Breath of Fire — About Amauta and David art videos, volcanos, virtual environments, and urban extractivism
“What is the purpose of life?
To continue being life.”
Raúl Zibechi[1]
A volcano’s scale
To gain an understanding of a volcano, we must change scales, either by going up or down temporally and spatially. Volcanic rocks contain traces of long-term geological processes, slow metabolisms of living matter, and fast-growing and decaying vegetation. Volcanic rocks bring together the fast and slow, the big and small, in a surprisingly complex microcosm that defies a simple conception of what is alive or what constitutes a material object. The volcano edifice is constructed over time by the accumulation of rocks, ash, and solidified lava. Monogenetic volcanoes, such as Xitle, which have erupted only once since their formation, are sometimes mistaken for medium or even small mountains.
Amauta García and David Camargo work with already available tools and bend media to reach different scales of observation of natural phenomena and their reflection on human means of habitation. They resource art to facilitate visualization strategies, occasionally using oblique approaches that expand with a shift in perspective. Amauta and David share a background from the Faculty of Arts and Design at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. They collaborate on multidisciplinary projects that merge architecture, sculpture, video, and virtual environments to explore urban extractivism, migration, and environmental affectivity.
In Arrullo (2022), Amauta and David change scales to interact with another entity: the Zuidwal underwater volcano 6,600 feet below the Wadden Sea (Netherlands). Zuidwal has been exploited for natural gas since 1988, and further plans are underway to harness its residual heat for sustainable energy[2]. A lithostratigraphic diagram and various other numerical data describe this underwater volcano[3], but despite being an important feature and economic asset for the Netherlands, it remains invisible. Amauta and David use this information to create abstract representations of phenomena related to the volcano, to address them while respecting its hiding place.
Arrullo is a video piece composed of live footage of the Wadden Sea surface and digital sequences staging abstract 3d objects. Instead of creating a visual representation of Zuidwal that is as accurate as possible, Amauta and David invent a folklore, a legend of its origins, complete with a lullaby created to heal it from years of extractivist operations. They collaborated with Antonina Nowaka, a Polish sound artist interested in the voice as an instrument and how it can convey certain states to an audience. Antonina is known for exploring caves and volcanoes to interact with the resonant spaces created by geological processes[4].
Arrullo's other collaborators and important interlocutors are Fernando Vigueras, a Mexican composer who scored the video, and Andrés Gonzáles, a Chilean eco-poet and co-author of Arrullo's screenplay. Fernando has studied the importance of lullabies as collective memory, and in 2021 he curated a cycle of concerts exploring “the voice as a form that encodes our first notions of identity”[5]. Antonina participated in this cycle of concerts, manifesting her notion of the voice as magma. Andrés worked with Amauta and David, reimagining myths and deities[6] to create a textual subject for Antonina and Fernando’s sounds. A possible interpretation of this weaving of myths and lullaby singing for volcanoes could be the creation of a common plane where the volcano, often immersed in its strepitous and telluric sound production, can hear the human voice.
The volcanic theme in Amauta and David’s work is also central to other pieces besides Arrullo. This brings them close to coetaneous artists like Tania Ximena, who explores how natural phenomena affect different communal life experiences and her own, often addressing the metamorphosis and regeneration of the landscape and its inhabitants. Tania and Amauta both recount personal experiences of having lived next to a volcano that shaped the terrain and their daily routines. Like Tania, Amauta and David emphasize the importance of finding ways to cohabitate the world harmoniously.
Returning to the pedregal made by the Xitle volcano, what was once a seemingly inert lava flow field gradually became inhabited by microorganisms, plants, and animals over time. However, it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that Mexico City began to colonize it in a noticeable way. In 1949, Diego Rivera published a mini-manifesto as a newspaper article boosting the beauty and benefit of living on the pedregal[7].
Around the time that Rivera wrote about the pedregal, architect Luis Barragán was developing his real estate project, Jardínes del Pedregal. Meanwhile, lead architects Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral were beginning construction on the main campus of UNAM in an area nearby. A few years later, in 1971, people who came to Mexico City from different parts of the country in search of a place to live also took possession of land from the lava flow fields of Xitle, creating an informal neighborhood called Pedregal de Santo Domingo.
Amauta grew up in Pedregal de Santo Domingo and remembers how a group of coresidents, along with her mother, worked very hard to make a home out of an inhospitable place[8]. Actions had to be taken to level the field, connect it to the sewer and electricity systems, or push and pull agreements with the authorities. And with each action, the lava flow biome was destroyed to create their neighborhood in an already resource-demanding megacity.[9]
Extractivism, as portrayed by Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo and Lucia Linsalata, “[...] reorders and occupies territories, intensively and on a large scale removing large volumes of primary goods (oil, gas, minerals, monocultures) to be exported, generally to the international market, without significant prior processing. This logic of valorization, tending towards mono production and the expansion of extractive frontiers into new territories, not only fails to respond to local needs, but also competes with and disarticulates livelihood economies and autonomous political forms of appropriation and management of social wealth.”[10] In particular Urban Extractivism, as traced by Monika Streule with ideas from various researchers, is an expanded conception of extractivism that focuses on “market-driven processes of extended urbanization” and “ the extraction of urban land value.” [11]
A Rock is a Microcosm[12]
Although rocks are different from living things that can move intentionally and respond to or signal changes in their state, rocks can be thought of as a living substrate or an evolving source of life. Volcanic rocks, often extremely porous and rich in minerals such as iron or silicon, are early colonized by chemolithotrophs: microorganisms capable of extracting energy from the rock through biosolubilization. This means chemolithotrophs destroy the rock that supports them to create a rich substrate for cellular life.
Among several lines of research, the interest of the Doctor of Biology María Del Pilar Ortega Larrocea in the ecological restoration of volcanic debris has led her to the creation of the Geopedregal site: a 3000 square meter lava flow field, unburied and cleaned of man-made scraps and exotic species. A place to observe the patterns of solidified lava and the formation of soil recolonized by native organisms[13] For more than a decade, Pilar and a large group of collaborators have transformed an almost abandoned patch of rocky green in front of the parking lot of the Geology Institute of the UNAM into a place of appreciation through observation and interaction, knowledge sharing, and a model for emulation and collaboration[14].
The Geopedregal site is an example of geoheritage: a set of geological, geomorphological, and geographical resources with cultural, historical, scientific and aesthetic value. According to Pilar, human presence is necessary to discuss geoheritage, not exactly from the perspective of occupying the site, but of appropriating it through its designation as a protected space. The volcanic rocks and lava patterns in the Geopedregal site support life that thrives in harsh conditions, taking advantage of the porous cavities, folds and cracks, collapsed domes... of any type of space in this environment.
In the video work Nana Itzi (2020), Amauta explores yet another space feasible to inhabit: the virtual environments of the gaming platform Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V). With the aid of David she used GTA V as a foundation to create a virtual environment where Amauta can perform with her digital double. Through modified versions of the video game, known as mods, she manages to evoke dreamy atmospheres of a city that seems to occupy a desert environment[15]. In the two video works that compose Nana Itzi, One Hundred Meters Falling and Nana, Amauta crosses the ground and dives into the water.
In One Hundred Meters Falling, we watch as Amauta's digital double floats down a towering building until a blackout in the video edition reveals her swimming in a vast body of water. On Nana, Amauta's digital double slowly crosses the floor and dives back into a vast body of water. Now she swims through the living rooms of different apartments. Later in the video, she swims through the streets and lower avenues of a sunken city, surrounded by overturned cars.
Both video works share the same virtual environment and explore unforeseen ways of inhabiting a world. GTA V mods allow for variations of the video game in which some elements can be replaced, the physics can be altered, or an entire city can be flooded. However, these mods still offer interaction with 3D digital assets in more or less expected ways. Nevertheless, the modifications end up opening cracks in the management of these digital assets by the platform, rendering them at odd paces. A building is drawn in sudden stages that seem incomplete. Strange perspectives become possible, such as when architectural elements are drawn from below, through an invisible floor and against a pervasive sky.
Virtual space is often perceived as an endless expanse of content and possibility. Yet, it maintains a connection to our physical bodies, reminding us of our inherent spatial limitations. Perhaps the bounded and the endless is another duality that Amauta points to: the understanding that we inevitably occupy space at every level, even virtually. The importance of this realization leads us on a path toward the complexity of human habitation and the unsustainability of today's urban landscapes.
Amauta's exploration of GTA V recalls Minecraft, another popular video game that simulates the gradual colonization of a wild and ever-exploitable digital environment.
Minecraft feeds our common desire for a world where resources seem limitless. In this game, players create by extracting materials that won't run out—unless the system dictates otherwise. This mechanic quickly mirrors the production-consumption cycle of late capitalism.
The open-world gameplay of GTA V and Minecraft make them ideal gateways to virtual environments that mimic the real world. Amauta's dreamy GTA V virtual environment performance shows how flexible this world is and how expansive it can be. As W. Gibson called it in 1982, cyberspace is a place where the pursuit of the infinite is definitive. But as we should know, because of the current technological horizon and physical entropic limits, that infinity will only last until we run our rivers dry.
Another relationship with the Earth
The production and consumption of virtual environments, through their immersive nature, obscure the cycle of creation and destruction inherent in real processes and events. Not only does virtuality mimic the extractive modes of capitalism, it does so in private operations out of sight of the public sphere, in data centers where vast amounts of resources are consumed, imposing a high toll on the Earth[16].
Extractivism generally operates at such a high scale that its destructive force can hardly be justified for the economic benefits it predicates. We need to ignore it or be unable to see it to let it pass. Perhaps these high-scale operations, needed to perform any kind of extractivism, such as Urban extractivism, show the true scale of our ambitions more so than the scale of our populations[17].
The dualism of creation and destruction within us should be acknowledged; it's inevitable. If destruction cannot be avoided in order to create, perhaps we can change our pace and thoughtfully direct our destructive power. Slow down the capitalist urge to make everything productive and fit our particular scale. As Amauta and David ask, how can we develop a non-extractive relationship with the Earth?
A. Kuri
Montevideo, 2024
———————————————————————-
References:
[1] JOSÉ LUIS FERNÁNDEZ CASADEVANTE. Entrevista a Raúl Zibechi. Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global. Nº 118 2012, pp. 187-195 (link)
[2] According to a publication by The Guardian titled: “Heat from extinct volcano could be piped into Dutch homes“ (link).
[3] A lithostratigraphic diagram represents the arrangement and correlation of rock layers based on their lithological characteristics and relative positions within the Earth's crust. At the NLOG Dutch Oil and Gas portal a Geological Atlas of the Subsurface of The Netherlands shows this and other descriptions of Zuidwal (link).
[4] Antonina visited Mexico occasionally following her interest in resonant spaces (link). On one of these occasions, Amauta saw and heard Antonina perform.
[5] Fernando and David collaborated on the 2021 edition of the EDGES music cycle, produced by David and curated by Fernando, to which Antonina was invited (link). The memory of the voice (La memoria de la voz) is the name of this particular EDGES chapter. This name seems to reflect Fernando's experimental work, which focused on questioning the objecthood of musical instruments.
[6] Amauta attended workshops on ecopoetry given by Andrés before inviting him to collaborate on Arullo. Perhaps the most alluring idea to come out of this collaboration, as Amauta says, is that "if we change the way we tell the story of the past, we will have a better chance of finding a place for ourselves in the present and in the future.”
[7] Diego Rivera: Requirements for El Pedregal organization. Novedades newspaper. July 3rd, 1949. Rivera wrote: "[It is] necessary to establish as a primary condition the greatest possible use of the stone of El Pedregal itself, with which the homogeneity of the material of the architecture will be obtained, which will characterize it by its solidity, low cost and beauty." Translated from: "Se debe pues establecer como condición primordial el mayor uso posible de la piedra de El Pedregal mismo, con lo cual se obtendrá la homogeneidad del material de la arquitectura, que lo caracterizará por su misma solidez, bajo costo y belleza"”
[8] In Amauta and David’s work Siamesa / Conjoined twin (link) Amauta shares a poem where she compares her mother to a volcano, an “earthquake that crumbles mountains”, a “ladybug who showed me how to smell the flowers'', and to “make multicolored gardens of volcanic rock”. She describes her mother as a force that conjures cities and transforms life. Her mother as a force that manifests even when she is told not to.
[9] In a 2019 interview with Raúl Zibechi by Monika Streule and Anke Schwarz, Zibechi stated: “In Latin America today, the collective subjects living in poverty need to empower themselves through territories where they can build their lives: first housing, then collective spaces for health and education, thus creating new “cities” based on social relationships that they embody in their daily lives”. (link) Zibechi is a scholar known for committing his work to the study of non-capitalist relationships in Latin America territories.
[10] Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo and Lucia Linsalata paraphrase Eduardo Gudynas's investigation on the various manifestations of Extractivism (2013) in Beyond the anti-neoliberal Rethoric: Extractivist Offensive and Mega-Projects in the Times of the Fourth Transformation. Bajo el Volcán, year 1, no. 2 digital, May-October 2020 (link). Eduardo Gudynas is a Uruguayan biologist and author. He is a researcher at the Latin American Center for Social Ecology (Centro Latino Americano de Ecología Social) and a leading figure in advancing post-extractivism in Latin America.
[11] Monika Streule (2022): Urban extractivism. Contesting megaprojects in Mexico City, rethinking urban values, Urban Geography, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2022.2146931 (link)
[12] This construct, a rock is a microcosm, shared by María Fernanda Martínez-Báez Téllez during a visit to the Xitle volcano in February 2024. Dr. María Del Pilar Ortega is supervising Fernanda for her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the UNAM.
[13] The Geopedregal site (link) is part of the program Restoration of remnant rocky areas (Restauración de pedregales remanentes), a conservation initiative focused on restoring and preserving remnant pedregales within the UNAM's geoheritage. It involves activities like cleaning, restoration, and the creation of geotrails to raise awareness about the importance of these alive and diverse spaces.
[14] In particular, the ecological restoration accomplished in collaboration with Luis de la Torre at the Italian station of the Friendship Route (La ruta de la amistad). A corridor of sculptures in Mexico City, conceived by the sculptor Matias Goeritz and the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, was realized by international artists to celebrate the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City (link). Due to 25 years of abandonment and rapid urbanization, the Italy station had to be moved to a nearby site, still on the lava field of Xitle.
[15] In Amauta's textual presentation of Nana Itzi, this digital environment is relevant to her discourse on immigration and identity, as this version of GTA (V) is set in L.A., the largest city of Mexican descent outside of Mexico.
[16] As the WEForum analyzes the problem of large-scale data centers supporting the metaverse, the greenhouse effect and e-waste are two externalities that need urgent attention. (link)
[17] In an article titled Environmentalisms versus extractivisms (Los ambientalismos frente a los extractivismos) Eduardo Gudynas mentions fighting organizations and individuals like Máxima Acuña in Perú, Acción Ecológica in Ecuador, or the Latin American Network of Women Defenders of Social and Environmental Rights (link). With these examples Gudynas highlights a growing woman leadership facing Extractivisms in Latin America.
All Images Courtesy of the Artists:
1. Still of Arrullo. 2022. Full HD Video
2. Still of Arrullo. 2022. Full HD Video
3. Still of Nana Itsi. 2020. Performances in Grand Theft Auto V. Video Full HD
4. Still of Nana Itsi. 2020. Performances in Grand Theft Auto V. Video Full HD
Access videos here:
Arrullo: https://vimeo.com/775920160
Nana Itsi: https://vimeo.com/858429770/ 2aa0ab2a71
Amauta García and David Camargo are visual artists who live and work between Mexico and the Netherlands. They have worked together on different projects since 2011. Amauta García has focused on the relationships between urban extractivism, migration and environmental affectivity. David Camargo focuses on exploring narratives around the notion of simulacrum in the context of a society mediated by images. They have exhibited their work in Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, USA, Georgia and Cuba. As a duo, they were artists-in-residence at Jan van Eyck Academie (The Netherlands, 2021-2022), Borderland Residencies (Germany, 2022) and Hotel Maria Kapel art residency (The Netherlands, 2023). They were selected by Stichting NDSM-werf to do a site-specific piece in NDSM-werf, Amsterdam, (2022). In 2023, their film Arrullo was part of the Official selection of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Great Wide Open Festival (The
Netherlands), and The Alimenterre Festival Belgium. In 2024, they were selected as
artists in residence at Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Germany.