Matter (in)different. Images, futures and open-air ecologies

Past event

Conference in collaboration with the University of León

Matter forms the images of what we see, of the places we inhabit. Apparently immobile, matter accepts and registers changes beyond its relative stability and opacity. At the same time, it helps to imagine the perception of what will be, of the future, which is never sustained by nothingness and needs physical supports: papers, canvases, blackboards or screens on which to project itself. The intangible on the tangible. Matter transcends.

Matter (in)different. Images, futures and open-air ecologies is presented as a series of dialogues and fieldworks that address some essential questions of the relationship between humans and non-humans, nature and machine. The conference will welcome philosophers, artists, settlers, former miners, students and interested members of the public in an invitation to think together and imagine beyond a particular cultural place and historical time.

The mineral strata of planet Earth that support life and all the beings that live on it. are its The soil constitutes an assemblage of matters and times with its own agenda, conditioned by a relationship with humans guided by their interests and extractivist pulses. Analysing and thinking about the complexity of new frameworks of relations on the planet through these substances and images is the main trigger for this conference. These material substrates bring together times, lives, records of all kinds of catastrophes, power relations, as well as innumerable questions and collective decisions that are indispensable for imagining together any time to live and to come.

From questions about the idea of nature and even aspects related to the mineral basis of the technologies and systems of media representation of a certain idea of the world in which we find ourselves immersed, Matter (in)different. Images, futures and open-air ecologies proposes a base camp for reflection and action, with a planetary perspective, seen from some places and strata -Cerezales del Condado, la Gran Corta de Fabero- located in the mountains of León.

A point of support on which to analyse images and project imaginaries. Rethinking what has been received and reflecting on what from the present seems to form part of what is to come. Narratives, after all, that influence both the way we do science and the way we relate to the media; that involve something as human and everyday as the fiction on which the worlds in which we live and will live are built.

Directed by Luis D. Rivero Moreno, Assistant Professor at the Department of Artistic and Documentary Heritage of the University of León; and Alfredo Puente Alonso, Curator of the Cerezales Antonino y Cinia Foundation [FCAYC.org].

PROGRAMME (download in pdf)

Thursday, 7 October - Day at the Gran Corta de Fabero*.

*In case of adverse weather (rain, snow), the day will be held at FCAYC.

8:00 - Departure to Fabero from León

10:00 - Meeting point with Yasodhara López (La Fábrica de Luz. Museo de la Energía) and Javier Rubén Castrosín (CIUDEN) and walk to the Gran Corta.

11:00 - Narratives of the Great Short with the Paleobotany Classroom of Fabero

12:00 - Break

12:30 - Workshop: “Recording the ichnofossil mesh as a strategy of coexistence and interaction”, with Bárbara Fluxá

14:30 - Lunch break

15:30 - Workshop: “Recording the ichnofossil mesh as a strategy of coexistence and interaction”, with Bárbara Fluxá (continued)

18:00 - Visit to the Paleobotanical Classroom of Fabero

18:45 - Departure to León

Friday, 8 October - Conference at FCAYC

10:00 - Meeting point at Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia

Introduction - Alfredo Puente (FCAYC) and Luis D. Rivero Moreno (ULE)

10:30 - Dialogue 1: Elena Lavellés and Eduardo Castillo Vinuesa

Public Question Time

11:45 - Break

12:30 - Dialogue 2: María Buey and Abelardo Gil-Fournier

Public Question Time

14:00 - End of the conference

TARGET

This conference is aimed at all those interested in the topics proposed in a broad way and from very diverse perspectives of the humanities, social sciences and engineering. Thus, anyone, with or without previous training, interested in current aspects of science, philosophy, literature, new media, art and heritage is welcome. Also those with an interest in the current debate on ecology and other narratives of understanding and analysis of the contemporary world.

Therefore, they are especially aimed at students of the University of León enrolled in the areas of History, History of Art, Geography and Territorial Planning, Literature, Biology, Biotechnology, Environmental Sciences, Energy Engineering, Geomatics and Topography, Forestry and Natural Environment Engineering and Mining Engineering.

OBJECTIVES

The conference has a multidisciplinary character that tries to relate very diverse fields from a theoretical and practical perspective. It will cover topics that, due to their open and topical nature, are usually outside the contents of the teaching guides of university subjects. The areas covered will move in a transversal field that encourages the interrelation of science and engineering with the humanities and social sciences: philosophy, sociology or the analysis of the media and their interrelations with art, literature and history.

COMPETENCES AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The aim of the conference is for students to acquire knowledge that will bring them closer to the most current reflections on topics and concepts such as the Anthropocene theory, terraforming and its relationship with philosophy, ecology, media archaeology and contemporary artistic narratives. All of this from a “glocal” perspective that allows for a debate on the current state of the northwestern regions of the peninsula, mainly in the province of León, in relation to the situation and the international theoretical debate on the subject.

The conference will encourage an active debate that will allow students to acquire their own critical idea about these concepts. The aim is to open a window of reflection with the support of various materials, promoting access to fundamental information on the topics covered through websites, databases, research articles, essays... on these topics.

Practical learning will also be encouraged through field visits (La Gran Corta de Fabero) and workshops such as the one given by the artist Bárbara Fluxà.

EVALUATION SYSTEM (only in the case of ULE students who want to recognise ECTS credits)

In order to obtain credit recognition, registered students of the University of León must attend at least one 80% of the activities, as well as write a short review on the issues discussed at the conference (about 500 words, pdf format) to be sent via email to the directors and coordinators after attending the conference (maximum 7 days after its completion).

Application for recognition of 1 ECTS credit (12 h. face-to-face and 8 h. student's own work)

ENTRY

Free registration, The application form will be sent in the order in which applications are received, starting from 20 September, at 10:00, on the button provided on this page.

ORGANISES: