The title of the exhibition: Tense Present calls attention to the critical importance of the ‘here and now’, in a time when it is increasingly popular to be selling the future, which is nothing but escapism into the ever unattainable tomorrow, or reminiscing about the past, as a form of nostalgia for the bygone, for the memory of better, or worse, times. The exhibition focuses on unveiling the structure systems, the invisible, virtual and relation processes of social categorization, and by analyzing the material space and infrastructure, Tense Present seeks to accentuate the topicality of the space and time we live in.

The conceptual groundwork for the exhibition is determined by two key notions: infrastructure, and mapping. In this context, infrastructure is understood not only in terms of physical structure and the built, material space, utilitarian objects and the like, but above all as the organizational levers and processes, which condition our everyday reality. Systems of telecommunication, security, health care, education, culture and other institutionalized systems, maintain and accelerate the flow of global capital. Infrastructure, therefore, is a means of steering the flow of global production, exploitation of natural resources, work, knowledge production and exchange of information, while at the same time these processes are used to identify, determine, categorize and discipline the individual and the mass. Infrastructure is therefore defined beyond the scope of a neutral and efficient functioning of logistic systems – as a set of geopolitical power relations, antagonisms, ways of managing the collective and as a multitude of internalized individual and collective routines and practices. Nevertheless, there is no way of getting around a basic definition of infrastructure, which is in fact a synonym for technological progress and a symbol of social and technological progress, as well as economic and political inequalities.

This exhibition will feature Forensic Architectures’s investigation, Herbicidal Warfare in Gaza, and Forensic Oceanography’s investigation, The Left-to-Die Boat.