Biblioteca naciona de… [National Library of …]
Graphite on paper
Set of 12 drawings (2 of which: National Library of Chile and National Library of France are in private collections)
29,7 x 42 cm each. Variable layout
2017
* Finalist work in the VI Mardel Visual Arts Award, 2018. Members of the jury: Bea Espejo, Iñaki Martínez Antelo, José judices Pérez Pont.
Drawings made from the Google search: “Biblioteca Nacional de…” (the same for Spanish as for Catalan) [National Library of… ] and the list that the search engine gives by default: Spain, Catalonia, Buenos Aires, Colombia … This action done in another language and from somewhere other than Barcelona, would give a different result.
The place to go to search for knowledge, with the library as its symbol, is now being replaced by search engines on the Internet.
The Internet gives us a false sense of the democratization of knowledge. It seems that it contains everything, but it is a mirage that conforms us. Google is like the “great sage”. Who does not know something asks “Mr. Google”. This “gentleman”, who if he had an identity would be male, western, capitalist and heterosexual. We must not forget that we filter access to knowledge through a company with commercial intentions and interests. This is a very concrete and instrumentalized vision of the world.
What are the containers of knowledge today? How and in what way is the content managed? How do we access them? What are the hidden powers?
