Fito Conesa. “Aram”

When we talk about mining, farming or fishing, we inevitably resort to semantic fields that offer an insight into our relationship with nature and our surroundings, and they clearly disclose how, on most occasions, we have come to take a pyramidal, totalitarian approach to the ecosystems we inhabit.

The human imprint on the landscape erodes its authenticity, consigning it to a peculiar event horizon where it is stripped of any spontaneity. We transform soil and water, but, in our wake, a very specific socioeconomic landscape is left. It is a landscape of contradiction, in which development is assumed to be directly proportional to the exploitation, use and disuse of adjacent natural spaces.

Having reached this point–and with no desire on my part to launch into a litany of reprimands or punishments–, there is something that pervades all these situations and equations involving nature and humanity: melancholy. It is in this contradiction that a structural melancholy makes its presence felt, a tinkling musical sound that constantly reminds us that the decision we take might benefit us in the short term, but it has also set in motion a silent clock that changes the colour chart of our landscapes and even the composition of the air. In that same instant, a strange possibility of change rears its head: a carefully situated poetics, the need to balance that asynchronous relationship.  Cartageneras and mineras are specific varieties of flamenco song that try to becalm situations of anguish or grief, as if it were possible to calm the waters or recompose lived experiences.

Fito Conesa delves into that poetic rift and, through music, he explores the different layers and strata that our tracks leave on the landscape. The sounds that emerge from his compositions ooze with nitrate, dust and time in suspension, but, at the same time, their reverberations open up an opportunity or a new twist in the narrative.

The mining mountains of La Unión, the Mar Menor sea, and the frozen lake at Rouyn-Noranda are the scenarios for a musical score. It is a recital that will help us to learn to interpret what lies beyond our vision, using music as a trigger and a structural basis. Conesa invites us to give way to chords and melodies that timidly rise in crescendo, reminding us that the earth surrendered the landscape to memory.

ANÒXIA, UN PRELUDI CONSTANT

Barcelona-Cartagena, 2023
Duration: 25 mins 42 seconds
Format: HD Cinemascope
The collection of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, MACBA

Anòxia. Un preludi constant is an opera that gradually narrates some of the most evident problems faced by the Mediterranean Sea. A visual song and an extension of our questionable  coexistence with the Mediterranean, it narrates the dark events that are taking place in thermal glissandos, although they do not become entrenched in fatality as the only possible melody. It is an audio-visual work built in different stages, with different voices, multiple sensitivities, and a real sense of engagement: a naumachia in three acts.

Anòxia, an opera in three acts, proposes different approaches to the current issues of the Mediterranean Sea

*Anoxia is an almost total lack of oxygen in cells, in the tissues of an organism, or in an aquatic system.

HELICON

Cartagena, 2019
Duration: 6 mins
Format: 4K16:9
The collection of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, MACBA

Helicon is an invocation for the Apocalypse to begin. A band of seven brass and wind musicians starts to play a melody, futilely attempting to elicit a response from the Earth and to bring on the end of the world.

This video, recorded in the mining area of La Unión (Cartagena), takes advantage of something ferrous and artificial, produced by the waste from mining activities, to situate the action and this strange mini concert.

The initial scenes were recorded with a drone, allowing spectators to see through the eyes of Pegasus, because Helicon is also the name of the lands inhabited by this by this mystic horse.

EL REPARO

Barcelona-Cartagena, 2021
Duration: 5 mins
Format: HD 16:9
Private collection

There are numerous layers of reparos (qualms) in this work. On the one hand, the title is a direct reference to a drink commonly drunk by miners from the mining mountains of Cartagena-La Unión at the beginning or end of their arduous working day. It is a mixture of brandy and dessert wine, served in a coffee cup, which helps them to cope with the damp on cold working mornings. On the other hand, the title is also mea culpa, expressed through the voice of Lola.

She tries to assuage or intercede in that imbalance between mining activities and caring for the land.

Lola (the artist’s mother) sings a minera, a flamenco lament typical of south-east Spain. The lyrics of this minera were composed by the artist’s father, inspired by a conversation on the subject of facing up to the future and anxiety at the future of the climate.

SINFONÍA PARA ROUYN-NORANDA

Rouyn-Noranda, 2022
Duration: 12 mins 35 seconds
Format: HD 16:9
Avelino Marín collection

Sinfonía para Rouyn-Noranda is a work that explores the emotional and social landscape left behind by mining activities in Rouyn Noranda, Quebec. It not only reflects the human and environmental devastation, but also the possibility to rise from the ashes through music. The work is not just limited to the past–instead it proposes a new beginning, filled with hope and minor joys, evoking the poetry in nature and music’s capacity to transform surroundings.

What artificial alchemy lies hidden below my skin?

What lethal hieroglyphic lies in the depths of the water?