).

the powers of sound as a substance that molds the sensible experience, and as vibration force that transits and acquires form in sculptures, and audio-visual, architectonic and sound installations. He explores ways to work the act of hearing as a political/aesthetic recomposing act, and as a medium for the creation of new relations in contexts of social and environmental conflict.

He holds ample recognition as a researcher and cultural promoter with projects carried out along with the National Radio of Colombia, the National Center for Historical Memory (Colombia), and the Culture Ministry of Colombia. His works have been exhibited at institutions as the MAMM | Modern Art Museum of Medellín, the Antioquia Museum, the Peace and Reconciliation Museum, the Water Museum, the MAMBO | Modern Art Museum of Bogotá, Espacio Odeón, the Santa Fé Gallery, the MAMU | Miguel Urrutia Art Museum, and the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, among others. Vásquez has developed his creative work parting from

Canto Rodado Modular. Sonorous object. Acoustic analog amplifying system.

Canto Rodado Modular | Video

Casa Hoffmann

Casa Hoffmann is a research and exhibition space in Bogotá, dedicated to the production and divulgation of contemporary art projects commissioned to curators and researchers. It is interested in exploring the intersections among contemporary art, science, and technology – thus, it seeks to foster a network between local and international artists, based on transversality as a conceptual framework for the dialogue among different proposals that delve into those fields.

Its exhibition cycle is consolidated in curatorial projects that establish dialogue axes between artists from the local and international scenes, to promote and divulge such projects at museums, foundations and other institutions. Through its projects, Casa Hoffmann seeks to research the exploration of new media, the expansion of the limits of creation through science and technology, and the agency of artistic creation as a reflective act around contemporary issues.

Project Bio

The conception of CYBER ERA started in 2018 with the project TECNOTRÓPICO, consisting of a sound installation made up of multiple low-tech insects commissioned to various Colombian contemporary artists and devised to emulate a tropical soundscape, while reflecting on global warming and recycling. It was selected by the curator Carolina Ponce de León to be exhibited at the ARTECÁMARA section of ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá 2018. TECNOTRÓPICO later became part of CYBER ERA, which was first shown to the public in 2019, at the Salitre Exhibition Venue of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá. In this second iteration, the project incorporated the textile work of artist Ana Escobar, constructing an immersive scenario which emulates a tropical jungle, and reflecting upon the relation between the weaving of natural fibers and information network technologies.

Between November 2019 and February 2020 CYBER ERA was exhibited at the Art Museum of Pereira, and later, between June and August 2021, at the MAC | Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá. During this phase Artificial Intelligence made its appearance among the proposed characters in the project, and was fully developed as a large-scale immersive, interactive, multisensorial installation.

CYBER ERA, Museum of Contemporary art of Bogotá.

CYBER ERA, Salitre Exhibition Space of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá. August 22 to October 30, 2019.

CYBER ERA, Art Museum of Pereira. November 8, 2019 to February 29, 2020.

CYBER ERA, ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogotá 2018 Artecmámara Section. October 25 to 28, 2018.