Category archives: timeline

2020 – Terra Australis Ignota Research Group @ Ars Electronica

In 2018, Terra Australis Ignota Research Group (TARIG) – Alessandra Burotto (CL), Paula Lopez Wood (CL), Víctor Mazón Gardoqui (ES/DE), Alfredo Prieto (CL), Gerd Sielfeld (CL) and Nicolas Spencer (CL/AT) – traveled to Cape Horn, the southernmost continental island in the world before Antarctica.

Ars Electronica 2020 – In Kepler’s Gardens platform will present a translation of that trip under the title Achæoscillator_Towards incorporeal forms of sensing listening and gaze.

Achæoscillator displays the drastic weather conditions of the southernmost island in the world on a virtualized representation of the end/beginning of the Americas. A one-person experience, where the research presents traces and connections between the ancestors of the Yagán community, the Kawesqar and Selk’nam and the Antarctic, Scotia and South America continental plates, offering an inestimable and uncontrollable source of Gaia’s power.

Next to the Achæoscillator project there will be a film documentation of the trip to Cape Horn, a publication of scientific papers and a round table of the participants.

Terra Australis Ignota Research Group (TARIG) is part of the Terra Ignota platform.

2019 – field trip #02

From 7 to 22 December 2019, a second trip is going further south to sharpen possible research directions. On suggestion of the archaeologist Alfredo Prieto the group is intending to search for a possible prehistoric meeting place of the ancient tribes in the Bahia Blanca Valley.

participants:
Nicolas Spencer (CL/AT), Alfredo Prieto (CL), Diego Cortés (CL), Elisita Balbontin (CL), Valentina Montero (CL), Gerd Sielfeld (CL), Dominga del Campo (CL), Joali Paredes-Mariño (VEN)

2019 – field trip #01

The first field trip in the frame of the actual Terra Ignota project was carried out from 2 until 18 March 2019. Starting from Punta Arenas, the group traveled as far south as possible by car to the end point of the road constructions in the Cardon Central.

The aim of this first trip was mainly to get a bit more familiar with Tierra del Fuego – place, history and context and to define potential interesting locations and research questions.

Main stations along the route were the former oil-worker settlements Cerro Sombrero and Campamento Puerto Percy established by ENAP (Empresa Nacional del Petróle) in the 50s. Porvenir, the biggest Chilean city in Tierra del Fuego, the national park and research center Karukinka, Estancia Caleta Maria at Seno Almirantazgo and Casa Museo Alberto Baeriswyl in Puerto Yartou.

participants:
Nicolas Spencer (CL/AT), Alfredo Prieto (CL), Lisa Lurati (CH), Carsten Stabenow (DE), Eric Mattson (CA)

2016-18 – Terra Australis Ignota / Polar

Around 2015 Nicolas Spencer initiated a series of artistic explorations down to the most southern tip of the world under the working title “El Comienzo del Mundo – The Beginning of the World”. With different groups of artistst and scientists he traveled to remote places in Tierra del Fuego, the Beagle Channel, Cape Horn and Antartica.

A detailed documentation of “Terra Australis Ignota / El Comienzo del Mundo” project can be found here >>>.

participants:
Nicolas Spencer (CL/AT), Paul Gründorfer (AT), Eric Mattson (CA), Diego Cortés (CL), Diego Ahumada (CL), Adina Secretan (CH), Angelica Castello (MX/AT),  Mario de Vega (MX/DE), Rosa Menkman (NL), Victor Mazón (ES)