By using sculpture, performance, installation, and video, Elena Urucatu and Carlos Maté’s work talks about those who see no point in making art because they have lost all hope in humankind: The human being is a terrible species dragging the planet into extinction, but out of boredom they decide to celebrate a funeral for the world, their world as well. It’s within this gesture that they find the meaning of art they were no longer looking for. Theirs is the art of going towards nothingness.

In their projects, the eco-catastrophe is always present as a starting point of the research process, the performative experiments, and the audiovisual installations. The approach always comes from a no-didactic, psychological and dark perspective: In the space of darkness, the produced artworks are a form of death, turning life into a fragment, a frozen ruin.

The work presented at GlogauAIR showcases the investigation “The Year Without Summer”, in which the gothic horror figure of the Vampire is recast as a multi-present shadow with infinite layers and surprising connections with our current ecological crisis.

This work suggests a very simple idea: in a devastated world, only those capable of experiencing love for an animal, a plant, a book, a musical score, a vinyl record, or an artwork will be able to survive. However, in order to truly love, we must give up a large part of our humanity. We must stop being human.