Marcelino Antúnez: "You go to Barcelona to buy a perpal and no one knows what you're talking about."

BarcelonaIn Marcelino Antúnez's studio (Moià, 1959), he has unfurled an immense curtain led by four major technological giants. The illustrated bosses of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs emerge from worm-shaped bodies to observe what, according to the artist, they have been sowing for years: people abducted by mobile phones and completely disconnected from their environment. "There are these, but I could have put the President of Mercadona either Jair Bolsonaro, which has deforested the Amazon," explains Antúnez. The backdrop will be part of Nature Centrum East, a community performance (anyone who wants to participate) that will take place through the streets of Olot on April 25th, as part of the Sismografo festival, to demand that nature once again play a leading role in today's society.

The curtain folds and unfolds like the accordions in books. pop-upOn the one hand, Antúnez has depicted technological capitalism and virtualized humanity. On the other, hope: endangered animals—such as Iberian lynxes, white-footed crayfish, and hoopoes—that live far from the monster of the screen. Founder of La Fura dels Baus and the collective Los Rinos, Antúnez built an artistic career, starting in the 1990s and well into the 21st century, with technology as its central axis. Now that he has embraced nature and is attacking digital society, he seems to have gone from one extreme to the other.

But he maintains that it's not a contradictory transformation. "I'm the son of cattle ranchers and I was lucky enough to live as a farmer during the 1960s. Then we created La Fura dels Baus, which appealed to the wild," explains Antúnez, adding that "technology isn't bad, the problem is that they've made it bad. At first, it was open to everyone, with projects like Open Source, and all that." In 2014, Antúnez realized the path that society was taking with new technologies. "I made an exhibition It was like a swan song. I realized I didn't want to become a guild of art and technology, but it took me ten years to get to where I am today. It's been quite a process," the creator notes.

Filling Montjuïc with vegetable gardens

Reading works by figures such as the philosopher and poet Lanza del Vasto and the activist Luz de la Selva, as well as a personal garden, have played a significant role in this personal journey. "I got serious five years ago and have researched how to generate compounds. Why don't they teach horticulture in schools? Everything we eat is terrible," emphasizes Antúnez, who takes aim at large corporations and globalization. "Fifty percent of climate change is the fault of agribusiness. Barcelona City Council should fill Montjuïc with gardens. Soon they'll have them distributed," proposes the artist, who quotes the book. Future primitive (1994) by John Zerzan as his great reference. "He argues that the golden age of humanity is when we were hunters and gatherers," says Antúnez. "Well, but now we only talk about the United States. Precisely when our language is so rich in everything to do with the forest and the peasantry."

In Nature Centrum East There will be representations of endangered animals, flags, costumes, and protest signs with messages such as "technology is not neutral" and "we are not things, we are subjects." The project will include Rachel Carson, a pioneer in denouncing pesticides, and Wangari Maathai, who planted more than 30 million trees in Kenya. "Rolls," says Antúnez. After its visit to Olot, the project Nature Centrum East It will be installed from December in the Oval Room of the National Art Museum of Barcelona.