HEAVVEN

A soft cave, a robot dog and harmonious solitude... Mit Borrás’ vision of the future is one where technology returns humans to a primordial, ritualistic state, ultimately merging with nature, transcending that dichotomy claiming tech is somehow separated from our souls. The HEAVVEN exhibition develops the Cycle even further, so delve into the curatorial and authorial texts to this Ship of Theseus.
adaptasi

HEAVVEN incorporates a video installation which is part of Borrás’ new body of work – the ADAPTASI CYCLE, that has been developed over the course of the last five years together with Rachel Lamot as art director and co-writer and the musical composition by Daniel Vacas Peralta.

Although connection is primarily identified with connectivity in modern western society, through an increasing amount of digitalization in almost every aspect of our lives, the concept of connection can of course be met in many diverse dimensions and contexts beyond the solely technology-based realm. Borrás’ new work complex encompasses the ADAPTASI CYCLE, which is a divination of our reality, transcending the limits of pasts and futures, the organic and synthetic, the natural and technological. His work seeks to explore the metaphysical depths of adaptation as a method of surpassing the categorial limits of existence. The various elements of the exhibition operate as an essayistic portrait that embodies an augmented state of awareness of these aspects, and an elevated sense of connectivity. 

Borrás’ previous works raise questions of how technology, and specifically lifestyle products can serve as performance enhancers geared towards accelerating cerebral evolution. At the same time, technology can also become a diversion – it can provide the prospect of escape from the dismal reality of the inescapable decomposition inherent in nature. His new center of focus is based on the interconnectivity between nature and technology and the philosophical concept of adaptation. Borrás’ recent works address questions of transience and empathy within a technology-driven culture, adapting the principle that technology is both the translator and final application of science or, more generally, of knowledge. This conviction also becomes an impulse to explore various scenarios of future life because of its alignment with its meta-/physical disposition within the artist’s current approach.

Borrás creates a universe that invokes the ancient and the futuristic simultaneously. This universe is inhabited by the video work’s protagonist. With no one but a robotic dog for company, M (Ray La’Vord) lives in isolation in a soft cave, where he performs methodical and ceremonial acts. Seemingly completely at peace within its being and time, M creates a captivating sense of suspense through his graceful, yet precise ritualistic exercises, as well as through his non-hierarchical approach to his world. Treating his body, surrounding objects, and space with both connected and caring respectfulness, Borrás subtly visualizes a bigger metaphysical context in this amor vacui.

The ‘soft-cave’ seems sterile, but is a depiction of the womb as a safe space of infinite harmony – a space not only protected from exterior chaos, but that even doubts the existence of any kind of chaos at all. The space, like its inhabitant, conveys a sense of other-worldly, idiosyncratic beauty, foreseen in the lifestyle tendencies of Zeitgeist, but that exists without any of the capitalist drama and stylistic ‘tricks’ or ‘gimmicks’ of our all- and self-promoting, illusionary world. 

The distinct and consequent aesthetic determination of Borrás’ work might seem intimidatingly cathartic at times, but in reality, it stems from a vision and pure desire for serenity, clarity, and innocence within his post-human/transitory realm.  His multi-dimensional artistic approach primarily incorporates video- and sculpture-based works that conceptually explore how modern society has elevated digitalism, technology, and progress into its paradigm of evolution.

Curatorial text by Julia Schmelzer

Statement / Mit Borras’ work deals with the idea of Adaption. Richful and personal, his visual work describes the desire to reach some aspects peculiarly related to current Anthropocene societies such as transcendence and prosperity, based on the mystified concept of technological progress and production. Through his study of ergonomics, he brings the viewer closer to an elastic and orthopedic sensation of the future, to the frontiers of bioethics, to techno-religion, object engineering and to the sexuality of elements. Through a holistic description of reality, his body of work investigates the synthetic and organic relations between matter, machine, body and nature. Both the installations and audiovisual works from his exhibitions imply the use of prosthetics and delicate atmospheres, giving the public a limbo impression, a feeling of serenity with high-tech synthetic smells, sensual materials, soft colors and orthotic objects. A vaporouse and ethereal perception of singularity that paradoxically enables the emergence of sensations of danger, uncertainty and safety.

029. Heavven. Adaptasi Cycle. MIt Borras

Bio / Mit Borrás (Madrid 1982) is a visual artist Madrid and Berlin based. Borrás has an BFA at  UCM, specialized in media art at Twente University in Enschede, Holland (2006) and in Kunst- und Kulturmanagement cultural management in Berlin, Germany (2013). He is represented in Germany by the Exgirlfriend gallery and in Spain by the House of Chappaz gallery.

He gives lectures for international art institutions, has directed the production of digital art festivals, carried out numerous projects as an independent curator, co-directed Fünf Galerie in Berlin (2010-14) and worked as coordinator of cultural projects at the Instituto Cervantes in Berlin (2014). Currently Mit Borrás works as permanent professor of Video Art and New Methods of Contemporary Art and Communication in the Master of the Circulo de Bellas Artes – Escuela Sur at Madrid, is a member of the German collective of theoreticians and artists Frontviews, and of the Haunt contemporary creative center in Berlin.

He now also has an ongoing solo show, taking place between 18.11.2021 – 6.1.2022, called PHANTOM LIMB at Centro Párraga in Spain. The new piece within the ADAPTASI CYCLE, developed over the last five years, synthesizes and dilutes the limits of the past and future, the organic and synthetic, and the natural and technological progress.

CREDITS

Heavven and Adaptasi creative team

Works by @mitborras

Art Director @rachellamot

Music @danielvacasperalta

Curatorial text by Julia Schmelzer

Film and Installation displayed at Exgirlfriend Gallery, Berlin 2021 @exgirlfriendberlin

 

www.mitborras.com

www.exgirlfriendberlin.com

 

Music Daniel Vacas Peralta. With Ray La’Vord, A1 Robot. Yoga Sonja Sims, Production Design Cavve Pavilion, Robotics Casual Robots, Prosthetics Ayudame 3D, The Cave H. Puerta de América, Make Up Harpo, Eloy Noguera Atienza, A1 Robot design Canbot, Drone Karacho Berlin. With the support of Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn Neustart Kultur. Images courtesy of the artist, 2021. 

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