ABQ: SEFT 1

ALBUQUERQUE

SEFT 1

In the late 1990s Mexico privatized its national rail system. The system was reorganized to allow private companies to set up freight shipping connecting with the United States and Canada under NAFTA. It's too early to know whether the new arrangement is working well for rail shipments. The northern part of the country has had better success, while the hurricane damaged south is lagging behind.

However, the greatest impact of the privatization has been to end rail passenger service for most of the country. In 1997, except for some small tourist lines, such as viewing Copper Canyon, service for people ended. In 2008 a commuter rail was established running into Mexico City. But the rest of the country remains without.

Two artists decided to travel the abandoned railways to document the new ruins, isolated towns and villages, and collect artifacts. A pickup truck was created that could travel on roads or railroad tracks.

Information about the project is downloaded to their website SEFT 1.

They drove the SEFT 1 vehicle recently across the border to where it is currently on display at the Albuquerque museum. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) also participated in the museum project.



From UTEP:

The SEFT -1 (SEFT is an acronym for the Spanish Sonda de Exploración Ferroviaria Tripulada or Manned Railway Exploration Probe) is a trans-disciplinary project by artists Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene. Its core object is a futuristic, artist-designed vehicle that is equipped to move on both land and rail. Puig and Padilla Domene traveled abandoned railways throughout Mexico in this exploratory probe, using photography, video, audio and text to record contemporary landscapes, infrastructure and inhabitants to create a futuristic exploration of Mexico’s past. The information recorded is continuously uploaded to the project´s web page www.seft1.com, where the public can follow the trajectory of the probe and view the images, videos and artifacts collected on its journey.

The exhibition of the SEFT-1 at UTEP will encompass two museums, the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts and UTEP’s Centennial Museum. ForISEA2012 (see below), Puig and Padilla Domene will make a historic journey in the SEFT-1 that takes them from the U.S.-Mexico border to the city of Albuquerque where the car itself will be exhibited at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, with a complementary exhibition at 516 Gallery in downtown Albuquerque.

The exhibition of SEFT-1 at UTEP is in conjunction with the Desert Initiative (DI) and with the annual meeting of International for Society for Electronic Arts (ISEA).

 

DI is a consortium of art museums in the Southwest that are coordinating new, interdisciplinary explorations of the desert to take place in the Fall2012-Spring 2013. The partnering museums include Phoenix Art Museum, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Santa Fe Art Institute, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Arizona State University Art Museum, which is the administrative and coordinating hub of the DI, amongst many others. ISEA is an international nonprofit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and technology, and draws scores of emerging and established international artists to its annual conference. In 2011 it was held in Istanbul and in 2010 near Berlin. In 2012 University of New Mexico in Albuquerque will host the conference from September 17-22. UTEP is the only venue in Texas invited to participate in either of these initiatives, both of which will generate additional opportunities to expand our audience, and to connect with both the border and the world.