Carmen Gil Vrolijk and La Quinta del Lobo
[ Colombia ]
Hybris is a series of works built around an artistic reflection on climate change, inspired by the Grolar–the offspring of a Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos) and Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus). A Grolar represents a hybrid species that is a product of our era, the Anthropocene. The word Hybrid (of two different species) comes from the Latin hybrida (bastard, of mixed blood) and is influenced by the Greek word Hybris: ‘disproportion’.
Hybris is madness, blindness, lack of knowledge, for the Greeks it was a punishment from the gods, and it is also a metaphor to understand our effect on the planet. Although changes and hybridization always existed, the mutations and metamorphoses in nature caused by human impact will configure new ways of living, consuming and relating to our environment.
Fusing data, facts and fiction, Hybris presents glimpses of a history of the end of the world as we know it and plants the idea of a possible future where life will prevail in a different form. The project is based on scientific research of temperature shifts over the last decades and on DNA sequencing of hybrid creatures. All the information gathered is used to create images, data visualization and live video, articulated by a staged performance in a dome structure involving music, voice, performance and projections on multiple screens. Hybris was conceived as an installative multimedia performance and now also, as a net art project.
Plot
A strange hybrid creature is captive inside a geodesic dome in a post-apocalyptic environment, its body shifts forms from one state to another, the creature starts to lose its prosthesis, limbs and deformities and ends as a defenseless body, exiting the dome and venturing into the world, the creature mutates into another being while navigating data, landscapes and the old idea of progress, then mutates again and ceases to exist as a body.
The play was premiered at Plataforma Berlin in June 2019, the premiere in Bogotá was suspended because of COVID 19 on its opening night in March 2020. The play is scheduled for presentation in 2022.
Primary Project Website: https://hybris.digital/
- Years Produced: 2018-2022
- Medium: Installative multimedia performance and net art project
Uniandes 
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Uniandes 
Berlin 
Sebastian, Gonzalez, Dixon 
La Quinta del Lobo 2020 Uniandes
Carmen Gil Vrolijk
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá
Transdisciplinary artist, academic, teacher, and curator, she has been working on multimedia projects since the late 1990s. Her interests are especially focused on performing arts projects mediated by technology in experimental and immersive formats, expanded narratives and the poetics of technology. She works as an Associate Professor at the Art Department of the Universidad de los Andes and directs the Master’s program of fine, electronic and time arts. Since 2014, she is the head curator of Voltaje (Art and Technology Salón). Her creative work has been exhibited in the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
La Quinta del Lobo
La Quinta del Lobo is an interdisciplinary multimedia ensemble of performing arts, directed by Carmen Gil Vrolijk and established in 2010 in Bogotá, Colombia. Their works explore the creative possibilities that emerge from the intersections between the arts, science and technologies that define our era. Their projects usually involve a wide range of creators; (visual artists, musicians, dancers, designers, architects, engineers, craftspeople, etc.)
Their first play: “Vanitas Libellum”, premiered in 2012 and has participated in exhibitions and festivals in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Hong Kong. In 2016 they premiered “Cuentos de la Manglería”, which won the “IDARTES, Teatro Mayor and Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán” Grant for large-format interdisciplinary productions.
Since 2018 they have been working on the Hybris project, which is temporarily suspended due to the pandemic. In 2020 they were invited for an artistic Residency by the Teatro Colón in Bogotá where they premiered Infinitos a transmedia project in 2021.
Artist’s Website: http://laquintadelobo.com/
Acknowledgments
Carmen Gil Vrolijk: Concept, direction, art and visuals
Camilo Giraldo Angel: Original music and sound design
Juanita Delgado: Performance and Voice
Sebastián González Dixon: Code and Live coding
Carmen Gil Vrolijk and Fernando Sierra: Costumes
Image credits:
Archive Art Department / Universidad de los Andes Sebastián González Dixon
* Hybris is developed with an Interfaculties Grant of the Vice-rectory for Research and Creation and CIC (Center for Research and Creation, Faculty of Arts and Humanities) Universidad de los Andes.