In our proposal for SACO 7 we investigate the possibility of editing the landscape, both in material terms (interrupting, vetoing, fracturing the territory) and symbolic terms (appropriating, rewriting, resignifying the common space). 

This new iteration of the Campos Minados (Minefields) project, entitled “An Explosion”, is articulated from a series of artistic operations carried out since 2015 and the question that has guided them all: What role does technology play in mediating our experience of landscape?

More specifically, in our proposal for SACO 7 we investigate the possibility of editing the landscape, both in material terms – interrupting, vetoing, fracturing the territory – and symbolic terms – appropriating, rewriting, resignifying the common space.

“An Explosion” challenges the audience to visualise the subjective ways in which the minefields of Atacama modify the territory. The risk of walking through territory, with the potential of an explosion under your feet, is both real and invisible. It presents the different ways in which travellers and inhabitants of Atacama adapt their ways of travelling through the territory according to the virtual presence of the mines. More or less explicitly, they edit the territory according to the presence of mines. In this sense, “An Explosion” explores how Chile’s history of war impacts the way the territory is experienced today.

The installation invites the public to walk through ‘a minefield’, enabling the audience to associate the geographical reality of minefields with the subjective experiences of the local inhabitants, thus understanding the multiple dimensions that make up this landscape.