For this new edition of Art Madrid'22 the video art platform PROYECTOR, once again under the curatorship of Mario Gutiérrez Cru, proposes a programme that revolves around the concept of loop. During the fair, the ARTMADRID-PROYECTOR'22 stand will allow us to enjoy a proposal by the pioneer of new media art Gary Hill together with a performance on 23 February at 8 pm. On 25 February, the pioneer of Spanish sound art Llorenç Barber will close the fair with a performance at 20:00h.

Pioneers" professional meeting

On the other hand, on Saturday 19 February in the Sala Auditorio El Águila at 12 noon there will be a professional round table organised by PROYECTOR on the concept of "loop" in video art, new media, festivals and media collecting.

We will have Gary Hill (usa), pioneer of new media art; Tom Van Vliet (hol), collector and director since 1982 of WWVF, one of the first video art festivals in the world; Sandra Lischi (ita) director of Ondavideo and INVIDEO, pioneering video art festivals since 1985; as well as the presentation and moderation of Tamara García (spa), specialist in the concept of the loop.

The meeting will be held in English, without translation, and can be watched both in person and virtually via streaming. A video with subtitles will be uploaded afterwards on the fair's channel.

Performance, Llorenç Barber

Screening of international curators

After the professional meeting in the morning, several of these experts will present a historical selection of video art. Tom Van Vliet (hol), collector and director since 1982 of WWVF, one of the first video art festivals worldwide, and Sandra Lischi (ita), director of Ondavideo and INVIDEO, pioneering video art festivals since 1985, will each present a 40-minute curatorial presentation of works from 1978 to 2003.

We will also have a presentation, this time online, by Irit Batsry, also a pioneer of video art and director of Loops.Lisboa and one of the components of the international project LOOPS.Expanded, which is an international network dedicated to exhibiting and investigating the concept and form of the Loop. With the aim of experimenting with decentralized video art / moving image exhibitions, symposiums, talks and masterclasses.

The network, founded in 2019, expands the original Loops.Lisboa initiative that started at the National Museum of Contemporary Art MNAC in Lisbon in 2015. The founders of LOOPS.Expanded are curators and organizations in the field of video art from five different countries: António da Câmara (Duplacena / Festival Temps d'Images, Lisbon - Portugal), Mario Gutiérrez Cru and Araceli López (PROYECTOR, Madrid - Spain); Sandra Lischi (Ondavideo, Milano - Italy); Tom Van Vliet (WWVF, Amsterdam - The Netherlands); Jaqueline Beltrame and Alisson Avila (collective Cine Esquema Novo (Porto Alegre - Brazil) and Irit Batsry and Alisson Avila (Loops. Lisboa / Festival Temps d'Images, Lisbon - Portugal).

Performance, Gary Hill

Also, to close a day dedicated to video art, the artist Lina Jiménez Nampaque will give a live performance at 19:30h in the same Sala El Águila.

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.