JustMadFair, Madrid
February 20-25, 2018
Javier Viver received the Award Residencia Fundación ENAIRE for his project Aurelia Immortal at JustMad Art Fair, (Galería Marisa Marimón).
Description of the book Aurelia Immortal by Dalphine:
In Aurelia Immortal, Javier Viver outlines a narrative that oscillates between scientific documentation and fiction.
This work focuses on the existence of a peculiar being: the aurelia aurita, a type of jellyfish that has an unlimited capacity to regenerate. Guided by a scientific and metaphysical interest in a phenomenon found in nature that leads to a reflection on the possibility of immortality, Javier Viver tries to document the life cycle of this species.
The history of Aurelia Immortal is told from 2046, from a future in which the advances of biotechnology will have allowed to develop a transhuman species, whose life will be prolonged indefinitely. Javier Viver thinks that science and art face death with different methods.
In Aurelia Immortal some of the objectives of transhumanism are summarized, an ideology that considers a moral obligation to improve the human condition through technology, working in areas such as the creation of a superior form of intelligence, the elimination of suffering or the prolongation of the human life.
Viver goes a step further on the biotechnology challenges of which he speaks in his new work, because they do not only affect science and art, but also other fundamental areas, such as religion. It raises the question whether the solution to human aspirations of immortality can be an indefinite extension of natural existence, or whether the enduring life lies elsewhere, beyond the biological.
This book, designed by the author, consists of two volumes: the first in the form of a leporello, which collects photographs of the life cycle of the jellyfish; and the second as a notebook where texts, drawings and photographic documentation are reproduced.
ISBN 978-84-8081-544-4
MUN/Trama Editorial, 2017
2 vols. in a box
12,5 x 17,8 cm
English/Spanish
