Un martillo y mala hierba — Punk, techno y nuevos naturalismos relacionales

If gender theories have moved beyond rhetorical frameworks and political struggles to become philosophical positions in their own right, art offers a space in which their epistemological potential can be explored. This work examines the relationships between the present and its historical references.

Music and listening resist being reduced to a stable, autonomous field of study. This exhibition brings together the agents, spaces and institutions that shape artistic culture, often disconnected from their social and cultural contexts. It explores the relationships between technology and art, science and anthropology, ethics and aesthetics, approaching music as an anthropological expression of the bonds between human beings and their environments.

Media are not merely technical or technological tools; they also shape the ways in which knowledge is produced and understood. Music, in particular, can challenge established categories and open up new ways of thinking. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the “tangle of aberrant lines”, music becomes a medium through which to question established ideas of beauty and explore forms of experience that exist beyond normative frameworks.

The question is not whether techno or punk can survive as fashion, but how they might function as aesthetic practices in the service of politics, philosophy and anthropology. By examining the networks of relations between human and non-human agents, we can better understand how aesthetic and political forms emerge and transform. Such an approach may offer new ways of thinking about coexistence beyond the human-centred perspective.

The aim is to approach art as a living, relational practice: one that engages with the public sphere and creates conditions for becoming a more autonomous subject. Art can thus do more than propose solutions; it can also make visible the problems that shape collective life.

Wall text — Dan Aparicio, ESDi, Barcelona, 18 January 2023