Ivan Puig believes art has a transformative political and creative power with concrete results and subtle effects. He also likes to cast doubt over science and riles against social injustice. We see this in his ambitious project SEFT1, whose raw material is no more than a car and the abandoned railway system in Mexico.SEFT1 is a vehicle used both on land and on rails, enhanced with audiovisual equipment. Within this vessel, whose design seems like a retro-futuristic joke with its Steampunk-meets-spaceship aesthetic, Puig travels the Mexican railway system, which has been neglected since 2006.Along the way, Puig interviews traveling salesmen and residents, and recognizes territories that seem to have disappeared off the map completely, having lost political and economic significance once the trains, which were their main generators of economic activity and means of transportation, no longer passed through town. However, as it says on the project’s website, “the railroad heritage in different regions is also appropriate and meaningful today, making way for new uses of such systems, consistent with the perceptions, experiences, and needs of contemporary society.”Puig explains the project:
This science probe aims to conduct a survey in photography, video, audio and text of its findings, of the landscape, the infrastructure around the paths and through interviews with traveling salesmen and locals. This project transmits information about its location at the Web site, where you can monitor the status of the probe, check used routes on maps and view images, videos and information about the project. Some of this information are also projected in villages through where the probe goes by.To follow the expedition, or find out where is the SEFT1 and check out the railway maps and all the people they talked to, visit the project’s Web site. Other low-tech installations by Ivan Puig can be seen on the artist’s page.
This science probe aims to conduct a survey in photography, video, audio and text of its findings, of the landscape, the infrastructure around the paths and through interviews with traveling salesmen and locals. This project transmits information about its location at the Web site, where you can monitor the status of the probe, check used routes on maps and view images, videos and information about the project. Some of this information are also projected in villages through where the probe goes by.To follow the expedition, or find out where is the SEFT1 and check out the railway maps and all the people they talked to, visit the project’s Web site. Other low-tech installations by Ivan Puig can be seen on the artist’s page.