Carlos Casas

Inspired by a medieval text in which speaking animals demand interspecies justice, Bestiari is a hypnagogic environment inhabited by sounds and images of creatures from natural and imagined Catalan landscapes.

Bestiari dialogues with the medieval text Disputa de l’ase [Dispute of the Donkey], written in 1417 by Anselm Turmeda, one of the founders of Catalan literature. Disputa de l’ase tells the story of a group of animals who trial a man who can understand their languages. Tired of being mistreated, the animals question anthropocentrism, the belief that humans are superior to other animals.

Bestiari pays tribute to the animals of the medieval text by featuring dreamlike sounds and images of bats, bees, dolphins, donkeys, elephants and other creatures, recorded in their natural habitats. Featuring Ambisonics 3D infrasound spatialization, Bestiari presents frequencies that are beyond the human sensory realm, inducing a sense of physical closeness with these animals and landscapes and propitiating sensorial modes of interspecies discovery. A large film installation, derived from each species’ spectrum of vision, creates hypnotic encounters with the various animals and environments, further dissolving the relationship between reality and dream.

Carlos Casas makes films, installations and sound environments that pay attention to places and communities that exist in symbiotic modes, portraying the relationship between beings and spaces. With Bestiari, he proposes dreaming as a form of interspecies communication, enhancing the need to attend to multiple perspectives, senses and agencies. Bestiari is a project about where to find hope today, observing the communalities of the present with the past, exploring the role of the unconscious in ecology and proposing ways to connect with other lives and ways of living.

The sounds and images of Bestiari were mostly recorded in the following locations: Parc Natural del Delta de l’Ebre; Parc Natural del Cadí-Moixeró; Parc Natural del Montgrí, les Illes Medes i el Baix Ter; Parc Natural i Reserva de la Biosfera del Montseny; Parc Natural de Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac; Reserva Natural de Mas de Melons i Secans de Lleida; Espai Natural Protegit de la Serra del Montsec; Espai Natural Protegit de la Serra de Boumort; Reserva Nacional de Caça de Boumort; Parc Natural de l’Alt Pirineu, and Parc Natural de Cap de Creus.

Carlos Casas is a filmmaker and artist whose practice encompasses film, sound and the visual arts. His works have been presented in International exhibitions like La Biennale di Venezia, Shanghai Biennale, Bangkok Biennale, and Istanbul Biennial. His films have been screened and awarded in festivals around the world, like the Venice Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Buenos Aires International Film Festival, Mexico International Film Festival, CPH DOX Copenhagen, FID Marseille, to name a few. Retrospectives of his films have been presented international festivals and cinematheques from Madrid, Mexico to Bruxelles, his work has been exhibited and performed in international art institutions and galleries, such as Tate Modern in London, Fondation Cartier, Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou in Paris, NTU CCA Singapore; Hangar Bicocca, and La Triennale in Milan, CCCB Barcelona, Matadero Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid, MAAT Lisbon, GAM Torino, Bozar, Kunsten Festival des Arts Bruxelles, among others.