Marcela Armas, Durango, 1976.
BFA by the Universidad de Guanajuato, and studies in the Universitat Politècnica de València. Prize for Iberoamerican Production VIDA 16.0 of Telefonica Foundation. Member of the National System of Art Creators in Mexico. Program of Support for Research in New Media of the Multimedia Center of the National Center for the Arts in Mexico City.
Currently she is researching the magnetic properties of minerals and their possibilities for storing information through sound as a means of interpretation and induction. Her work articulates disciplines, techniques, work processes and research to inquire into the relationships of society with matter, energy, space-time and the construction of memory.
She has participated in Mercosur Biennial in Porto Alegre, 2009 and Habana 11th Biennial “Social practices and imaginaries”, 2012. Directed with Gilberto Esparza, experimental electronics workshops Fundación Telefónica VIDA 10 in Lima, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Mexico City. Recently she directed Implant, a public space art project based in Denver and Mexico City, developed for the Biennial of the Americas. Armas is part of Triodo collective with Gilberto Esparza and Iván Puig. With Arcángelo Constantini directs the sound art cycle Meditatio Sonus.
Her work “Máquina Stella” won the 7th edition of the ARCO-BEEP Electronic Art Award
Work at the collection: Máquina Stella
Máquina Stella, 2011
“Máquina Stella” is a sculpture in the form of a dodecahedron whose interconnecting parts receive an electrical charge according to which part demands more potency. The impossibility of finding a perfect distribution of energy leads to a partial collapse.
“The piece is, in the end, a metaphor for the unequal distribution of riches in our society,using as a starting point an abstract artistic thought regarding the distribution of energy”, says Armas. He adds, “For me, machines in general are apparatus that are much more vulnerable than they appear”. The artist explains that he has created a system that metaphorically demonstrates the unsustainability of the society of today. “Stella Machine” is a sculpture that by its very nature, constantly seeks a dynamic equilibrium after collecting electric energy and distributing it through a system of resistive filaments.
