Daniel Steegmann Mangrané: Kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name
Mendes Wood DM presents “Kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name”, the third solo exhibition at the gallery by Catalan artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané. The set of works displayed features two pieces never before seen in Brazil alongside a new body of work on the walls.
Produced in 2013-2014 for the 2015 Triennial at the New Museum: Surround Audience, curated by Lauren Cornell, Phantom (kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name) and Spiral Forest (kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name) explored the same locale of tropical Brazilian forest through two divergent technologies. While Phantom uses one of the most advanced digital techniques, Spiral Forest was created with analogical and mechanical technologies, some of which are nearly obsolete.
To produce Phantom, Steegmann Mangrané worked with the London-based company ScanLab. Together, they scanned a piece of the forest, creating a point cloud of extremely high resolution. ScanLab then used an application called Unity to read the scan, making it accessible via a pair of virtual reality glasses. A set of optitrack cameras track the position of the spectator in the space, enabling the viewer move through the virtual forest.
To create Spiral Forest, the artist collaborated with engineers Nicola di Chio and Stefan Knauer, who constructed a Gimbal (a hinged device which allows an object to rotate on the same axis) activated by the motor of a 16 mm camera. By turning on the camera and starting to film, the gimbal rotates its three axes (pan, tilt, roll), conducting the filming process while executing interlinked movements. The sequence of movements was based on a mathematical calculation between angles of rotation and frames per second that guarantees all the possible combinations of movements and directions.
The differences between the two works are not limited to a mere digital – analogical binomial, but rather investigate two ways of apprehending opposites. While Phantom is set in a lit room, the image is fixed and the spectator moves throughout the real and virtual space; Spiral Forest is projected in a dark room, where the image is in motion and the body of the spectator is immobile.
The possibilities of phenomenological exploration of that which each technology offers are extremely important to the artist. While the body of the spectator is turned around and around in the continuous spiral of Spiral Forest, projecting into it and entering the flow of the image in motion (chiasmic entanglement, as Vivian Sobchack would say), this same body is disconnected and evaporated in the forest of Phantom. It confirms the psychasthenic urge to dissolve oneself in the world described by sociologist and literary critic Roger Callois.
The artist’s emphasis on the use of such diverse technologies resides in the desire to explore the ways our knowledge of nature is mediated by them. Each new relevant form of technology has transformed our understanding of nature and our place in the universe. With each change in our conception of nature, we have been forced to adjust our understanding of our own nature.
