Spectres of Calculated Prophecies, 2023
Split Ends, 2023

 
Reina Sofia, Madrid
Machinations
21 June — 28 August 2023
Curated by Pablo Allepuz, Manuel Borja-Villel, iLiana Fokianaki, Rafael García and Teresa Velázquez

 

 
Spectres of Calculated Prophecies, 2023
Light box, 330 x 100 cm

 
Split Ends #10022021, 2023 and Split Ends #09112020, 2023
drawings on linoleum, 90 x 120 cm

 

The artist Femke Herregraven explores what Félix Guattari called ‘Integrated World Capitalism’ through the structural framework of catastrophe bonds, one of the most extreme forms of current financial engineering. Invented in the 1990s after several insurance companies had defaulted as a consequence of Hurricane Andrew, catastrophe bonds are debt instruments for governments and private firms that do not depend on market variables but on the probability of a disaster like a flood, a volcanic eruption, a terrorist attack, an earthquake, or a pandemic. Through a combination of historical data and complex algorithmic operations, the great powers model the future in order to predict the best moment for redirecting their investments.

 
The first half of Herregraven’s installation consists of a light box that visually indexes the more than eight hundred catastrophe bonds generated to date, rather like a Kafkian theatre of stocks and shares. Such a possibility of managing risk is available only to a few, and it therefore amplifies divisions of class, gender, and race. In opposition to this, a pair of diagrammatic drawings take personal or collective catastrophe as a starting point for fostering mutual support and care. They configure a network that is not based on competition but on solidarity, and which concentrates on defending public and community assets instead of protecting private wealth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

–––
With artists: Georges Adéagbo, Efrén Álvarez, Ismaïl Bahri, Sammy Baloji, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Ahmed Bouanani, Touda Bouanani, Paula Guerrero y Esperanza Collado, Rojava Film Commune, Cian Dayrit, Test Department, Ângela Ferreira, Hermanos Frenkel (Herschel, Shlomo y David Frenkel), Dora García, Florencia Rodríguez Giles, Heiner Goebbels, Patricia Gómez y María Jesús González, Huanchaco (Fernando Gutiérrez), Femke Herregraven, Iconoclasistas, hackitectura.net (Pablo DeSoto, Sergio Moreno y José Pérez de Lama), Yervant Gianikian y Angela Ricci Lucchi, Abu Bakarr Mansaray, François Pain y François Marcelly-Fernandez, Rabih Mroué, Bouchra Ouizguen, Taring Padi, Antón Patiño, Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Todo por la praxis, Dania Reymond, Monlee y Roxlee, Eran Schaerf, Tejal Shah, Tai Shani, Rayyane Tabet, Raphaël Grisey y Bouba Touré, Loreto Martínez Troncoso, La Rara Troupe, Alexander Tuchaček, Gee Vaucher, Simón Vega, Vangelis Vlahos, Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara, Zush (Alberto Porta Muñoz)