Icaro lopez de Mesa M
Icaro, AKA Nene del Solar, is a sound-media artist and educator whose work focuses on creating instruments based on digital-electronic infrastructures for the performing arts. His artistic practice revolves around crafting myths and fictions that challenge stereotypical and colonial perspectives on media and technology. His career has been developed in artistic, academic and commercial fields and it is the result of explorations that combine art, sound, new media, music and education. On stage, Icaro explores the interplay between his body and the machines, robots, and sound artifacts he builds, blending performance, interaction, and music.
PhD candidate at HfK Bremen and the University of Groningen, he also coordinates HfK's artistic PhD program and conducts research as part of the Critical Instruments project in collaboration with Prof. Dennis P. Paul. Since 2019, he has also been an active member of the performance collective Tremenda Corpórea, working with artist friends to investigate the intersections of technology, the moving body, and sound.
In his current artistic PhD, Icaro explores the agency of gold as a material used in electronics.
Work at | Nene del Solar.com
In HfK - Bremen Icaro works under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Andrea Sick and Prof. Dennis P Paul
In the cooperation with the University of Groningen. under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ann-Sophie Lehmann and Dr. Chirs Tonelli.
Se here profile un UG: https://www.rug.nl/staff/i.lopez.de.mesa.moyano/projects
RESUME
CURRENT
Coordinator of the Binational artistic PhD program. HfK - University of the Arts Bremen. (Germany)
Teaching Algorithmic Thinking at the University of Los Andes (Col)
Researcher at Critical Instruments - Research project led by Prof. Dennis P Paul at HfK Bremen. (Ger)
AWARD: Honorable Mention - Frese-Design-Award 2022.
WORK EXPERIENCE
2020/22 - Student Assistant of the Binational artistic PhD program. HfK - University of the Arts Bremen. (Germany)
2019/22 - Assistant of the Reading Circle and editor of publications. HfK - University of the Arts Bremen. (Germany) Master's program in Arts, Digital Media
2017/18 - Creative Director, Designer, Developer at the Interactive Laboratory. Critertec SAS, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
2014/16 - Interactive Designer. Panoramika SAS, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
2016 - Media Arts workshops based on Arduino, Pure Data, Processing and Ab live. ARTTEC Festival Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
Since 2012 - Composer, Playwright, Lead voice, Visual and costume designer. LA PULPA, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
2007/14 - Composer, Bassist, Playwright, Visual and costume designer. RESINA LALA, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
2013 - Web Creative Director, Digital Strategist. PRECISE ENGAGEMENT SAS, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
2012 - Media Arts Speaker, talks about design in Interactive media. IDENTITY SCHOOL OF DIGITAL ARTS, Bogotá D.C. (Colombia)
EDUCATION & TRAINING
2022 - Master of Arts (M.A.) Digital Media HfK - University of the Arts Bremen. (Ger) Link to Thesis
2018/21 - Scholarship by the DAAD German Academic Exchange Service.
Study Scholarships for Foreign Graduates in the Fields of Fine Art, Film, Design/Visual Communication and Film.
2012 - Industrial Designer / Faculty of Arts. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota D.C. (Col)
2011 Design In Interactive Media Course.
Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá D.C. (Col) With Prof. Hernando Barragán.
2010 -Diploma in Independent Band Management. BOGOTA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (Col)
2008 - 4th Exchange Semester Industrial Design. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá D.C. (Col)
2006 - Graduate of the REFOUS SCHOOL. Bogotá D.C./ Cota (Col)
1994/2002 - Latin American Traditional Music Studies at ESCUELA NUEVA CULTURA
ART SELECTED & EXHIBITIONS
2024
Sept. Lecture- Performance - “Dialogues between gold and water” with Victor Artiga Rodriguez: at Simposium: Encounters of Artistic Research in U. Groningen.
Sept. Dragon Girl and the Golden Wasp. - Performance/Game + Golden Party. + Curatorial work at Summer School Scenes of Transformation and Resistance: Performing in Artistic Research at Personal Structures Biennial in Venice (It)
Jul. Lecture-performance “Gold & Elasticity” presented at Panel Sensory Interfases at EASST/4S at the Science and Technology biennial conference in Amsterdam.
Apr. “Code<>edoC” Installation and Lecture at Exhibition Nearly All Types Of Honey Crystallize: Documenting In Artistic Research in GAK- Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
Mar. Performance: Thoughts on “Fluid Assemblages" at the Forecast Platform in Berlin with collective Tremenda Corporea.
2023 - Swinging Grams - Performance Installation - Lange nacht der museen Bremen
2023 - Dazzel - Performance installation at Crystal Room. Artistic research residency at GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
2022 - Honorable Mention - Frese-Design-Award 2022. Installation-Performance: The Paradoxical Myth of the Crazed Jaguar and Nene del Solar
2022 - Curatorial assistance of HALBE HALBE.
2022 - INACT Festival des Arts Mutants (Strasbourg, Fr) - Performance - The paradoxial Mtyh…
2022 - The Paradoxical Myth of the Crazed Jaguar and Nene - Master thesis performance at Schwankhalle Theater Bremen
2021 - Nene del Solar - Performance / Lecture at Salon Digital HfK - Bremen
2021 - Bodies of Resonance - Performance / Installation at Schwankhalle Theater Bremen
2021 - Nene del Solar y sus Máquinas Tropicales - Performance at Domshof Open Space
2020/21 - Art Residency at the Schwankhalle Theater Bremen To develop a performance at the theater.
Oct 2020 - Sound performance JD Set for the online semesterbegrüßung. HfK - Hochschule für Künste Bremen.
Aug 2020 - Sound composition for audiovisual installation - Angel Eyes Academy of Fine Arts Munich and Blitz Club Museuminsel 1
Jan 2020 - Exhibition - Mythopoesis - Analysis of Bremen's identity as a city - At Sphere/Circa 106, Center for International Research and Collaborative Art. (Bremen)
Dec 2019 - Interactive projections for dance-theater piece – Spektrum - Cooperation with the dance company of the Theater Bremen and the company Urbanscreen
Nov 2019 - Event Performance – Bailongo Anti-Exotic - together with Tremendo Parche Latino Bremen at the Kultur im Bunker (Bremen).
Apr 2019 - Exhibition - Raw Data Material Narration - Development of an electronic musical instrument exhibited in the Künstlerhaus Güterbahnhof (Bremen)
Feb 2019 - Performance - Karneval der Nervösen Together with the students of Raphael Sbrzesny at the University of the Arts Bremen
2017 - City Hall Pavilion at the Bogota Book Fair Design of experiences with augmented reality, virtual reality / interactive physical design.
2016 - Digital Graffiti in Bogotá's birthday - Mapping show.
2015 - Interactive wall at The Budweiser laboratory.
2015 - TEMPORAL - Interactive installation at ARTTEC FESTIVAL representation of the world winds.
MUSIC FESTIVALS AND TOURS
2017 - Yotetoko Tour. 8 concerts of LA PULPA In three asian cities: Tokyo-Japan, Seoul-Korea, Beijing-China
2016 - Day Day Up Chinese TV program. An invitation to LA PULPA. To show the project of Music made with fruits.
2016 - Chinazo Tour 6 Concerts of LA PULPA in China (Beijing - Shanghai - Changsha)
2014 - FIMU FESTIVAL Belfort (FRANCE). 3 concerts of LA PULPA
2014 - SXSW South By Southwest Austin Texas (USA). 3 Showcases of LA PULPA.
2013 - Lollapalooza (CHILE). Invitation to RESINA LALA
2012 - Rock al Parque Bogotá (Colombia). Invitation to RESINA LALA
2012 - Colombia al Parque Bogotá (Colombia). Invitation to LA PULPA
2012 - Festival Estereo Picnic Bogotá (Colombia). Invitation to RESINA LALA
PORTFOLIO
With a small electronic instrument floating in the middle, Nene del Solar creates a soundscape woven from rhythms and sounds captured from a land plundered by gold mining. The performance is an exploration of the human body in motion, seeking to extract this radiant artifact from the very heart of the performance space.
2022
A technological ritual, a dark/nocturnal carnivalesque ceremony.
Through sound, poetry, and dance, Nene and Jaguar meet to decipher their relationship with the Sun. The Jaguar brings a reinterpretation of a character from Mesoamerican Mythology (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belice, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica), specifically inspired by the cosmovision from the Mayans, where it played an important role as a figure which could swiftly cycle between night and day. Nene del Solar embodies technological encounters between the so-called global south and the global north. Technologies coming from Colonized and Colonizer places, proposing sonic instruments meant for invocations and chants.
Jaguar and Nene trace relations among their bodies, languages, words, the electronic and the digital. Exploring the figure of the Techno-shaman which establishes connections between technology and the spiritual realm. Exploring the tensions that exist between the animal world and human reason, they confront the obsessions of western thought with the domination of territory, the exploitation of resources, and the imposition of technologies.
2021
Link to lecture-performance at Salon Digital: Salon Digital | Start (salon-digital.com)
Video: Nenen del Solar y sus Tropical Machines
A ritual that explores through sound devices, poetry, dance, and music, the Tropical as a phenomenon resulting from the tensions between the global north and the global south; the clashes between their epistemologies and how these inhabit an individual.
Nene del solar is in the middle of the tropics, dealing with tensions between opposite ideas. Connecting hips, brain, and heart, to machines and instruments. Chanting and dancing with them, through them; Nene is seeking for Intra-Tropical communications, connecting affects in his inside, hoping to resonate with the outside. Inner conversations which are trying to bring together body and mind knowledges. Sound sendings which combine sciences and techniques, ethics and politics, confusions and clarities, enchanting an intimate space: A tropical call center, a gate Nene del Solar has created, framed by two sorts of mechanical totems. Can and Capri: Can connecting with the Tropic of Cancer, Capri connecting with the Tropic of Capricorn.
2021
Video Link: Bodies of Resonance
Performative event presented under the frame of the festival Bzw Natur. The performance took the form of a 'Resonance Walk' around the Werdersee (lake in Bremen). During the walk, twenty participants carried ceramic vessels in which electronic components facilitated the recording of sounds. Sounds of voices, breathings, nature or even thoughts. At the end, the ceramic resonators came back and where installed on one of the halls of the theater. Displaying an unusual orchestra, where animal, human and other living resonant bodies communicated on common frequencies, generating empathy and affinity.