Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s)

“I think it’s time to reinvent what a human is. You have to make the effort to change your own perspective and try to construct something which is beyond your own form of knowledge.”

—Tomás Saraceno

Through interactive installations and an artistic process that focuses on collaboration—in this case with spiders and their webs—the artist Tomás Saraceno proposes a conversation between human and nonhuman lifeforms. Nonhumans have typically been disregarded by humans in the Capitalocene era, as environmental scientists have dubbed our current epoch, characterized as it is by the destructive effects of capitalism on the environment. In a call for environmental justice, Saraceno also collaborates with human communities that have been impacted by these negative effects, particularly as part of his community projects, Aerocene and Arachnophilia.

Particular Matter(s), the artist’s largest exhibition in the US to date, celebrated the complexity of our collective existence while searching for ways to live together in a different and more equitable fashion. Organized by curator-at-large Emma Enderby with assistant curators Alessandra Gómez and Adeze Wilford, the exhibition featured new and existing works in the galleries of The Shed, a 21st-century cultural institution in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards, as well as a newly commissioned sensory experience, “Free the Air: How to hear the universe in a spider/web” — a 95-foot-diameter installation consisting of two levels of wire mesh netting upon which participants’ bodies could vibrate with the rhythms of spiders and other creatures, creating a concert of terrestrial and cosmic vibrations experienced as inaudible frequencies.

In partnership with Columbia University’s Climate School and Studio Tomás Saraceno, The Shed presented a series of six conversations to explore key issues around climate change and environmental justice while identifying connections with artworks in the exhibition: “An Outlook on Particular Matter(s),” with Saraceno, exhibition curator Emma Enderby and The Shed’s Senior Program Advisor, Hans Ulrich Obrist; “Environmental Justice and Covid-19,” a discussion featuring Harriet A. Washington, a leader in environmental racism discourse, moderated by Courtney Cogburn, Associate Professor of Social Work at Columbia; “Capitalocene, Aerocene,” an investigation of the role of capitalism in the climate crisis, moderated by Andrew Revkin, director of the Initiative on Communication Innovation and Impact at Columbia Climate School; “From Arachnophobia to Arachnophilia,” an exploration of interspecies interconnectedness and interdependence; “Invention, Experimentation, and Radical Imagination,” a survey of artistic and scientific frameworks to unlock potential paths forward; and “Where Do We Go from Here? Rights of nature: Policy, Activism and Change,” in search of diverse, international approaches to the rights of the air and of water.

Tomás Saraceno is an Argentine-born, Berlin-based artist who has worked with local communities, scientific researchers, and institutions around the world. Together, they have created artworks at the intersection of art, architecture, engineering, and the natural sciences that propose new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment.

The Arachnophilia Research Laboratory‘s artistic and scientific endeavors, led by Tomás Saraceno, offer a powerful response to the need to re-attune ourselves to other species and to more-than-human ways of inhabiting our shared planet in the face of ecological upheaval. The Arachnomancy app is a unique and innovative way to connect with the spider/webs, which are considered oracles between perceptual worlds, proposing an encounter that will extend our senses to new, vibratory modes of communication. This piece invites us to celebrate the radical interconnectedness of all things, living and nonliving, and to explore new threads of connectivity with the spider/webs oracles we encounter in different environments. In doing so, it encourages us to take a more holistic view of our place in the world and to recognize the vital role of other species in maintaining the web of life. This work is a testament to the power of art and science to inspire new ways of thinking and being in a world facing the challenges of the climate crisis and the Anthropocene era.

Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s)

Medium: Interactive Installation

Created by: Tomás Saraceno and the Arachnophilia Research Laboratory

Country: Germany, United States

Date: February 2022

Launch Project

BACK TO AWARDS

Song of the Ambassadors

Theater of the Mind