Immortality it’s possible. At least for the Turritopsis dohrnii, popularly known as the immortal jellyfish. Silently invading our waters, this creature will reproduce and then, faced with the normal career path of dying, it will opt instead to revert to a sexually immature stage. And not just once: it will do it over and over again, eternally flowing into the sea. With no organs or brain to focus on, the only way to research on this creature is by observing its movements that constantly repeat.
Taking the immortal jellyfish as an inspiration and for the extension of two weeks, artist Rosana Antolí has transformed the 5th floor of Tate Modern London into a choreographed fictional space. When entering the space, monitor screens inform the audience of two distinct paths to choose: In one, the visitor is invited to embrace the infinite loop philosophy, recording its gestures for a virtual archive of movement. This way, they will become everlasting by abandoning their feelings or thoughts, eternally looping in the digital realm like the immortal jellyfish. In the other path, they can choose mortality and therefore disappear, perish, fail. If this is the option, one is invited to leave a human trace in what the artist calls The Resistance Island.
The RYDER is proud to transform itself into Antolí’s Resistance Island continuing the fiction she started at Tate after her 2 years research on repetition, gestures and the infinite loop. From here we invite the audience to witness and experience the path of mortality and uniqueness that existence implies. For the exhibition, Antoli’s display will ask the visitor to leave a trace that will surrender to time and in the form of a new interactive sculpture commissioned for the show. Besides, the work Chaos Dancing Cosmos, which occupied the whole 5th floor of Tate Modern, will have a reconfigured presence in the space. Some of the drawings that marked her performative way of researching will be also scattered on the space creating an environment that invites the audience to resist.
Rosana Antolí’s practice examines the role of social choreography and movement in relation to visual art. She is specifically interested in the poetics of everyday actions through repetition and the connection rhythms in urban spaces and the geographical gestures of the body. Rosana works between drawing, sculpture, video, performance and installation. Her works have recently been exhibited at TATE Modern, Tate Exchange (2019), Centre Pompidou (2018), Artium Vitoria Museum (2017), BBVA Foundation (2017), The RYDER Projects (2017), Joan Miro Foundation Museum (2016) and more.
Cover image © Rosana Antolí, The Resistance Island (Installation view) Photo: Tom Carter
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The Resistance Island, Rosana Antolí
The Ryder: 19a Herald St., London E2 6JT
24 MAY – 28 JUNE 2019
Info + photos from https://theryderprojects.com/exhibitions/the-resistance-island-rosana-antoli/