This research by El Conde de Torrefiel starts from the hypothesis that the art of our time has experienced a systematic colonisation of its semantic territory by the categories of what is real. Increasingly, fiction is a food produced, pre-cooked and consumed on a large and constant scale. And it doesn’t only come from the field of art. Artistic creation seems to have been freed from the need to produce fictions and is faced with two possibilities: to document the mechanisms of fiction or to deny it. This project wants to activate a speculation, to take a leap with a possible fatal fall into the amorphous waters of a further possibility that we distinguish as ultra-fiction.
The Ultraficción project is thus activated through different declinations of the intuitions with which we began to work. The ultra-fictions are proposals presented and formally conceived over the course of a year as a prelude to the creation of a show whose title does not yet exist, which will première in May 2022. Turned into independent acts, exhibited in different contexts and activating different artistic formats, these ultra-fictions aim to reveal and illuminate the cracks in the disconcerting wall that is presented to us as reality. Ultraficción nr. 2 / Los buenos modales is a performance piece in which the performers develop a score of actions and dialogues in a rarefied atmosphere created by the artificiality of words and movements, which expand and gasify the meanings of what is said and done. The strangeness that surrounds the proposal is activated through a technical infrastructure made up of sound devices installed in the space and on the performers’ bodies: loudspeakers, portable loudspeakers, microphones and mobile phones.
This ultra-fiction is signed by Pablo Gisbert and Tanya Beyeler, the two souls of El Conde de Torrefiel. They are authors of fragmented narratives that speak of time and society in the 21st century, always in an unusual way, also combining, but at the same time distancing text, movement and plastic images. We got to know them in 2010 with La historia del rey vencido por el aburrimiento and since then we have seen eight more shows, including the latest creation (Los protagonistas, 2020) which was their first proposal for family and young audiences.
Ultrafiction nr. 2 / Los buenos modales is performed at MACBA as part of Creación y museos, a cycle of performance proposals in which artists from different disciplines come into contact with Barcelona’s museums and cultural institutions and interact with their installations and collections in a series of theatre, dance, circus and music productions.
A Grec 2021 Festival de Barcelona and El Conde de Torrefiel co-production.
With the support of the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals – Generalitat de Catalunya.
Conception and creation: El Conde de Torrefiel Director: Tanya Beyeler, Pablo Gisbert Performers: Berta Frigola, Edgar Murillo, Marta Vericat Sound: Rebecca Praga Technical direction and coordination: Isaac Torres Sound technician: Uriel Ireland Production and administration: Haizea Arrizabalaga Executive producer: Cielo Drive SL Distribution and tour manager: Caravan Productions (Brussels)
