The Communication Graveyard
by
Luigi Pagliarini

Project conceived in November and designed in December 2006.
It was then realized in between February and March 2007.

The Communication Graveyard is part of the

Wanderings of a day, in the beginning and the Tindaya project

Production
Centro de Arte Juan Ismael, Puerto del Rosario (Fuerteventura)

Curator
Nilo Casares

Coordination
Mari Carmen Rodríguez

Artists
Fernando Casás
Juan Castillo
Eduardo Chillida
Christo and Jean-Claude
Santiago Cirugeda
Corporación Cultural Amereida (curated by Claudia Zaldívar and Pablo Brugnoli)
Darko Fritz
Hamish Fulton
Nancy Holt
Eva & Franco Mattes, a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG
Fernando Lagreca
Brian Mackern
Óscar Mora
Francis Naranjo
Luigi Pagliarini
Robert Smithson

Concept

It opens the 16^th of March of 2007 in the island of Fuerteventura, departuring from and returning to the Centro de Arte Juan Ismael, until the 14^th of April of 2007.
In order to deepen in the relations between Art and Nature this exhibition is divided in two different parts, one historical and one active, untitled Wanderings of a day, in the start and the Tindaya project.
The beginning of this exhibition is set at the Centro de Arte Juan Ismael where consolidated works representative of the Land-Art movement are exhibited through different earthworks whose main expositive example is the project of intervention in the Tindaya Mountain by Eduardo Chillida.

Chilean group Corporación Cultural Amereida (Travesía Amereida de 1965), Fernando Casás (Projeto Errante/Entrada na natureza), Christo & Jeanne-Claude(Wrapped Coast, Valley Curtain, Running Fence, Surrounded Islands, The Gate), Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), Nancy Holt (Sun Tunnels), Hamish Fulton (Walking - Walking y Un año —Lanzarote—). All exhibited in a documentary way, since it is a kind of art located on very concrete territories that cannot be moved of their original location, so more than exhibited, they are evoked through different means used by the artists of this movement to transfer the natural placement to the nonsite of the exhibition space.

Wanderings of a day is… the result of inviting several artists to make interventions conceived to be accessible within a day journey from the Centro de Arte Juan Ismael.

The invited artists are outside to Land-Art, although accustomed to work on public spaces, thus we count with The Communication Graveyard, by Luigi Pagliarini (Italian artist that will work in Los Estancos), Metallic, by Francis Naranjo (Spanish artist who will do it in La Oliva), Fantasma urbano, by Santiago Cirugeda (Spanish artist that will invade El Cotillo), Wir arbeiten für Sie, by Óscar Mora (Spanish artist whose work will be located in Costa Calma), Tu imagen, by Juan Castillo (Chilean artist who will inhabit Tiscamanita), 204_NO_CONTENT, by Darko Fritz (Croatian artist that will be based on El Efeque) and Reenactment of Beuys' 7000 Oaks, by Eva & Franco Mattes, alias 0100101110101101.ORG, (European artists that will occupy the Centro de Arte Juan Ismael). In addition, and like a continuity stream, we count on the sonorous composition Trayectos_sonoros.ftv, by the Uruguayan Brian Mackern an Fernando LaGreca, which will join the different interventions on the territory.

The connecting theme of the interventions on the territory is the residual, the natural or human presence, since we start from the Eduardo Chillida' Tindaya project, emerged from the use of the mineral waste extracted to hollow the mountain, waste commercially used and as a result of its operation the Chillida work comes up. Following this inevitable residual presence, all the interventions on the territory are made on residual zones, some generated by the own nature, as it is the case, quite contradictory since an apparent detritus takes in an unexpected garden, of the malpaìs so characteristic all around the island, the only case in that we would be located on a natural waste, because the rest has entropic root, cases of the traces left by the excavation for the use of the land as border roads and the inscriptions with small stones left over the hills of the island with different cultural intentions, that conform a weak entropic presence. But also we find a stronger entropic presence in the abandoned airport, the streets left just as they are by the interruption of a city-planning in El Cotillo or the transformation of sandy grounds for the tourist operation.
This way, the different artists, and following the outline to intervene in already contaminated territories, as pure Nature does not exist, the same characteristic as the Chillida' Tindaya project, form a renewed cartography of the Fuerteventura island.
During the first week, a bus will be ready to transport the visitors along the different interventions giving them a small snack, but without awarding them with the catalogue at the end of the route, reserved only to the visitors that make the route by their own and starting from the first week, since the catalogue, as requires the cataloguing in situ, could not be published for the opening.
With these interventions, a new cartography of the territory is done inviting people to travel the “exhibition” and to show that it has been done by taking mobile phone. These proofs will work as stamps on the 'compostelana'. Once the wandering is finished, and as a peregrine, the people is awarded with the catalogue of the exhibition.
With this prize for visitors we want to transfer the English experience of the passage on the territory as an artistic form to the own visitor, a way to integrate the aesthetic and artistic experiences.
Thus we get an exhibition about the landscape divided in two parts: one first, reflected of some earthworks of the Land-Art, with scent of time; one second, formed by interventions made by present artists who do not belong to the Land-Art because it has no sense to be part of this or that movement, but, in this case, just to conquer the open public spaces.

THE PROJECT

The Location


Fuerteventura. Abandoned Airport, El Cotillo.




The Installation Area (approx. mt² 3.500)

The Concept

The concept, in short, is a graveyard for used technologies and it regards the ordinary earth inhabitant, industry and enterprise to neglect recycling hardware, as well as, the common abuse of renewing existing apparatuses, mostly leaded by the blind fashion and consumes policy followed and promoted all over the world. Indeed, the nowadays esteems talk of 15.000.000 electronic apparatus sold everyday while, on the other hand, only 500.000 recycled, each single earth revolution. All of that must be changed as soon as possible!

The Tools

Clear enough, all the items we used for the installation are rigorously second-hand or more! We used 512 recycled polystyrene gravestones.

The recycled gravestones.

The recycled gravestones were treated and partially buried and, for each tomb, one or more recycled technological objects was used to personalize the deads' gravestones with an old IT hardware, as in the following example.

The Graveyard Design

The entire graveyard was given the Fuerteventura island’s shape by disposing the gravestones alongside its perimeter and by filling its whole area. The island shape was located within the location individuated above.

The Fuerteventura shape

Graveyard location within the field

The “shaping” method

The “visitors” fruition


The driving by observation point.

The graveyard has different points of observation:

1. from the road (by drivers);
2. close observation (of people that decide to stop by);
3. from above (most of the flights when taking off from the new airport fly above the location).

THE REALIZATION

Within the full area individuated above (3,500 mt²) a subarea has been defined (1,800 mt²) and mapped (sand color ropes) in such a way that the island shape could be drawn in. The final drawing of the island resulted to have a surface of about 510 mt². All of that was done by the mean of ropes of different colors so to distinguish the designing area from the drawing of the island.

Within the island shape (white color ropes) were localized and arranged 512 tombs of 1.20x0.80 mt. (blue color ropes), covering, as in a pixeling process, 491.52 mt².

Once that was done, for each tomb was dig an hole as large as to contain its own gravestone (40 cm) and deep enough to allow the '31 Ottobre 2006' text carved on each and every gravestone to be buried and, therefore, by leaving visible the "..noi garantiamo soltanto l'andata" (we just guarantee one way), only. The intention was to assert a somehow polemic message to those who produce, distribute and sell HW without caring of any recycling.

After that gravestones where positioned and hardware partially buried. The idea was to position the hardware pieces in such a way to represent, as far as possible, both colors and altitude of the real island. Nevertheless the result is relatively sharp since we've been using around 1.200 second-hand hardware, in a choice of about 5.000 units.

The final installation and details

After the work was complete...

...different details where added and studied for the final presentation and opening of the exposition, like:

• "Dead of A.I.” skull, to be taken within the bus tour to the graveyard;

  

• The “The IT Son” a ‘young’ robot taking flowers to parents in the graveyard;

  

• The “IT Mortuary Room” consisting of a Parabolic Antenna out of order with son and television praying for it. This last part of the installation constantly lighted with candles was built, mostly, for night visitors.

  

  
  
  

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