Timefall

This exhibition by the artist Karlos Gil (Talavera de la Reina, 1984) is the most complete public presentation of his work to date. It showcases some of the various lines of work that have marked his practice in recent years: the relationship between artificial and natural, technology and the body, obsolescence, the complexity of second and third degree urban signs, science fiction… among other issues. The exhibition is divided into interrelated parts, “artefacts”, signs and audiovisual productions. The title of the exhibition, Decline, alludes to a metaphorical “fall into time”, a certain sensation of slowing down or a certain impression of “decline”, ruin or obsolescence of historical time.

The exhibition presents various works, including De-extinction (2016-2022), based on recycled neon tubes from old advertising signs that, with the passing of time, have been replaced with LED lighting and other newer technologies. And also Stay Gold (2015-2023), a series of tapestries or textiles with images created artificially by computer and produced on a Jacquard weaving machine, one of the first technologies to use a perforated card.

Two new audiovisual productions were created specifically for the exhibition: Peripheral (2023), in which Karlos Gil recreates the 3D environment of an artificial medusa, speaking to us about the increasingly more difficult task of distinguishing between inorganic objects from living organisms and the latter from artificial objects created by humans. And finally, Origin (2023), an enveloping film that takes us down into the underground of the city of Madrid. The film posits a relationship largely forbidden to humans, except for mass transport, which is the physical and imaginary relationship between humans and the underground. A film located between our memory of the past and the imagination of possible, utopian and also dystopian futures.