Machines that Orchestrate Relationships: Encounters Between Art, Technology and Nature

How can relationships between technology and nature be articulated through art? What connections emerge between atmospheric forces and the artist-observer? These are some of the topics we explored with Mauricio Lacrampette, an architect who has developed approaches he calls “medium machines” to investigate atmospheric phenomena and the forces that coexist within ecosystems, drawing from scientific, spiritual, and philosophical perspectives, and by cultivating a sense of wonder.

The artistic practice of Mauricio Lacrampette is built on an investigative process in which expedition and speculation are intertwined as transdisciplinary approaches to natural phenomena. Through what he calls “medium machines,” he develops sensitive technologies that seek to orchestrate encounters between the human and more-than-human by designing devices that merge art and technology, and which are composed of light, sensors and image capturing components. In his work, technology operates as a mediator, creating spaces where wonder and contemplation seek to awaken new ways of understanding various atmospheric phenomena within a specific environment.

In this conversation, Lacrampette tells us about his artistic practice and research methodologies, and reflects on the role of contemplation in artistic creation, the pursuit of mystery and wonder, and his current residency at Fundación Mar Adentro’s Bosque Pehuén natural reserve (La Araucanía region). There, he researches the puelche (a meteorological phenomenon of warm, dry winds that occur at high altitudes) as a living force, imbued with agency, that dialogues with bodies, technologies, languages and materials.

Fundación Mar Adentro (FMA): In your research and creative process there is a very particular exploratory drift, where the method is an essential part of the creative experience.

Mauricio Lacrampette (ML): Understanding what my own methodology is has been an exploratory process. I discovered it was possible to create art outside the city and established spaces—such as museums—to bring it into human and more-than-human life. I work by doing first and then weaving a narrative thread. It is art guided by intuition. So in my work I usually plan expeditions, knowing they are flexible, which is related to embracing the chaos of nature.

This is how the term “medium machine” emerges, as it describes the way I make something appear and refers to an encounter of elements accompanied by speculation at a distance. Doing these types of exercises and studying phenomena such as the wind or the camanchaca (a type of coastal fog in Chile and Peru) lead me to ask myself: what can I learn from these phenomena before I encounter them? Later, I go back to look for my speculations to prove it, complement it, or even contradict it.

FMA: In your work, there is a constant attempt to connect with what you call “the mystery.” How is this related to your interest in natural phenomena such as the camanchaca or the wind? What role does contemplation and listening play in these encounters?

ML: I call “the mystery” that which is hidden from observation. Since I was a child, I have been interested in speculating about things that cannot be directly observed. I thought of extreme cases: planets, which cannot be visited because of their distance; the microscopic world, which is too small to be visible; and dinosaurs, which cannot be observed because of their distance in time. Everything that is more observable is interesting to me, but stripped of that sense of mystery.

In the case of the camanchaca project, I deduced that if fog is a fluid, then it would be possible to observe its vortices and internal turbulence by “cutting it” with a sheet of light. The idea of cutting things comes from my training: the section is one of the fundamental tools of architecture that allows us to see what is “inside” a volume, and in that sense, I apply it as a method to explore phenomena. At the same time, contemplation emerges as a state through which to access that which is not so obviously apparent. In this case, there is a more implicit motivation—a spiritual search that is connected to confronting the mystery, but which does not seek to reveal it. By making the turbulence of fog appear, I am not attempting to calculate it or convert it into an equation or a manageable natural resource; it is a search for the human-nature connection that has been lost to Modernity.

FMA: How do you understand the role your works play in relation to the study of natural phenomena, and what type of experience do you aim to foster through them?

ML: My works try to produce an encounter. I orchestrate relationships and, in that sense, when you orchestrate something, you cannot control the outcome. There is something mystical about going to meet something. First, you make the effort to tune in, to enter into the logic of a place—you pay attention, you sit and listen, and there you find stillness. Both in the creative process and in the output of the work, attention and stillness are crucial themes. For example, these machines that ultimately become my work are also systems that “interface” with natural forces. They are receptive machines, in the sense that they make subtle, minimal or ephemeral interventions that are amplified through stillness. You have to be still to detect the movement of the world. And once you encounter that stillness, the second phase begins, which entails staying alert to what is happening in the place—its forces, its history, its scientific literature, the recognition of patterns. But it’s not only about being attuned to what is happening outside yourself, but also deeply understanding your own capacities. It is a two-way listening exercise, bringing together the imaginary with intersubjective reality.

So my operations—although they are machines and technology—are made for contemplation and the creation of encounters with the mysterious; but not from the sublime, as that also romanticizes nature. There is contemplation and affectation, but approached from another angle, in which hopefully you don’t feel that nature overwhelms you, but rather you understand that you are part of it.

FMA: How has your relationship with atmospheric phenomena such as the camanchaca or the puelche been transformed, and what is their role in your view of life, matter and the relationship between humanity and nature?

ML: I am interested in expanding the notion of life beyond what is classified today as “alive.” Each time I try to orchestrate an encounter with a natural force, I tend to do so with those that are not paradigmatically associated with the living. I’m interested in geological forces such as stone, ice, clouds, light, or the atmosphere, for their dynamics and behaviors—understanding the complexity of those systems. In a way, I’m obsessed with the mechanics of fluids and how the world is a chaotic network of fluid movements. The geometry of how things come to be is manifested in vibrations, vortices, currents, and waves.

For example, the camanchaca is an atmospheric phenomenon, but it is not just that: it is a cloud laden with nanoplastics—which are traces of humanity—and diatoms, microorganisms that once created the atmosphere itself; that is, the same beings that created it are still floating in it today. The cloud becomes a complex mixture, a kind of creature without borders, an entity that appears periodically and inconsistently under its own laws. The same happens with the puelche, which could be considered another creature of the forest, and thus, the forest itself is a mega-creature composed of multiple life forms. That is why I say my work is partly animistic, in the sense that it is about understanding natural forces as entities, as manifestations of intelligence—sometimes in ways that aren’t organically alive, but that function as force fields that traverse all things. We live in a climatic paradigm in which we must accept that there are things that aren’t “alive” and that, nevertheless, radically influence life, and vice versa. Everything is strangely entangled. The atmosphere has become central to my work, and although it is not a living being per se, all of us who breathe it carry it within our lungs.

FMA: How do you understand the relationship between technology and nature in your practice, especially in relation to the concept of “medium machine” that you mention?

ML: Machines tend to be associated with a kind of one-way translation. The concept of “medium” is a spiritualist allegory, but also works in the literal sense, as that which is in between, which mediates. So it is about extending the human senses toward the phenomenon and allowing the phenomenon to extend toward us; not letting technology impose itself, but instead letting it be affected. There is a sort of technological humility in this, where there isn’t an attempt to dominate nature, but rather an entering into a relationship with it.

The design of my machines does not answer questions, but rather complicates them, turning them into “machines that ask questions.”

FMA: In relation to artistic practice, how do you approach the process of creating images, artistic action, and exhibition?

ML: The image is a broad concept—it could be data, sounds, or visuality. In my practice, the residue that remains from the encounter is the image. In the case of KMNCHK ScanLab—a project we developed together with Sebastián Arriagada—it was interesting to treat fog as a kind of huge, fluid architecture that you can slide through, or a living organism on which you can perform a medical scan. In this case, the aim was to achieve an image, and on the way we built a device that lit a large-scale plane of light that allows us to observe the fog in cross-section and in real-time, photograph it and obtain that image as a record. Then came the need to return to the image as a record of spatial experience, which is how ObsLam was born—a fog observatory that goes beyond recording an image, by focusing on the experience of watching something happen in front of your eyes. That is also an image, but of another nature. It isn’t a record or an imprint, but—I don’t know what to call it—a living image. That is where wonder emerges. Wonder is a very particular emotion; it disorients you, pulls you out of the status quo and forces you to readjust. That’s the beautiful thing about wonder: it produces change, leaves an imprint, an impression that you then return by changing yourself.

Everything contributes to the experience. Walking has become very important—that is why I spoke of the idea of expedition. For example, there is an invisible part in that work. When KMNCHK ScanLab was exhibited for the first time (1), visitors entered the gallery and encountered the artwork as a distilled, curated and controlled experience meant for display. Many things are lost there, which are, for me, essential to the action of art. The work in a gallery is a synthesis, a new cross-section, a fragment of the artistic process. The work itself is something bigger, alive, and dynamic, which is in constant movement and transformation, like a cloud.

FMA: How do you see the relationship between your works and the public?

ML: A recent discovery, in retrospect, is that some of my works are human-nature interfaces, while there are others that I am still trying to figure out what they are about, but where there aren’t even any humans. They are a kind of offering—techno-mediated conversations between natural elements. But all of them are systems that work and perform.

In the case of KMNCHK Obslam and Cielo líquido (“Liquid Sky,” in Spanish), they have particular shapes and methodologies, and are conceived as interfaces between humans and other forces, not just natural ones but also digital and data-flow ones. Both are reminiscent of a kind of primitive campfire, a circular space around which something gathers. They have a vertical axis that connects you to the sky, or to the celestial—and not even the astronomically celestial, but in the case of KMNCHK Obslam, with a 6-km-tall sheet of light that makes the cloud appear. The cloud is an atmospheric manifestation of the sky, and in the case of Cielo líquido, it’s a parabolic reflection of the sky.

FMA: This year you began a new research project in Bosque Pehuén, Fundación Mar Adentro’s natural reserve. Tell us, what connections have you found between Alto Patache and Bosque Pehuén as landscape-laboratories?

ML: Both places become self-observing landscapes thanks to human intervention oriented toward conservation. In this sense, they function as spaces of cross-agency, where human action is intertwined with natural dynamics from a paradigm of situated care; that is, defined by what care means in each particular context.

In both cases, the landscape becomes a laboratory through specific technologies, techniques, and knowledge. In Alto Patache, for example, there is monitoring technology focused mainly on fog as an object of study. Bosque Pehuén also has technological infrastructure for monitoring, camera traps, sound recorders, and a weather station to support the care of the forest ecosystem. I’m especially interested in the notion of technologies of care. In that sense, my work with “medium machines” operates as a type of plug-in—a complement that doesn’t start from scratch, but attaches to an existing conservation intention to add new layers of meaning.

I see continuity of research in both places. Both the wind and the camanchaca are active atmospheric entities that profoundly shape the dynamics of the landscape. The camanchaca is a cool, humid wind that arrives from the ocean and brings life to the desert. The puelche, in turn, is a warm, dry wind that threatens the forest, bringing chaos and movement and, in the worst cases, aggravating or catalyzing wildfires, which makes me think of it as the antithesis of the camanchaca.

Personally, I’m intrigued by machines designed to monitor species. However, I’m interested in proposing a different perspective: the puelche—this wind that is a yearly visitor during certain seasons—is like another species, an atmospheric creature that enters into a relationship with the forest, visits it, affects it, and establishes an interface with it. Now, what exactly does the puelche do? I don’t know yet. That is precisely what we want to investigate. But I already find the wind itself fascinating, as a particular entity. The first thing we do know—and which sound artists understand well—is that the wind is difficult to record or capture. You can feel the wind because you perceive it on your skin, but what happens within the body when we feel it? That is where my observation lies: the wind is not felt unless it collides with something. There has to be a corporeality to receive it, to register it. Wind can increase the threat of fires, cause trees to fall and shake their canopies, and change animal behavior. This shaking probably also generates communication between the trees, spreading seeds. I seek to explore the chaos created by the puelche. In a way, its presence is like an earthquake. It is a catastrophe in a way, and in other ways, it isn’t. What I want to study is the interaction between the puelche and the forest—what does the puelche do to Bosque Pehuén?

About the interviewee. Mauricio Lacrampette is an architect from Pontificia Universidad Católica and an artist. His work spans site-specific interventions, interactive installations, lighting design, and speculative technology, with a focus on the relationship between humanity, machines, and the environment in a post‑natural era. He currently leads projects such as KMNCHK ScanLab and Cielo líquido, and collaborates on other such as Polyphono. He has participated in national and international art events, including the Bienal de Artes Mediales, Centro NAVE, Encuentro Indisciplina, Bienal Concepción, and Tarapacá 10; and in Europe, Ars Electronica Festival, Insonora, and Espacios Resonantes.

Reference:

^[1] Lacrampette, Mauricio; Arriagada, Sebastián; and Cisternas, Felipe. (2019). Suspensión/Traducción/Amplificación [Installation]. Exhibited at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) Parque Forestal, for the 14th Bienal de Artes Mediales, Santiago.