Metamorphosis of the project
Exculpatio has come to life over the past three years. At the initiation of the project's journey in 2019, it empathized with the need for a profound understanding of nature as the operating system of the planet: nature is not a space, so you can neither be in nor out of it. This global realization is crucial in order to propose a truly sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable is an extremely perilous word as it has an implicit redeeming character that exonerates us and allows us to continue business as usual.
In 2020, “disruption” permeated the installation. The Human - nature dichotomy always crumbles once disruption bursts the construct collectively crafted to tolerate our ephemeral nature.
This disconnection was highlighted in
Exculpatio’s 2020 iteration. The project explored how the ways of nature have always unsettled humans because our minds dream with permanence, while natural systems express themselves through change, disruption, adaptation, and impermanence as tools of self-preservation.
Exculpatio evolved further during 2021 when the ongoing dialogue arrived at the root of the urgency behind our deliberations: Without nature, what? Lack of nature is the ultimate nothingness. It is an unsettling concept. Humanity can carry on with empty discourses, labels, and communication gimmicks that exculpate us. In the meantime, the future becomes present and substantial action against climate change continues to be absent. What happens after nature’s resilience is not able to bring Earth back into a haven for life once again? A no-life-Earth is a suffocating idea, the absolute void.
In March 2022, another opportunity for iteration arrived. In a tribute to adaptation,
Exculpatio embraced change and focused on a performance to articulate the installation’s dual essence as a demonstration and a sculptural space, as well as, its bilocation in Italy and Switzerland. The 80 Pixels’ Performance has been a silent collective manifestation to bring awareness about the lack of substantial action against climate change: crowdsourced transportation where individuals carried ultralight concrete pixels in a poetic pilgrimage across Venice from April 14 to April 17. As the pilgrims were simultaneously creating the first impromptu pixel arrangement in Venice, the pixels were being virtually assembled into two rectangular monoliths three meters high in Switzerland.
Exculpatio by Nomad Studio. Image courtesy of Almudena Cadalso & Global R&D Cemex, © nomad studio.
Exculpatio by Nomad Studio. Image courtesy of Almudena Cadalso & Global R&D Cemex, © nomad studio.
We belong here, let’s take action
In its final metamorphosis,
Exculpatio transfers the conversation to the public by presenting three dialogues: The absolute nothingness, the futility of demonizing one fragment of the whole, and digitalization as one more barrier between us and our natural essence. There is no doubt that we are sophisticated primates, however, we cannot live outside the rules of our operating system, nature. We belong here, let’s take action.
Exculpatio encourages people to engage in the conversation and take action for meaningful change.
The ritual: Stripping of the word sustainability of its syntax
The ritual ERGO NIHILUM-80 is an anti-rite that inhabits a liminal space between performance and mundane activity. The ritual took place on April 21st and incorporated an ‘orator’ and a ‘mover’ who were engaged in autonomous activities coordinated only within the strictures of eight delineated episodes.
“ERGO NIHILUM-80 was conceived as a live site-specific counterpart to Exculpatio and could be seen as a component of the project’s ongoing evolution. During this happening we are proposing to strip the word sustainability of its syntax, thereby shining a light on the following paradox: The use of a term which has come to mean ‘to continue (to live)’ is often used to cover up the inaction and climate apathy which will ultimately lead to our destruction. Allegorically, we also seek to explore how we negotiate public and social spaces with the body, using superfluous movements and gestures in order to keep hidden from the world our experience of being who we are, both in relation to it and as conscious autonomous objects”
William Kingswood & Tatiana Barrero.
Composer: William Kingswood.
Orator: Marie-Anne Favreau.
Mover: Tatiana Barrero.
