Carlos Casas
Residency period
05 December 2017 – 28 February 2018
About
Carlos Casas (b. 1974, Spain) is a filmmaker and visual artist currently based in Paris whose work cuts across cinema, documentary filmmaking, visual arts, and sound. Remote territories and the most extreme natural environments on the planet are the subject of his investigations which unfold through extended fieldwork and long research processes driven by an unquenchable quest for the unknown. His works have been featured in major international film festivals and they have exhibited at BMW Tate Live Exhibitions, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2017); Fondation Cartier, Paris, France (2017); and Hangar Bicocca, Milan, Italy (2010), amongst many other venues. His last three films, Cemetery, Avalanche, and End received numerous awards at international festivals in Torino, Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City.
Focus
The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 can perhaps be considered the last grandiose natural disaster before the advent of moving images. For Casas, the historical eruption is an active producer of multiple narratives and imaginaries. Fascinated by its sublime stature and by the unique visual, sonic, and meteorological phenomena occurred in the aftermath of the eruption, the artist aims to investigate its socio-symbolic entanglements with Indonesia’s colonial history while also continuing his longstanding meditation on how natural disasters affect our understanding of nature and of our position on the planet. Through archival research and on-site shooting, the artist will collect historical, optical, and sonic data from various research stations and archives in Singapore and Indonesia in preparation for a new work.
Public programmes
Art After Dark Singapore Art Week 2018
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Residencies OPEN offers a rare insight into the often introverted sphere of the artist’s studio. Through showcasing discussions, performances, installations, and works-in-progress, Residencies OPEN profiles the diversity of contemporary art practice from around the globe and the divergent ways artists conceive an artwork with the studio as a constant space for experimentation and research.
Featuring Artists-in-Residence Bui Cong Khanh (Vietnam), Carlos Casas (Spain/France), Kent Chan (Singapore), Michael Lee (Singapore), Min Thein Sung (Myanmar), Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen (Canada/Sweden), Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore).
Image credit: Studio of Chun Kaifeng, Residencies OPEN, 22 September 2017. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.
Sounding the Invisible
a conversation between Carlos Casas (Spain/France),
Artist-in-Residence and Florian Dombois (Germany), artist, introduced by Vivian Wang (Singapore), musician
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The sonic emanations of the natural world play an important role in the artistic practice of both Carlos Casas and Florian Dombois. Capturing elephant infrasounds and seismic recordings of the Pacific Ocean, the artists push the boundaries of our sensorium, delving into sonic phenomena that go beyond the range of human hearing. Opening up alternative ways of listening to the planet, the conversation addresses several instances of “sonifying the invisible.” It will be followed by a Listening Session during which mysterious bird calls and the magnetic sound fields of the ionosphere will take us on an aural journey from the deep underwater trenches of the Ring of Fire to a remote elephant sanctuary.