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{"id":254801,"date":"2024-08-28T16:55:49","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T21:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/?post_type=compte-rendu&p=254801"},"modified":"2025-09-29T09:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:16:22","slug":"cristo-riffo-constellations","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/cristo-riffo-constellations\/","title":{"rendered":"Cristo Riffo
Constellations<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
We live in a moment of cultural deceleration despite accelerated technological advances. At a time when alternative futures seem so far-fetched and hard even to imagine, how can we rediscover our collective ability to visualize sociopolitical transformation? In the exhibition Constellations<\/em>, Chilean artist Cristo Riffo explored the utopian potentials in natural and artificial technologies for social change, experimenting with playful juxtapositions of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the biological and the sociological, and the past and the future.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Upon entering the space, we came face to face with Sistema Cinco: Non-Human Determinations<\/em> (2023), an immersive projection completely covering the surface of the two walls in the opposite corner. On one side was a biological microcosm of floating micro-organisms captured live through the lens of an AI-guided microscope. Their translucent bright-green colour against a black background evoked a cosmic constellation. On the other side was a macrocosm of drone videos of people floating in a pool alternating with seascapes. This oscillation between an extreme close-up and a distant view created a tension that challenged both our visual and our cognitive perspectives, priming us to rethink the world and its possibilities with renewed curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Cristo-Riffo_Constellations\"
Cristo Riffo<\/strong>
Sistema Cinco: Non-Human Determinations<\/em>, 2023, exhibition view, ELEKTRA Gallery, Montr\u00e9al, 2024.
Photo : Alejandro Escamilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The artwork\u2019s reliance on AI and drone technology brings to mind the exploitation, surveillance, and warfare that these innovations have enabled in end-stage capitalism. The AI that controlled the microscope was reconstructed from a cybernetic management system imagined in Chile in the early 1970s, during the presidency of Salvador Allende. This replica, complete with 1970s aesthetic, was displayed next to a monitor playing video footage of On Cybernetics\/ Stafford Beer<\/em> (1973),<\/em> featuring the British theorist Stafford Beer explaining the socialist and neurobiological character of cybernetics. This nostalgic reference to a futuristic past is an ode to the once-revolutionary ideals of technology. Riffo gives voice to the lesser-heard socio-technical dreams of the Global South at the intersection of the utopic visions of cybernetics and socialism in Chile\u200a\u2014\u200aboth of which ended abruptly in 1973 with Augusto Pinochet\u2019s US-backed coup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Cristo-Riffo_Constellations\"
Cristo Riffo<\/strong>
Constellations<\/em>, exhibition view, ELEKTRA Gallery, Montr\u00e9al, 2024.
Photo : Alejandro Escamilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The exhibition concluded with The Self Writing Manifesto <\/em>(2023). Four petri dishes on a shelf were positioned next to a screen featuring a video of microscopic rhizomatic growths. In line with the socio-biological utopianism of Constellations<\/em>, these images recall the rhizome, conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze and F\u00e9lix Guattari as a non-hierarchical model for structuring societies that emphasizes the fluidity and multiplicity of connections. This piece is a metaphor for alternative natural technologies that could enable new forms of experimentation, collaboration, and resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Cristo-Riffo_Constellations\"
Cristo Riffo<\/strong>
Constellations<\/em>, exhibition view, ELEKTRA Gallery, Montr\u00e9al, 2024.
Photo : Alejandro Escamilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The field that once was an experimental playground for wide-eyed utopians is now a bleak landscape in which capitalists increase their grasp over our virtual and physical realities. Should we abandon all hope for technology as a vector for transforming failed social models, or should we revisit times of na\u00efve faith in its promises of creating a better world? In Constellations<\/em>, Cristo Riffo hacked into and reprogrammed contemporary technologies to remind us of the techno-utopian dreams of the past and invite us to imagine brighter futures.<\/p>\n
Cristo Riffo, Mehrnoosh Alborzi<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ELEKTRA Gallery,<\/strong> Montr\u00e9al
March 13\u200a\u2013\u200aApril 27, 2024<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":254777,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[7089],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[7134],"artistes":[7135],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-254801","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-112-dreams","auteurs-mehrnoosh-alborzi-en","artistes-cristo-riffo-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/254801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=254801"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=254801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}