Statement
I am interested in how we build interconnected structures of many different types: digital interfaces, global tourism, art markets, meme cultures. Any of these structures has many scales of effect, forming technological planetary stacks. They shape identities, geographies, urbanism, ecologies, economies, etc., in an interdependent, complex way. They interface, as a verb, with each other.
The term interface means ‘contact surface’, and it is commonly used to designate the devices or spaces that allow interacting and communicating between various systems. This concept so present in our tech landscape can be traced back to Aristotle, who in his theory of perception defines two elements, air and water, as tò metaxú , that is, ‘what is in between’, the medium. Today, this ‘air’ in which we live and relate, is flooded by WiFi waves, invisible signals that we are only able to perceive and decipher thanks to sophisticated cybernetic prosthesis.
Every ‘contact surface’ (like public space, a parliament, a cinema, our personal computer, or an exhibition space) is a point of friction, in which conflicts, desires, and power relations intersect. Contrary to air or water, technological interfaces are never natural nor neutral (like often are presented), but embed in themselves the ideologies and beliefs of the people and institutions that have built them.
My practice roams around these ‘contact surfaces’, how they are built, how they relate, and how they could be. Can artistic practices help us make better sense of these kinds of complex hyperobjects?
Bio
Sergio Monje (Palma, 1994) is a visual artist and researcher. His artistic research practice, developed across a range of media, explores tourism, speculative politics, representation, memory, imagination, and desire. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and pursued further studies in Literature, Art and Thought at Pompeu Fabra University. He has developed artistic projects and received awards at various art institutions and centres, including Es Baluard Museu (Palma), Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), CENART (Mexico City), TACA, Azkuna Zentroa, Etopia Centre for Art and Technology, Casa Planas, Casal Solleric, Sala d’Art Jove, Can Felipa, MNAC and Centrum (Berlin). Most recently, he received the First Prize at the 40th La Rioja Young Art Exhibition and a creation grant from the Institut d'Estudis Balearics.