Arte e Imaginarios turísticos V: Después del futuro

n’UNDO, Algarrobico Report, 2012. n’UNDO

Working Seminar and Lectures, MNCARS, Madrid, July 11, 2023.

Art and Tourist Imaginaries V: After the Future

https://www.museoreinasofia.es/actividad/arte-e-imaginarios-turisticos-v

This symposium, the fifth in the series organized with the TURICOM research group, aims to address the relationship between tourist imaginaries and the visual arts since 1960. The activity seeks to reflect on the difficulty—and the urgency—of imagining a world after, or beyond, tourism. To this end, the program consists of a panel of short academic presentations followed by the presentation of a series of specific case studies by architecture and urban planning teams involved in renaturalization interventions in environments affected by tourist exploitation.

On the one hand, the tourism sector's carbon footprint positions it as one of the main forces of ecological transformation. On the other hand, the turistification of urban centers makes visible its devastating impact on housing, the neighborhood social fabric, or local commerce. However, in Spain, the tourism-progress-modernization equation, which began during the Franco regime, largely continues to dominate the State's institutional logic.

This symposium raises the need to unthink that which presents itself as inevitable. The task of recomposing relationships and ecologies in a hypothetical post-tourist scenario requires identifying practices from which to learn and sensitivities to foster. To this end, a series of architectural and artistic interventions are discussed, providing us with tools and images for the cultivation of other (im)possible worlds.

Program 

17:00 h 

Presentation 

By José Díaz Cuyás

17:10 h

Real Colors. Two Hundred and Forty-Three Postcards by Georges Perec

By Julián Díaz Sánchez "Two Hundred and Forty-Three Postcards in Real Colors" (1978) is a text by Georges Perec that addresses the notion of authenticity through imageless postcard texts that can evoke a more or less ideal tourist landscape. In this presentation, Julián Díaz Sánchez confronts Perec's notion of authenticity with that of the philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky, who demonstrates the expansion of the concept in a "Disneylandized" world.

17:25 h 

Greetings from. On Various Uses of the Postcard in Contemporary Artistic Practices

By Rogelio López Cuenca Beyond its presence in the mail art tradition, the postcard has been used by some contemporary artists to refer critically or parodically to its function within tourist culture and by exploiting its communicative potential. This session introduces several examples that show the diversity of strategies and objectives in its specific use or when combined with other media: Marina Seascape (1998) and Malagana (2000), by Rogelio López Cuenca; ¡Desengánchate!and ¡Apostata! (1991), by Agustín Parejo School; ¡Visite Ciudad Juárez! (2003-2011), by Ambra Polidori; Zaidín Monumental (2000), by Javier Longobardo; Paisatges Fragmentats (2017), by Laura Marte, or Conflictes Urban (2002), by Arquitectes Sense Fronteres - Plataforma veïnal contra l’especulació.

17:40 h 

Postcards in Art. The Provocation of the Stereotype 

By José Díaz Cuyás Since the beginning of the 20th century, the postcard has been the paradigm of the stereotype in mass culture. In its artistic use, "the postal," the cliché and mass-produced, has a transgressive function, as is the case in Surrealist and Pop works. From a rhetorical perspective, the value of authenticity we grant to transgression lies in the act of transgressing itself, when it is perceived as an unmasking. In this talk, José Díaz Cuyás invites us to question that elusive provocative power of stereotypes, especially today, when clichés have become algorithmic.

17:55 h

Postal Fictions By Cristina Arribas and Carmelo Vega What makes the postcards of the Spanish tourism boom so different and attractive? Through two exhibition projects—Postcard Dialogue (Diálogo de postales, Museum of History and Anthropology of Tenerife, 2023-2024) and Postal Discourses (Discursos postales, Andalusian Center of Photography, 2024)—and from a perspective of tourist image theory, this presentation proposes keys to solving this enigma. The true value of postcards lies not only in their enormous structural and visual power as contemporary micro-narratives of tourism, but mainly in their capacity to create formal and conceptual solutions that challenge all conventional logic. Far from documenting the phenomenon they illustrate, they construct fictional realities that exist only on postcards.

18:10 h 

Break

18:20 h 

Presentation of Casa Planas 

By Alelí Mirelman and Marina Planas The Casa Planas project is a non-profit collective organization founded by the artist Marina Planas in 2015 in response to the urgent need for an interdisciplinary contemporary creation and interpretation center on tourism in the Balearic Islands. Alelí Mirelman is the project director of Casa Planas and coordinator of the COSTA Tourist Image Observatory.

18:50 h 

Rapporteurship and Debate

 Moderated by Alicia Fuentes