PORTFOLIO

Nourathar Studio is a creative technologies lab, initiated by Caen Botto and Marta Rupérez. Their work explores the impact of technology on our perception, as well as the subjective nature of reality. 

Artworks by Nourathar convey their disenchantment with the simplification of reality prompted by the technification of all its features: from the commercialization of augmented social spaces, to the digitization of our dreams, or the role of social networks in the construction of our inter-subjectivity. 

In this context, their work with mixed reality, at the encounter of the physical and the virtual, operates as an analogy of the moment in which we live, where we witness the seamless fusion between both spheres. In their devices, installations and performances, they defend technology as a tool to appreciate the complexity, the infinite nuances, and the interconnections that make possible the poem of existence. They suggest a poetic relationship with technology that encourages inner silence, as an alternative to the technological cacophony that surrounds and distracts us. 

More about Nourathar Studio / Founders' Bios

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Recent exhibitions and projects include installations (sensitive spaces) as well as audio-visual devices (hypnosophical devices) that combine digital media, physical interaction and mixed reality with analogue resources and obsolete technologies. Through these projects they imagine another version of what technology could have been in the past, and what it could become in the future. 

L'enfer c'est les autres @ La parada de los monstruos

Est_Art Space, Alcobendas 2023

Cabinet of Hypnosophical Curiosities

Can Jeroni, Sant Josep de sa Talaia, 2019

ARTWORKS

SENSITIVE SPACES

Nourathar's interactive artworks invite users to explore the connections between the light, colour and sound spectra. The visitor’s physical experience with these artworks generates further correspondences with the environment. In this way, the gallery becomes a sensitive space, an audiovisual instrument with an invisible interface that allows for an intuitive experience of the work, in which audiences become active participants of the artwork, instead of passive spectators.

Custom application in each interactive artwork, developed in Max/MSP/Jitter by Caen Botto.

L'enfer c'est les autres, 2023

Participatory installation 

Metal shelving unit + 8 glass jars. Software, computer, projectors, custom electronics, camera & stainless steel stand, lights, micro-controller. (more)

https://vimeo.com/865611861

Spektral-Hexplorer, 2019

Interactive controller for audio-visual immersion

Reflective semi-sphere, "Hexachrom" keyboard (custom development). Software, computer, projector, electronics, micro-controller, speakers.  (more)

https://vimeo.com/410716784

PaNoPtYk pArAdOx 2.0, 2011 - 19

Semi-immersive, sound-reactive environment


Generative application. Computer, projectors, microphone, audio interface. (more)

https://vimeo.com/368255326

HYPNOSOPHICAL DEVICES

These artworks expose the obsolescence of technologies that determined historical realities; they highlight how the promises of the future, which were inherent to those appliances, have faded away. The confluence of proto-cinematic techniques with digital tools draws audiences into a dreamscape inhabited by futurities from an imaginary past and memories from an oneiric future. 

The silent, animated content of the devices is, nevertheless, approached with a musical sense of rhythm and balance. Each piece is characterized by a particular construction of the physical-virtual space, where a silent and visual music is displayed. This space for silence and introspection seeks to counteract the permanent noise to which contemporary communication technologies subject us.

Mechanica Orbitalis, 2021

SnakeHole_14

Intermodulation of oscillating patterns. Machinima of generative software.

Screen, player. lens and electronic components in wooden frame.

https://vimeo.com/700476317

(more)

Post-Industrial Oneiric Archaeology, 2019

Augmented still-life.

Mixed media; custom wooden box, glass and metal objects, reflective elements. LCD screen, Raspberry Pi, electronics.

https://vimeo.com/371454753

(more)

InfiniTV, 2018

Multilayer reflected display in vintage TV

Mixed media; 1950's TV set, glass, perspex. LCD screen, Raspberry Pi, electronics.

https://vimeo.com/306546846

(more)