Lecture：Archives, Translation and Protocols
Speaker：Antoni Montadas
Time：08/18, 2019 2:00-4:00pm
Location：3F, Theatre, Power Station of Art
Language：English ( Chinese transtlation)
“For me archive is a working’s device”, Muntadas says. “Sometimes I create my own archive by myself, sometimes I just access to the existing files. For each project, especially for long time projects, I produce a jumble of documentation based on the collection process which is what I consider as my own archive. In my case, the limits between personal archive and researches are confusing. Archives generate the sources to then create a work. That is why I cannot conceive the archive if it is not activated”.
Muntadas (Barcelona, 1942), lives and works in the United States since 1971. As a multidisciplinary artist, by his works he analyses social institutions, the mechanisms of power that sustain them and the influence they exert on the creation of the collective imagination. Muntadas is interested in topics such as censorship, the mass media, the public and private spheres, and the role of art as a contemporary phenomenon. His projects are presented in diverse media: photography, video, internet, publications and urban interventions. His multimedia works and installations investigate how in present times information channels are used to promote or censor ideas.
Muntadas was a pioneer in incorporating the archive as the basis of contemporary artistic discourse, as well as original germ of many of his projects. The way he approaches archive depends on the nature of each project. In this lecture the artist will present some of his works that involve very different ways of activating the archive: The File Room, a disturbing installation based on an active online archive documenting acts of censorship in the arts. On Translation, series of work and interventions that explores a range of issues related to the idea of translation, and in most cases establishes an interpretative framework that enables the artist to question cultural, ideological and economic situations that challenge analysis and comprehension. The Construction of Fear, a corpus of works that analyses the use of “fear” in the mass media and the emerging and thriving industry associated with self-defence and protection. And finally, Asian Protocols, the latest research project undertaken by Muntadas with the goal of delving into the cultural idiosyncrasies of China, Japan and Korea, analysing their societies, political and economic systems, and reflecting on the geopolitical fragility of the East Asian region.
