In this day and age, media has strived to become more interactive and audience-oriented. The advent of new media has made it possible for the layman to use mobile clips, live streaming and social media, changing the process of how people around the world consume news and entertainment. Employing technology in its crudest form is, however, not always common in art. In this respect, Spanish artist Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca, and artists working in his art genre, are unique. In Downtown's Townhouse Gallery on Friday, Antúnez Roca came on stage dressed in a ‘dreskeleton' (an exoskeletal body interface) to perform his 60-minute interactive conference, “Protomembrana.” Antúnez Roca is known in the international art scene for his use of mechatronics as well as robotic installations. He is a veteran with this type of technology, having mastered the use of bodybots (a controlled robot), systematugy (a dramaturgy of computational systems) and dreskeleton (the body interface he wears), in his work since the eighties. “Protomembrana” was meant to be a lesson on systematurgy, accompanied by a complicated storyline. Antúnez Roca controls the performance through his computers, placed on a side table, and the dreskeleton; intertwining graphic animation, verbal narration and music. The interactive conference consisted of four sections: Introduction or Martin's Story; The Interfaces or the History of Gesture; Computation or Lucia and the Cat; The Medium and the Five Membranes. The interactive part of the lecture had seven volunteers make bizarre faces into a camera gun that would capture their faces and insert them into the performance as central characters in an evolving story. An eighth volunteer was given a four-piece touch-sensitive suit to wear that transformed him into a visual and sound interface to be used in the rest of the animations. In some instances, the atmosphere turned creepy. You either loved, hated, or found this presentation bemusing —or possibly all three. Without a doubt, the dreskeleton illustrations and how it controlled the images on the screen was initially captivating. However, after a while, the storyline felt vague. Antúnez Roca is known for his interest in the human condition and his explorations of how desires and emotions are expressed. This was evident in “Protomembrana,” with its graphic animations that border on psychedelia, and his predictions of what the future might hold. The connection the four sections had with each other was ambiguous. The topic Antúnez Roca touches upon was elusive, yet intriguing, and was subject to many different interpretations. His enthusiasm for how technology has the ability to facilitate and control the world and our relationships, in a positive or negative way, was palpable. The touch-sensitive suit with its ludicrously exaggerated breasts, buttocks, hands, and phallus-shaped nose could signify a warped aspect of sexuality in the storyline. However, with art such as this, the main rule was “to each his own.” Everyone took from it what they can relate to. Antúnez Roca told Daily News Egypt that he began his career with La Fura Dels Baus, a controversial Catalonian theatrical group known for their use of unusual venues such as construction sites, bus depots and playgrounds, and “blurring of the boundaries separating audience and actor.” Their shows depicted “how humans deal with threatening objects, robots, and menacing actors,” which seemed to have undoubtedly influenced him in his subsequent solo works. Antúnez Roca added that it was his passion for technology in general and systematurgy in particular that got him involved in this avant-garde style. But he soon realized that people were not as interested in technology as they were in stories, and that was why he started to incorporate narrative to his performances. According to him, in the 1990s, this form of art was not common, or as well understood as it is now when different forms of technology have managed to push media, as well as art, into more interactive and approachable possibilities. Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca is taking “Protomembrana” to Paris next week. For more information, visit www.marceliantunez.com.
