LIGA 31: Panósmico (Mex)

Hydrographic Auscultation Circuit

LIGA 31: Panósmico (Mex)

Hydrographic Auscultation Circuit

LIGA 31: Panósmico
Hydrographic Auscultation Circuit
November 2019 – January 2020

The Hydrographic Auscultation Circuit is a methodological observatory, datacollector, information processor, and language interface. It acts as a link between different media, disciplines, and territories, reimagining the possibilities of the landscape and exploring its ecological imbalances.

CAH studies the concealed and exposed waterways that circulate within Mexico City, as well as their effects on the environment, viewed in constant relation to historical and temporal conditions. The focus of the present exploration is the Becerra river, a body of water whose place and role in the urban territory of Mexico City offers rich material for investigation. Located in the west of the city, it flows from the heights of Santa Fe, through the neighborhoods adjoining Alta Tensión, and on between the thoroughfares of Periférico and Patriotismo, finally running into a deep drainage system at the commencement of a major distributor road. As one of the last visible bodies of water in the center of the city, its bears witness to the desiccation and sanitation polices implemented since the Spanish Conquest, right through to the modern regimes of presidents Porfirio Díaz and Luis Echeverría: river = tubing = drainage.

CAH is presented as an observatory and expanded sensorial or phenomenological amplifier that makes it possible to enter into the metabolism of the water and visualize it, using various micro-controllers intercommunicated and articulated through a server. The translation of the fluctuating data is presented through two platforms: one of them physical exposed at LIGA, and the other virtual, on the website of the project www.panosmico.com, where comparative analysis graphics and other details of the project are also available.

The display operates with three sensor stations installed in dams A, C, and D of the Becerra river, which provide hourly readings of several fluctuating index: pH, amount of oxygen, speed of movement, temperature, and density of particles dissolved in the water. The collected information circulates in real time inside LIGA, translated by actuators in the installation. Each container receives the processed information of the river and reacts to the values obtained, affecting the image of the dams reproduced on a screen. Through this filmic approach, the riverbed can be imagined, where concrete and asphalt take possession of the space, showing the chaotic urban structure. The stations, equipped with closed circuit cameras, function as eyewitnesses.

CAH is a project by Panósmico (Manolo Larrosa and Mariana Mañón) in collaboration with Roberto Michelsen, Íñigo Malvido, Francisco Ohem, and Mateo Torres Ruiz. This is the winner proposal of “Imaginal Machines”, LIGA ‘s open call competition.

 

Photography: Arturo Arrieta

Panósmico: An Anti-Anthropocentric Artistic Research collective by Lucas Bartholl

https://panosmico.cargo.site