'Sanpaku Eyes', a Group Show at Espai Tactel, Barcelona

A look that brings on destruction and violence, foretelling catastrophes and a sequence of treacherous events; according to face-reading in Chinese and Japanese medicine, with its link to the macrobiotic theories of George Ohsawa, Sanpaku Eyes show an imbalance in the individual beyond the physiological, spiritual or psychological, giving as an explanation a tendency toward chaos. In fact, Sanpaku Eyes are the warning of an imminent end. However, after the disaster of imbalance also comes a new beginning; Sanpaku Eyes is a new dawn. Eyes set on a new future. Where, after the fall of the legendary narrative systems of life, possibilities seem to multiply in fractal way.

This project explores the notions of a new world through the utopian/dystopian work of the artists Jakub Jansa and Karolina Juříková (Chzeck Republic), Anna Moreno (Spain and The Netherlands) and Sara and Charles (Belgium). In the works presented in Sanpaku Eyes, the barriers between utopia and dystopia disappear, being knocked down by narrative fiction, by carrying out speculation as to other life forms. In this way Sanpaku Eyes sets out what we will be like and how we will narrate the story after the catastrophe. In different works we explore what new human structures will be like, given that it is too soon to define the substance of that will be the new biological and psychological states.

The exhibition has installation, developed mainly in video, by Jakub Jansa and Karolína Juříková, Anna Moreno and Sara and Charles. These works have principally been made up of film language, new post-human realities, utopian architectural structures and post-internet visual language, at Espai Tactel Toormix.

Anna Moreno shows us a utopian city, which we could call Billennium. Inspired by the tale of the same name by J. G. Ballard, this city is formed under a socio-economic structure inherited from the beehive. There, the honey becomes Bitcoin and the queen is the Queen Bee who moves around the building Walden 7 dancing twerking.  This building, thought up and constructed by the architect Ricardo Bofill in 1975, moves the utopic strategy toward a reality laid out in the real world itself. The installation Billennium (2017-18) distils the trance-like atmosphere somewhere between the repetition and difference of modular architecture, the kaleidoscope of emergency, the buzz of the bees and the sound of Gauche Divine of Barcelona that is taken up again in the pure style of the Vaporwave in the composition by Siem Beets.

In April showers bring May flowers (2018) by Jakub Jansa y Karolína Juříková  the promise of achievement of a new community emerges from a ontological tale on the root of a celery. The young clairvoyant, SEER, main character in the second episode of the ambitious saga Club of Opportunities, produced by Jakub Jansa, brings us the long-awaited story of rebirth, or rather, flowering. Under layers of fine sand, a new form writing inscribes the history of these apiales in a story to come. In these the ink tattoos the name of the new system.

In Vanity of Vanities (2018) by the Belgian duo Sarah and Charles we are given an open narrative on the flow of information, which is opened in windows, spreading interminably in Instagram. Hyper-connectivity offers us something beyond selfish exposure on social networks, showing us the emptiness of our existence. Because, “vanity of vanity, all is vanity”. A text winds through an Instagram profile #inthehandsofpuppets. This deals with the sacred text in the Old Testament, Ecclesiasties 1. This is laid out along with hazy images through new facial filters, fleeting figures behind vape smoke, the faces of influencers such as Kim Kardashian or products which are impossible for us to have in our lives. All is vanity, it’s all been already done.

Our ruined world leaves us with only one truth. A space which is constructed in the same dystopian structures which the Sanpaku Eyes foresee.