Time and art through microorganisms. Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan
25/10/2023.
Reina Sofía Museum [MAD] Spain 25.10 > 16.12.2023
metalocus, CRISTINA RODRÍGUEZ
metalocus, CRISTINA RODRÍGUEZ
Architecture studio elii together with the artist Orkan Telhan present today, October 25, the installation "Remains in Suspense, Still" that can be visited in the Nouvel Building of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía until December 16, 2023.
This installation is part of the “Notes for a Time Apart” program, which aims to explore other formats and methodologies for art or forms of expression, proposing a reflection on the usual conceptions of time, its registers, scales, and rhythms.
A set of dystopian realities, colorful and frozen in time, that suggest, provoke, and make us reflect on issues such as the scale of our bodies, our identity, fragmentation, and transformation. A fractal reflection of who we are.
This installation is part of the “Notes for a Time Apart” program, which aims to explore other formats and methodologies for art or forms of expression, proposing a reflection on the usual conceptions of time, its registers, scales, and rhythms.
A set of dystopian realities, colorful and frozen in time, that suggest, provoke, and make us reflect on issues such as the scale of our bodies, our identity, fragmentation, and transformation. A fractal reflection of who we are.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Photograph by ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero).
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Photograph by ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero).
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Photograph by ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero).
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
The installation “Remains in Suspense, Still” proposed by the artist Orkan Telhan, teaming up with elii architects, consists of an approach to other ways of conceiving time from microorganisms. A proposal in several stages began with the invitation to a group of professionals to share a meal at the Museum during their break from work.
During the meal, questions were exchanged about time management and work, and at the end, they were asked to leave their leftover food. These leftovers remains of a meal shared between people from different contexts, professions, social classes, and worldviews, were preserved in a set of refrigerators that keep the remains in a kind of capsules frozen in time.
During the meal, questions were exchanged about time management and work, and at the end, they were asked to leave their leftover food. These leftovers remains of a meal shared between people from different contexts, professions, social classes, and worldviews, were preserved in a set of refrigerators that keep the remains in a kind of capsules frozen in time.
"What do you usually do during this break?", "How do you manage your stress?", "How much coffee do you drink?", "What do you do when you need to concentrate?" or "What is your favorite energy drink?"
On these refrigerated surfaces, diners' microbes become part of these shared and slowed-down food landscapes. They degrade and mutate. They shift into a state of suspended animation that affects their conservation cycles. They become prolonged "conversations" between microorganisms, nutritional supplements, and people, displaying a plural temporality that belongs to no one. Like remains in suspense, still. At least, while the cold lasts.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Courtesy of Reina Sofía Art Center Museum. October 2023. Photographic archive of the Reina Sofía Museum.
Still Remains by elii and Orkan Telhan in the Reina Sofía Museum. Photograph by ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero).
Within the framework of the Notes for a Time Apart program, elii [architecture office] and Orkan Telhan present the installation Still Remains, which proposes, from a position far from anthropocentrism, an investigation into the microbiome: the community of microorganisms that inhabit a specific environment, both inside and outside the human body, and that is governed by its own logic and time scales.
The microbiome of our guts, armpits, genitals, or mouths could be considered one of our most private landscapes. In it reside our interspecies identities, formed by bacteria, fungi, and viruses living parallel lives, resisting and working 24 hours a day in our daily lives. They withstand the hormones and chemicals secreted by our anxious selves, they withstand the stimulants, amphetamines, and cognitive enhancers that we consume to deal with the stress caused by pending tasks. They strive to adapt to our bodies, increasingly designed to work harder and harder, more efficiently, all the time.
More information
Architects
elii.
Artist
Exhibition
"Restos en suspenso, todavía"
Organization
Dates
From October 25, 2023 to December 16, 2023.
Location
Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum. Calle de Santa Isabel, 52, 28012 Madrid, Spain.
Photography
ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero), Reina Sofía National Museum of Art Center.
Uriel Fogué Herreros, Eva Gil Lopesino, Carlos Palacios Rodríguez. elii
elii is an architecture office founded in 2006, and based in Madrid centre, by Uriel Fogué Herreros, Eva Gil Lopesino, and Carlos Palacios Rodríguez. Its founding partners and current directors of the office are the architects founded elii, after collaborating in several prestigious international studios. At present, the three combine the professional practice developed in elii with the teacher (in different Universities of the Spanish and international scope) and with the publisher (UHF magazine).
Their work and articles have appeared in specialized publications and exhibitions, having obtained recognition and awards for outstanding performance, amongst which are the FAD Opinion Award (2005), or the awards received from the Official College of Architects of Madrid “a la Obra Bien Hecha”(2006) and “a la Obra de los Arquitectos” (2011). They have been amongst those selected to appear in the “Arquia Próxima” catalogue (also issued by the Official College of Architects of Madrid) in its 2006-2007, 2008-2009, 2010-2011 issues, having been recognized in this last one as one of the 10 most relevant teams of young architects in the region. They have also taken part in the “Madrid 100% Arquitectura II” (2011), catalogue and Itinerant International Exhibition, where one of their works was considered one of the top 100 by the Official College of Architects of Madrid. They were also similarly distinguished in the XII Buenos Aires International Biennial Architecture Exhibition (2011). Elii is a member of the “Creadores de Madrid” and “FreshMadrid” archives.
Their work and articles have appeared in specialized publications and exhibitions, having obtained recognition and awards for outstanding performance, amongst which are the FAD Opinion Award (2005), or the awards received from the Official College of Architects of Madrid “a la Obra Bien Hecha”(2006) and “a la Obra de los Arquitectos” (2011). They have been amongst those selected to appear in the “Arquia Próxima” catalogue (also issued by the Official College of Architects of Madrid) in its 2006-2007, 2008-2009, 2010-2011 issues, having been recognized in this last one as one of the 10 most relevant teams of young architects in the region. They have also taken part in the “Madrid 100% Arquitectura II” (2011), catalogue and Itinerant International Exhibition, where one of their works was considered one of the top 100 by the Official College of Architects of Madrid. They were also similarly distinguished in the XII Buenos Aires International Biennial Architecture Exhibition (2011). Elii is a member of the “Creadores de Madrid” and “FreshMadrid” archives.
Orkan Telhan
Orkan Telhan, co-founder of Biorealize, is the Chief Information and Data Officer at Ecovative. He serves as the president of the Biodesign Challenge. He was Associate Professor of Fine Arts - Emerging Design Practices at University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
Telhan investigates critical issues in cultural, environmental and social responsibility.
Telhan's individual and collaborative work has been exhibited internationally in venues including the Istanbul Biennial (2013, 2022), Istanbul Design Biennial (2012, 2016, 2021), Milano Design Week, London Design Week, Vienna Design Week, the Armory Show 2015 Special Projects, Ars Electronica (2007, 2017), ISEA, LABoral, Archilab, Matadero Madrid, Architectural Association, the Architectural League of New York, MIT Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Design Museum, London.
Telhan holds a PhD in Design and Computation from MIT's Department of Architecture. He was part of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Laboratory and a researcher at the MIT Design Laboratory. He studied Media Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo and theories of media and representation, visual studies and Graphic Design at Bilkent University, Ankara.
Telhan investigates critical issues in cultural, environmental and social responsibility.
Telhan's individual and collaborative work has been exhibited internationally in venues including the Istanbul Biennial (2013, 2022), Istanbul Design Biennial (2012, 2016, 2021), Milano Design Week, London Design Week, Vienna Design Week, the Armory Show 2015 Special Projects, Ars Electronica (2007, 2017), ISEA, LABoral, Archilab, Matadero Madrid, Architectural Association, the Architectural League of New York, MIT Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Design Museum, London.
Telhan holds a PhD in Design and Computation from MIT's Department of Architecture. He was part of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Laboratory and a researcher at the MIT Design Laboratory. He studied Media Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo and theories of media and representation, visual studies and Graphic Design at Bilkent University, Ankara.
