-> Plurality of worlds
-> Fluid perspectives
-> External collaborations
In 1686 Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle published the "Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes", a scientific novel that summarized the astronomical knowledge at that time. Juan d'Olivar, a Spanish engraver based in Paris, was in charge of visualizing the new universe described in the book. Since then, many artists and scientists have given their own version of the large-scale structure of the cosmos according to Fontenelle's description.
In my PhD thesis I present the whole set of images that appeared in Fontenelle's book in its different reeditions from its first publication until now. They are analyzed and compared in their respective contexts, in such a way that they reveal the scientific or artistic background from which they emerged (showing the differences between countries, languages and centuries), and the role of artists and scientists in designing and making these visualizations.
Within this framework I have also dealt with a wider range of approaches on the visual dimension of the "plurality of worlds". This additional contributions have been presented in several lectures and publications.
The University of Granada Press has published a digital version of the PhD thesis that it is available online (Spanish text with an extended abstract in German).
PhD THESIS
Title
Las imágenes de los "Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes" de Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. Visualizaciones astronómicas de una pluralidad de mundos / Die Bebilderung der „Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes“ von Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. Astronomische Visualisierungen einer Vielzahl von Welten
Area & subject
Art History, Astronomy
Advisors
Prof. Dr. Horst Bredekamp (HU Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Ignacio Henares (Ugr)
Double doctoral degree
Doctoral degree by the Humboldt-University of Berlin
European doctorate by the Granada University
Mark
Summa cum laude
Publication
University of Granada Press, 2011
Legal Deposit
GR 4186-2011
ISBN
978-84-694-6950-7
University of Granada Press >> FULL PhD THESIS
I am working on a multifocal perspective of this subject, exploring some of its deepest consequences. The outcomes will be updated in this website very soon.
- Flüssige Himmel
“Flüssige Himmel” will present in an artistic context unsolved scientific questions. The focus of the exhibition will be the study of extragalactic matter, which can be only approached through indirect observations and theoretical interpretations. This subject belongs to an ongoing scientific research; therefore, exploring it involves examining the current roles and methods of natural sciences concerning the study of our Universe. The special nature of this topic provides a favorable framework to bridge artistic and scientific practices, since it involves a creative process even within the sciences.
- Liquid Things
To be liquid does mean to be in flow, to be able to constantly mutate into unpredictable states, to be malleable and ductile, to be susceptible to transformations and to be autonomous in the process, to run along the borders, to elude the constrictions and the fixed assumptions. “Liquid Things” wants to be liquid – not only with regard to its material basis, but also to its conceptual connotations and to its actual effects.
- Analogize
Gast curator
Online magazine elniuton.com, n. 8
Bogota/Berlin, 2008
It is about grasping the materiality of the intangible, about enjoying the pleasures of the physical. Analogize consists of a round-trip to the digital world and to relate it in the travelers's notebook. It is to convert the digital in a physical-materic metaphor. It is to create manufactures following the zeros-and-ones logic. The analogization focuses in the analog mutations of the digital reality.
Visit the website >> ELNIUTON.COM
- Multimedia Images for a Complex World. Views from both Sides of the Atlantic
Curatorial team
International video-exhibition
Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Spain, 2008
- New Media and Socio-cultural Reality in Contemporary Audiovisual Creation
Working team
Symposium
Granada (Spain), 2008
- Course of Specialization in Artistic Heritage Conservation and the Use of New Technologies
Direction assistant
Online and offline course
MECAD, Barcelona (Spain), 2005-06
Visit the website >> WWW.MECAD.ORG
- Enseigner/Produire. Le salon des prototypes
Direction assistant
Diverse events on production and education of media art organized by Le Fresnoy, Centre Pompidou, MECAD and ZKM
MECAD, Barcelona (Spain), 2005-06
Visit the website >> WWW.CENTREPOMPIDOU.FR