Organismo | Year One
Public Program
October 25, 2024 –
June 20, 2025
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Design: Koln Studio
Programming
MNTB Madrid
EN/ES
Arda la ciudad cuando arrecie el monte (Let the city blaze when the mountain rages), with Julián Mayorga
Concert
Saturday, October 26, 6 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Free entry until full capacity is reached
The songs of Julián Mayorga are fertile, multidimensional constructions. They evoke the illusory borderlands that arise where the urban and rural meet, echoing memories of the working-class neighborhoods of his native Tolima—places full of paint and grime, vitality, and color. Chak Chak Chak Chak (2024), the Colombian artist's ninth and latest album, is infused with vocal performances filled with fast-paced spells, animalistic cries and howls, and psychological babblings. A rhythmic dispersion generated through modified electronics, traditional percussion instruments, and repurposed objects. His lyrics are marked by a decisively anti-capitalist agrarian model of Andean futurism.
This encounter with Julián Mayorga is part of the opening of Year One of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, where he will share some songs from his latest album, as well as the narratives that orbit them, providing context in their creation and exhibition process.
Sky Reading I, with Aouefa Amoussouvi, Joël Vacheron, Yussef Agbo-Ola and Tabita Rezaire
Wednesday, November 6, 6 PM
Online conference in English moderated by María Buey González, TBA21
TBA21’s YouTube live
As part of the program associated with the exhibition Tabita Rezaire. Calabash Nebula and within the framework of the independent study program Organismo | Art in applied critical ecologies, a joint initiative between the Museo Thyssen and TBA21-Academy, the museum is hosting a conversation with Aouefa Amoussouvi (researcher, artist and curator), Yussef Agbo-Ola (artist) and Tabita Rezaire (artist), moderated by Joël Vacheron (writer), on the subject of the spatial imaginaries and cosmogonies that propose restorative and decolonial futures. The Western perspective has become established as the “scientific” and, therefore, “correct” view of outer space. This colloquium looks at concepts of space that have been sidelined from the dominant narrative and how they can create new decolonial perceptions of it and give rise to alternative futures.
Spa Entrepreneurship: Conceptual Art for Pausing the Apocalypse and Remediating the
Commons, by Cassie Thornton of The Feminist Economics Department (the FED)
Performance followed by a conversation with Uriel Fogué
Friday, November 22, 6 PM
Auditorium, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Free entrance until complete capacity
A rumor is haunting the halls of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza—the rumor of a spa opening on the Danish island of Møn. Spa entrepreneur/artist Cassie Thornton of The Feminist Economics Department (the FED) will be the one to give voice to this rumor through a performance titled Unsettled Spa, which will be followed by a conversation with Uriel Fogué.
The gimmick of the spa is that everyone is escaping violence on some level, but some more than others. What isn't said directly, but is implied, is that the people who survive extreme violence (distributed by warlords and corporations, on behalf of empire) are the ones who have key knowledge about how to heal and how to survive the most blunt challenges to life today. Unsettled Spa runs on the assumption that the violence imparted on people, places and habitats that are not seen as powerful by the faces of capital, is coming for all of us. With this assumption, even those of us who are currently privileged and protected by whiteness, waterproofing, money and fortress Europe will soon need the wisdom of healing and survival already well understood by those who have already lived through the apocalypse. These survivors are the people who the spa would mythically bring to Denmark, grant asylum to, and hire as professional healing arts technicians at Unsettled Spa.
With nuance and humor this performance/branding campaign will lay out a beautiful story of cooperation and commoning, by telling the story about how a piece of land in Denmark is being sacrificed for the collective needs of immigration in a world filled with violence. By its very existence this campaign highlights how shallow and absurd the general responses to emergency needs for resettlement due to war and climate change are by most European countries. This satirical exploration on ideas of commonality will tackle the notion of Convivial Conservation, one of research lines of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, in which this activity is framed.
Sky Readings II, with Tania Safura Adam, Elsa Casanova Sampé and Diego Blas
Conference
Wednesday, November 27, 2024, 6:30 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
First-come, first-served basis until capacity is reached
As part of the program associated with the exhibition “Tabita Rezaire. Calabash Nebula” and within the framework of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, a joint initiative between the Museo Thyssen and TBA21-Academy, the museum is hosting a conversation with Tania Safura Adam (journalist, curator and researcher), Elsa Casanova Sampé (artist) and Diego Blas (researcher in the Department of Physics at the UAB) on the historical intersections between science, culture and religion in concepts concerning the sky.
Throughout history the skies have been interpreted and studied in countless ways by different communities and groups of people, with a resulting direct impact on the formation of their belief systems and socio-political structures. This conversation reassesses and analyzes the meaning of these readings and how they are reflected in contemporary artistic and scientific interpretations of outer space.
The conference is held in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation moderated by María Buey González and Marina Avia Estrada, TBA21.
Organic and Synthetic Voices (Singing with AI), with Maria Arnal and Fernando Cucchietti
Performative lecture and conversation
Tuesday, December 10, 6:30 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
On a first-come, first-served basis until full capacity is reached
Activity in collaboration with Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, facilitated by FECYT | Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and BSC Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación. Curated by Lluís Nacenta.
The singer and composer Maria Arnal and the physicist and researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) Fernando Cucchietti will share in this session their joint research process on the possibilities of extending the human voice by computational means. Supported by the AIR S+T+ARTS grant, the aim of their collaboration has been to create an AI-music voice tool to contribute to the exploration of new contemporary vocal narratives through this technology.
Arda la ciudad cuando arrecie el monte (Let the city blaze when the mountain rages), with Julián Mayorga
Concert
Saturday, October 26, 6 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Free entry until full capacity is reached
The songs of Julián Mayorga are fertile, multidimensional constructions. They evoke the illusory borderlands that arise where the urban and rural meet, echoing memories of the working-class neighborhoods of his native Tolima—places full of paint and grime, vitality, and color. Chak Chak Chak Chak (2024), the Colombian artist's ninth and latest album, is infused with vocal performances filled with fast-paced spells, animalistic cries and howls, and psychological babblings. A rhythmic dispersion generated through modified electronics, traditional percussion instruments, and repurposed objects. His lyrics are marked by a decisively anti-capitalist agrarian model of Andean futurism.
This encounter with Julián Mayorga is part of the opening of Year One of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, where he will share some songs from his latest album, as well as the narratives that orbit them, providing context in their creation and exhibition process.
Sky Reading I, with Aouefa Amoussouvi, Joël Vacheron, Yussef Agbo-Ola and Tabita Rezaire
Wednesday, November 6, 6 PM
Online conference in English moderated by María Buey González, TBA21
TBA21’s YouTube live
As part of the program associated with the exhibition Tabita Rezaire. Calabash Nebula and within the framework of the independent study program Organismo | Art in applied critical ecologies, a joint initiative between the Museo Thyssen and TBA21-Academy, the museum is hosting a conversation with Aouefa Amoussouvi (researcher, artist and curator), Yussef Agbo-Ola (artist) and Tabita Rezaire (artist), moderated by Joël Vacheron (writer), on the subject of the spatial imaginaries and cosmogonies that propose restorative and decolonial futures. The Western perspective has become established as the “scientific” and, therefore, “correct” view of outer space. This colloquium looks at concepts of space that have been sidelined from the dominant narrative and how they can create new decolonial perceptions of it and give rise to alternative futures.
Spa Entrepreneurship: Conceptual Art for Pausing the Apocalypse and Remediating the
Commons, by Cassie Thornton of The Feminist Economics Department (the FED)
Performance followed by a conversation with Uriel Fogué
Friday, November 22, 6 PM
Auditorium, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Free entrance until complete capacity
A rumor is haunting the halls of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza—the rumor of a spa opening on the Danish island of Møn. Spa entrepreneur/artist Cassie Thornton of The Feminist Economics Department (the FED) will be the one to give voice to this rumor through a performance titled Unsettled Spa, which will be followed by a conversation with Uriel Fogué.
The gimmick of the spa is that everyone is escaping violence on some level, but some more than others. What isn't said directly, but is implied, is that the people who survive extreme violence (distributed by warlords and corporations, on behalf of empire) are the ones who have key knowledge about how to heal and how to survive the most blunt challenges to life today. Unsettled Spa runs on the assumption that the violence imparted on people, places and habitats that are not seen as powerful by the faces of capital, is coming for all of us. With this assumption, even those of us who are currently privileged and protected by whiteness, waterproofing, money and fortress Europe will soon need the wisdom of healing and survival already well understood by those who have already lived through the apocalypse. These survivors are the people who the spa would mythically bring to Denmark, grant asylum to, and hire as professional healing arts technicians at Unsettled Spa.
With nuance and humor this performance/branding campaign will lay out a beautiful story of cooperation and commoning, by telling the story about how a piece of land in Denmark is being sacrificed for the collective needs of immigration in a world filled with violence. By its very existence this campaign highlights how shallow and absurd the general responses to emergency needs for resettlement due to war and climate change are by most European countries. This satirical exploration on ideas of commonality will tackle the notion of Convivial Conservation, one of research lines of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, in which this activity is framed.
Sky Readings II, with Tania Safura Adam, Elsa Casanova Sampé and Diego Blas
Conference
Wednesday, November 27, 2024, 6:30 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
First-come, first-served basis until capacity is reached
As part of the program associated with the exhibition “Tabita Rezaire. Calabash Nebula” and within the framework of the independent study program Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, a joint initiative between the Museo Thyssen and TBA21-Academy, the museum is hosting a conversation with Tania Safura Adam (journalist, curator and researcher), Elsa Casanova Sampé (artist) and Diego Blas (researcher in the Department of Physics at the UAB) on the historical intersections between science, culture and religion in concepts concerning the sky.
Throughout history the skies have been interpreted and studied in countless ways by different communities and groups of people, with a resulting direct impact on the formation of their belief systems and socio-political structures. This conversation reassesses and analyzes the meaning of these readings and how they are reflected in contemporary artistic and scientific interpretations of outer space.
The conference is held in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation moderated by María Buey González and Marina Avia Estrada, TBA21.
Organic and Synthetic Voices (Singing with AI), with Maria Arnal and Fernando Cucchietti
Performative lecture and conversation
Tuesday, December 10, 6:30 PM
Auditorium. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
On a first-come, first-served basis until full capacity is reached
Activity in collaboration with Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies, facilitated by FECYT | Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and BSC Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación. Curated by Lluís Nacenta.
The singer and composer Maria Arnal and the physicist and researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) Fernando Cucchietti will share in this session their joint research process on the possibilities of extending the human voice by computational means. Supported by the AIR S+T+ARTS grant, the aim of their collaboration has been to create an AI-music voice tool to contribute to the exploration of new contemporary vocal narratives through this technology.
The public program counts with the generous support of:
