La Nave Imaginable

Conde de Vistahermosa, 52 (Metro Marqués de Vadillo/Usera)

https://www.laimaginable.org/

22.09.2024 13:00

J-V de 17h a 20h.
S-D de 11h a 14h.

La Nave Imaginable

Info

«Insects are evil thoughts thought of by selfish men
It nearly drives me crazy»
Ocean, Lou Reed

Sometimes you have to know how to wait for the right moment. To sharpen your senses. If we concentrate hard enough we can hear the sounds that come out. See through the shadows and the darkness. Feel the flicker of an insect, or catch a glimpse of the island disappearing, moving in a new direction.

You stare at a fixed point for as long as possible, concentrating on not blinking, and everything else begins to disappear. All your senses become focused. Everything else becomes empty. Like when you look at the screen in the cinema and you feel that the auditorium and the other spectators disappear.

There are several ways to disappear. You can disappear like insects that go unnoticed, that are omitted. The unspoken subject, the details. They are there but we don’t see them, they are camouflaged by the environment. They can see us, but we can’t see them. It happens all the time, things that escape our senses. Suddenly someone mentions to you how many broken mirrors are lying in the street and you start to see them everywhere.
You had never paid attention to them before. Like those insects that fill the room.
If all at once they all disappeared it would take you a while to know what was missing, but you would instantly notice their absence.

You can disappear as the island disappears the moment you look for it. In this case you don’t know for sure if it’s your eyes, a mirage, or if it’s the island that moves, that drifts. You know that islands don’t disappear, that they are fixed, but still it’s not there. It is curious to write about imaginary islands for La Nave Imaginable. Perhaps it is easier easier than it looks: if everything is fiction, everything is imagined. The island becomes part of the ship.
Another way is to disappear physically. A few weeks ago we visited Finisterre, in search of the Great Sun and the site where Bas Jan Ader’s drifting sailboat was found.

Bas also disappeared, no one ever heard from him again, and today he is presumed dead.
His sailboat suffered the same fate. Although it had been left in police custody in a port in A Coruña, it disappeared from one day to the next, as if by magic. It is easy to disappear at sea and there is no shortage of examples of this. That infinite, dark mass, which extends beyond the horizon.

There are those who say that we don’t die, that we don’t finish disappearing, until we are completely forgotten by the living. In that memory remains our ghost, which continues to move among things. Just as retinal persistence keeps images alive beyond the screen, and gives meaning to cinema. With this act we can relive constantly, even if only for one, two, or three blinks.

Text: Santiago Colombo Migliorero

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FESTIVAL 2025

PROYECTOR 2025

30.11.-0001

2025 arrives filled with moving images with a new edition of the PROYECTOR Festival: New Hertzog Da Silva Awards and the 3rd Edition of VERTICAL <25

The PROYECTOR platform showcases and distributes the most experimental and cutting-edge proposals from the international scene. The Festival is known for its non-cinemanormative works—pieces that fall outside traditional formats and engage directly with space and the active viewer.

From September 10 to 21, 2025, more than twenty venues across Madrid will intersect to present new languages and formats through around 100 works of expanded cinema, performance, video art, site-specific pieces, interactive installations, and unique premieres presented for the first time at the Festival.

PROYECTOR collaborates with both independent and established spaces, spanning from the city center to surrounding neighborhoods of the capital. These venues are filled with video art proposals curated by the PROYECTOR platform as well as by the galleries and museums that form part of the OFF Circuit.

Additionally, PROYECTOR works with other festivals focused on experimental video art and moving image, such as Loops.Expanded, FIVA, PLAY, and Fonlad.

But there’s more!

In its 18th edition, the Hertzog Da Silva Awards return! A total of 6 prizes will be awarded to works selected through the public call by this edition’s jury. Each year, the jury is made up of international professionals specializing in experimental video art. For this edition, the jury includes both artists and curators.

Thanks to Hertzog Da Silva, we are also launching—for the second year—the call for young creators who think vertically: VERTICAL <25. With a new public voting system via social media, you can help choose the winner of a production residency in 2026!

PROYECTOR continues to champion Madrid’s contemporary art scene by collaborating with the Platform of Independent Contemporary Creation Spaces, featuring 10 new venues this year and, for the first time, opening the doors to artists’ studios.

The Festival is committed to equality and to the internationalization of a free and accessible culture. That’s why each year, more than half of the selected works are by women artists from up to 30 different countries, and all festival activities are free of charge.

Additionally, all events—including openings, talks, performances, and workshops—will be streamed online (via YouTube and Vimeo) to ensure international accessibility.

The platform collaborates with universities, offering younger generations the opportunity to gain training and integrate into the cultural sector. We are grateful for the support and sponsorship of associations, galleries, foundations, private companies, embassies, venues, and above all, the artists who make it all possible.

Rebeca M Urizar