OPN Studio. Dogmatic Lullaby, 2013

OPN Studio is an artistic group of two Spanish artists Susana Ballesteros Boullosa and Alejandro Montanés Garrido who combine technology and robotic art. Their investigation reflects on the individualism, the isolation and the conception of the individual as being social, as well as the analysis of one’s instinctive reactions, which face the unknown, the “non-scheduled” and the undefined.

The art of the OPN Studio is based on several factors, which include dynamism, movement and mechanical simultaneousness. Technical synchronization creates optical illusions with kinetics and robotics. Shadows, reflections and sensors used in the artworks are activated by the movements of the exhibition visitors. Hanging sculptures connected to each other and their syncronized kinetic mirrors distort reality through numerous optical effects. The aim is to create “a living theatre”.

Dogmatic Lullaby series is based on investigation and inquiries on showing and inviting us to reflect our own fragility from ones own point of view. Life’s passageway has been depicted with furrows of elderly ladies. The baroque framing of the art works emphasizes the time perspective. Bald and stationary portraits of faces pass on the human dogmatic heritage that never perishes and which forms our timeless loop, as if it was a lullaby. Through the art works we can also get a feeling of the knowledge of life and its wisdom that will probably be remained in the circle of life only in gleaming lullabies.

Dogmatic Lullaby photographic series was made in collaboration with elderly ladies from Eurajoki and Rauma and Eurajoki Culture Office.

During the residence Ballersteros and Montanés held an electronic workshop EMO (emotion through the electronic) for Rauma Lyseo 8^th grade visual art schoolers.

The workshop was an introduction to the electronic and its robotic application through the Arduino electronics prototyping platform, an open-source based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Schoolers did their own design for an object that they could play, whether if was a moving robot or an instrument.

This exhibition was supported by the Pépiniéres européennes pour jeunes artistses –organization emobilty-support for young artists given directly to OPN Studio.

Susana Ballesteros studied industrial design at the San Valero University and arts in Zaragoza. Jano Montanés is a technician in mechanics and electricity, who also has industrial engineering studies. OPN Studio has attended several exhibitions in Spain, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Honduras and El Salvador.