Julio Torres & Sam Doubek: CaveTech Ltd.
Commissioned by Canyon, ArtYard, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College Developed and produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film
In CaveTech Ltd., a new mixed-media commission, a cartoonish distortion of contemporary technological life collapses the perceived distance between the prehistoric and the modern. The work marks Julio Torres’s visual art debut and brings him together with sculptor and painter Sam Doubek to imagine an alternative Stone Age already shaped by uncannily recognizable hierarchies and systems, playfully exposing the absurdities of modern life.
In this surreal Stone Age origin story, we are invited to participate as the unseen real estate developer, surveying a construction site through binoculars from the comfort of home. Bringing together video, sculpture, and trompe-l’œil painting, the work unfolds around a durational performance in which Torres inhabits Perinico, a worker whose labor helps keep this imagined system in motion. Using a walkie-talkie, the real estate developer has relayed instructions to Perinico. Increasingly uneasy delivering orders that are not his own, Perinico begins to question his position between those who exercise authority and those who experience its consequences. Eventually, he arrives at what feels like a historically significant discovery.
By placing us within this chain of command, Torres and Doubek consider bureaucracy as an apparatus for organizing not only labor, but responsibility, distance, and power. What happens when authority can be exercised without being seen? Is the intermediary simply transmitting power, or does that transmission make him complicit? And what does it mean for us to occupy the position from which those commands originate? If technological modernization carries the promise of making life better, does it bring us closer together – or simply create more sophisticated ways of keeping some people above, some below, and others uncomfortably in between?
CaveTech Ltd. Production Credits
Production by May Kielany. Electronics programming, system integration, and armature fabrication by Mitch Kelly, with chair fabrication by Dav Schwimmer. Audio devices plastic fabrication and their painting by Benn Gabrinner. Cinematography by Sam Levy. Special effects makeup by Nina Carelli. Hair by Sean Bennet. Costume designer Giancarlo Jacobs. Set design assistance and prop design by Reece Koetter. Lighting by Olivier Metzler. Camera assistance by Willa Pisarski. Sound by Michael Moote. Additional production support by Eric Fiorito and Sandra Dillon.
The video works were made possible through ArtYard’s artist residency program.
Special thanks to Olivia Gerke, Laine Margulies, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Stephen Morrison.
Photo at top by Jose Alvarado
Español
En CaveTech Ltd., una nueva obra comisionada de técnica mixta, una distorsión caricaturesca de la vida tecnológica contemporánea desdibuja la distancia que percibimos entre lo prehistórico y lo moderno. La obra marca el debut de Julio Torres en las artes visuales y lo reúne con el escultor y pintor Sam Doubek para imaginar una Edad de Piedra alternativa, ya moldeada por jerarquías y sistemas inquietantemente reconocibles, exponiendo con humor lo absurdo de la vida moderna.
En este relato surreal de origen ambientado en la Edad de Piedra, se nos invita a participar como el promotor inmobiliario invisible, observando una obra en construcción a través de binoculares desde la comodidad de nuestro hogar. Combinando video, escultura y pintura trompe-l’œil, la obra se articula en torno a una interpretación de larga duración en la que Torres encarna a Perinico, un trabajador cuya labor ayuda a mantener en funcionamiento este sistema imaginario. A través de un walkie-talkie, el promotor inmobiliario le ha transmitido instrucciones a Perinico. Cada vez más incómodo al comunicar órdenes que no son suyas, Perinico comienza a cuestionar su posición entre quienes ejercen la autoridad y quienes viven sus consecuencias. Finalmente, llega a lo que parece ser un descubrimiento de importancia histórica.
Al situarnos dentro de esta cadena de mando, Torres y Doubek consideran la burocracia como un aparato que organiza no solo el trabajo, sino también la responsabilidad, la distancia y el poder. ¿Qué ocurre cuando la autoridad puede ejercerse sin ser vista? ¿El intermediario simplemente transmite el poder, o esa transmisión lo hace cómplice? ¿Y qué significa para nosotros ocupar la posición desde la cual se originan esas órdenes? Si la modernización tecnológica conlleva la promesa de mejorar nuestras vidas, ¿nos acerca realmente unos a otros, o simplemente crea formas más sofisticadas de mantener a algunos arriba, a otros abajo y a otros, incómodamente, en medio?
