e-conmotion. Recuerdos colectivos y futuros conscientes

11 September – 25 October

Albarrán Bourdais presents “e-conmotion”, an exhibition by Cristina Lucas conceived as an immersive journey through the history of different technological revolutions, from mechanisation to digitalisation, via electricity and computing. 

Featuring a new body of work created for the exhibition, “e-conmotion” intertwines bodies, machines and the memory of each historical moment, while offering a sensory and critical experience of the present.

With a new set of “Compositions”, installations and a video, in “e-conmotion” Lucas reflects on the role of materials and technologies in shaping historical narratives. Revolution is a technical term: it literally means a turn, a rotation. However, every technological advance—the steam engine, the light bulb, data computing, robotics, the internet or artificial intelligence—ultimately profoundly reconfigures biodiversity, social structures, and political and cultural thought, composing an inseparable chain of causes and effects.

Lucas delves into the traces of the past to imagine desirable futures. Presented throughout the exhibition are assemblages stemming from her renowned series of “Compositions”, which are the result of the interactions that occur between the materials in each piece. The assemblages emerge from a free exploration of form, in which chemical, cultural, economic, and technological processes act as transformative flows that call for more complex understandings.

Incorporating materials that refer to each of the moments of the industrial revolution, from coal and iron to microchips and silicon wafers, Lucas proposes a worldview in which elements are in constant flux and there are no boundaries between technology, humanity, and the environment.

The iron used in car manufacturing is the same iron that gives our blood its red colour and the same iron that was formed during the primitive oxygenation of the Earth. Through her works, Lucas invites us to become aware of the interconnection of these flows as the basis for a new balance from which to imagine and build a conscious future.

A central work in the exhibition is the video “4 Fait/h”, a hybrid composition of multiple elements that traces how technological milestones expand into other economic, social, political and intellectual spheres. This process unfolds as a continuum, a “timelapse” of the Anthropocene that spans from the steam engine to artificial intelligence and culminates in the image of the desired vision: that of an empowered society that demands balance with the planet, technology and privacy. 

Climate change reminds us that we are part of a single organism, intricately intertwined in a complex network of mutual transformations. As Bruno Latour problematised in “We Have Never Been Modern” (1993), the crisis we face today has been accelerated by the process of modernisation. With “e-conmotion”, Cristina Lucas develops an imaginary through a non-utilitarian and contemplative use of materials linked to technological development, seeking a balance between critical thinking and hope, inviting us to move—all together—towards more conscious and sustainable ways of inhabiting the world.