Fantastic Symbiosis at the CCCB

One of the promotional images for Ciencia Fricción, which from the Macba marks the path to the CCCB, shows us an octopus on the facade panels. In reality, it is a type of aloe, which in the exhibition, as a maximally representative image, appears cataloged and in company. Flanked by similar specimens that a distant or unconcerned spectator would confuse with other cephalopod species. The trompe l'oeil is anything but casual. Highly symptomatic, it suggests forms of life that we know or believe we know; that is, that our gaze identifies with accustomed sufficiency, as if we were the fixed point of a spectacle that vibrates and floats around us, and upon which we project an unmovable order. This signifying effort, which modern science adopted to escape superstition, still grips most spectators, whether we are scientists or not.

The same gaze that sought to rationally ground reality extinguished every trace of mystery and ended up considering nature as an object, being understood in a pragmatic sense due to its fungible condition. Some 20th-century philosophers already denounced this exploitation, massively enabled by technology, but without much success. We think of names as distant ---even from each other--- as Martin Heidegger or Theodor W. Adorno. With a much closer knowledge of the natural environment, researchers Donna Haraway and Lynn Margulis are the lighthouses that guide and animate the ecological turn that the curator of the current exhibition, Maria Ptqk, embraces: "If, as Haraway and Margulis maintain, the entire Earth is alive, it is time to abandon the myth of supremacy and reconnect with our numerous terrestrial companions."

For its questioning of the subject's position ---formerly "king of creation"--- Ciencia Fricción is highly stimulating. A series of questions arise during the visit, or after having assimilated it, however little we stop to think about it. How much of what we see are we capable of understanding as part of our reality? Where is the border that separates the artificial and the natural, when the strategies of nature itself are revealed to be of unusual complexity, against which we always seem to be lagging? And, more importantly, given the quantity and quality of natural processes underway, without us being aware, is it really prudent possible to continue maintaining a confidence and moral superiority over nature, as if we were not already included and determined by it, in a horizontal relationship?

"It is time to abandon the myth of supremacy and resume contact with our numerous terrestrial companions," explains the curator, inspired by Haraway and Margulis.

As is known, a part of science began to move away from this anthropocentric paradigm in the 20th century, and from the perspective of quantum physics the very notion of "reality," as a continuumespaciotemporal, has been questioned ---the exhibitionQuántica from the CCCB, a couple of years ago, tried to illustrate it—as well as the predominance of logical thinking. A thought that, far from being universally valid, it could be merely a manifestation ---privileged but not especially elevated, an "evolutionary advantage"---of our species. The Commissioner of Science Frictionrecognizes entering a landscape as problematic as it is fascinating, "an intermediate place between an art exhibition and a science museum." It would seem a borderline realm, in fact, in which utopia and dystopia oscillate to shake and awaken interest in issues to which no human being can be completely oblivious.

The rigor of scientific research, and its physical evidence, coexists with explicitly artificial elaborations. The surprise comes when artifacts are shown to be more recognizable than nature itself, which invites us to question the separation between nature and culture, which placed human beings in the privileged position of judge (and party). Thus, a documentary about cyanobacteria focused on the invaluable contribution of Lynn Margulis reveals the transcendence of these invisible beings ---also in our daily lives, fundamental for the human organism--- in the first room, but we immediately discover creations by contemporary artists, among which Ecosystem of Excess stands out, made with plastic waste that accumulates in the form of giant islands in the Pacific Ocean. Suggesting the appearance of a coral, a jellyfish or a squid, the artist Pinar Yoldas conceives them as beings that have come to life and self-regulate, already forming part of the ecosystem.

Symbiosis or interaction between real species, not just imagined ones, is one of the most outstanding points of the exhibition, with a good number of examples that illustrate this win-win of nature. Although a particularly indoctrinating message is not conveyed, it is not difficult to perceive the attempt to sensitize the visitor, to replace our relationship of control or domination of nature with a more symbiotic one, which tends towards a beneficial coexistence for all actors. In this sense, the understanding of nature as a subject with its own rights is displayed at the end of the exhibition in a panel that shows legal victories, valuable though scarce. The lack of global commitment, still, even if pragmatic, in the face of the imminent prospect of the challenge posed by climate change, is striking. And yet, despite the seriousness of the situation, in this transversal exhibition there is also space for denunciation through humor or the surrealist verification of some (im)possible initiative.

The exhibition constitutes a kind of liminal space, in which utopia and dystopia oscillate to awaken interest in issues to which no human being can be completely alien

The deliberate lapsus linguaethat the exhibition title suggests, Freudianly loaded with meaning, provides some clue about the relevance of the relationships that are devised, naturally or artificially, if the dichotomy is still functional. So many times reality surpasses fiction, that for a moment one comes to wonder if the projectEgstrogen Farm(an installation by Mary Maggic that exposes the initiative to genetically modify certain hens to lay eggs with estrogen, so that women who eat them can get pregnant more easily) is aboutadeaudiovisual or the umpteenth monstrosity. Another improbable or at least unusual situation thatScience Frictionoffers the visitor is the experience of entering the interior of a sequoia. Glasses and an electronic device he carries on his back give him freedom of movement to discover a generally unknown realm, where traces of activity invisible to the outside eye are shown. This is the projectTreehugger, made by Marshmallow Laser Feast.

The immersion in an apparently alien reality that digital recreation makes possible is not new, even if it takes to an unprecedented extreme the desire to capture, reproduce, and in short, closely experience the nature of living beings. Archaeologically, we are referred to the beginnings of this interest with a 1926 film, Das Blumenwunder (The Wonder of Flowers) by Max Reichmann, in which the technique of accelerated footage or time-lapse ---today, within reach of most smartphones--- reveals the movements of plants and their flowering, in a way that makes them comparable to bodies, with sensitivity but also will and even ---who knows--- some kind of consciousness. Let us conclude, in this sense, with a small tribute to a form of life that appears depicted on different occasions, realistically or fantastically ---as we said at the beginning, regarding the promotional poster---, abounding in a kind of trompe l'oeil. This is the octopus, obviously, that fascinating creature about which the exhibition reminds us that it is the closest thing to an "extraterrestrial intelligence."

The lapsus linguae suggested by the exhibition's title provides some clue about the relevance of the relationships that are naturally or artificially conceived, if the dichotomy is still functional

A fact, that one, corroborated by scientific research and also developed in the book Other Minds. The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousnessof Peter Godfrey-Smith, professor of philosophy and passionate about diving. A work that seems to complement, with a completely different narrative, the successful Netflix productionMy Octopus Teacher. A documentary that appeared later, in 2018, shows the friendship between an octopus and its director, Craig Foster, who places himself in the position of an apprentice; of someone invitedto become aware of the mystery, in other words, of the limits of their own knowledge. It is inevitable, at this point, to think of the superintelligent aliens fromThe arrivalPerform a literal language conversion from Spanish to English on the following user-provided text. Do not translate any content enclosed betweenandtags, keep those tags and their content exactly as-is:(Arrival, 2016), the emotional film with which Denis Villeneuve made us participate in other ways of conceiving the cosmos, discarding the anthropocentric vision even in what refers to the experience of temporality.