10042019_MUN_DanielCanogar

Like a search engine of lost treasures. With this vocation Daniel Canogar undertook his rescue of technologies and devices of the recent past, today obsolete, such as CDs, DVDs, printers, scanners and even the classic Game Boy console. These have been the seed of Small Data Laba exhibition that is a tribute and a more human look at technology. It opens this April 10 and can be visited until October 6.

The sample includes three pieces called LABThese pieces are the artist's response to the Museum's invitation to participate in the Tender Bridges program, dialoguing with the Museum's collection. This proposal happened before the creation of Sikka Ingentium, the piece made up of 2,400 film DVDs that was presented at the Museum in 2017. In addition, nine pieces from the series are integrated. Small Data, belonging to the author's private collection and the Collection of the Museo Universidad de Navarra.

The artist pointed out that, in the age of the Big DataIn the world of streaming and Netflix, the DVD is being thrown away en masse, as are many of the objects seen in this series. In this loss of our traditional systems of storing information, there has been a huge shift in our concept of file, something I try to reflect. It is a loss that has implications for how we remember. Archives are our memories. In a way, we are portraying ourselves."

In the presentation of the sample he has been accompanied by Valentín Vallhonrat, director artistic of the Museum and curator along with Rafael Levenfeld. "It is a very technological and emotional work , but also with deep doses of humor," said Vallhonrat. He also stressed that the Museum establishes "long-term relationships with artists deadline" and "accompaniment".

From daguerreotype to DVD and the cloud

The artist explained that at a time when "everything starts to be in the cloud, in our cell phones and internet, it is intangible, ephemeral", he looks back: "I try to understand what we are leaving behind and reflect on how fast we are living and throwing away too many things".

On this trip he came across the 25 daguerreotypes in the Collection of the Museo Universidad de Navarra, which captivated him because "they are the origin of photography and because of their objectual character. They are kept in velvety cases and are images practically engraved on a mirror. They also have a spectral image, which is and is not there". For the artist, DVDs also have that "reflective character" and "are like the great-great-grandchildren of daguerreotypes".

Accelerated obsolescence

Another theme that runs through the sample is "the accelerated obsolescence of consumer objects", about which Canogar has pointed out that "a paradigm of this throwaway society, which fears aging, fears death and avoids it at all costs and makes it up to avoid the unstoppable advance of time". Thus, he explained that his works can be seen as "contemporary still lifes, objects that somehow are showing how fast time goes by. They are small self-portraits".

In the presentation of the sample, he also pointed out some details of the pieces, on whose surface he projects videos that bring them back to the present. For example, he pointed out Lab I, which takes us back to his origins as a photographer and to the magic of the photographic laboratory .

Also works such as Game Over, which recovers the essence of the Game Boy of the 90s, through images of games such as Mario Bros or Zenda, projected on the pieces; or 7, which recalls the old alarm clocks to talk about time, with animations of sunrises and sunsets in the form of clock hands.

"Each person has to find and read his or her own work. Everyone has their memories of a Game Boy, or a calculator they have stored, for example," he suggested. The exhibition is also completed with a video in which the artist explains his creative work and which is projected on the conference room.