Art, Situated Research and Systemic Intervention
Casa Quemada (Burnt House) promotes a shift in artistic practice: not producing objects to be admired, but transforming art to just data files to be downloaded. Also, it offers a global perspective on interconnected issues and responds holistically to complex problems, initially focusing on pollution, the agricultural exploitation of migrant labor and protected aquifers, and the establishment of advanced military weapons facilities in Andalusia.
The File is the Artwork
The project introduces novel aspects compared to existing practices by treating the archive (the KLM file) as the artwork itself, foregrounding information in the Big Data era. Materials such as satellite images or text documents are secondary. The piece resists spectacular display in galleries or art events. More importantly, it is not illustrated or visualized: its most faithful form is just a download link. As an open work, the file is distributed freely and widely online, allowing recipients to use it as they wish.
Rethinking Thought to Engage Complexity
The work is driven by clear concerns, values, and ethical motivations. Its conceptual basis draws on David Bohm’s Thought as a System, which argues that the inability to address problems integrally stems from clinging to narrow ways of thinking. Such restrictions obscures interconnection, fragments reality, and leads different disciplines, cultures, and ways of life into error and ineffective action. Progress requires recognizing incoherence in our thought patterns, often conditioned and automatic. A kind of real thinking, more self aware and innovative, would be the solution.
From Artistic Record to Territorial Engagement
Casa Quemada also reflects on the simple documentation of an artist’s actions, as articulated by Vito Acconci. In Step Piece (1970), he stepped on and off a stool in his apartment every morning, recording the action at a steady pace and presenting it as monthly progress reports. This concept is updated through the use of digital recording via mobile phones and through a deliberate move from the studio into the world. Performance shifts from digital to analog, from representation to lived reality: first observing satellite images, then inhabiting those spaces. The impulse is vital and communal, not only with nature but with those abandoned within it.
Crossing Life, Technology, and Knowledge Systems
The project proposes new connections and cross-contaminations between art, technology, and science, avoiding a human/artificial dichotomy. It embraces not only the identification of artwork with the artist’s life but also that of art with just unprocessed information. Life becomes info; the artist’s life becomes the work; the work becomes data to share. It reflects on sharing through mobile devices and art, reducing performance to records, just as lived experience is reduced to numbers.
Against the design, deployment, and consumption of contemporary creative technologies, it advances a minimalist, conceptual proposal that avoids audiovisual media as its main support. It therefore acknowledges that it will be less readily accepted than approaches aligned with forms favored by cultural audiences and industries.
Improvisation as a Research Strategy
Casa Quemada moves from the aesthetic, the abstract appreciation of satellite imagery, to the moral, visiting these places, uncovering them, reacting, and intervening to improve them. There was no prior plan: no controversial theme was chosen in advance for artistic treatment; issues emerged during site visits, making discovery a central factor. On the first walk, objects were gathered from the ground as mementos of moving through those places. Only at the end did it become clear that the true record of the experience belonged in the digital realm, rather than in the physical. So that intuition was followed.
The project reinforces art as research, positioned in liminal zones of knowledge production and aesthetic through a basic, intuitive approach. It prioritizes spontaneity: going to places by instinct to see what happens, reacting first and investigating afterward. This breaks with normalized artistic research driven from the outset by predefined objectives, frameworks, and strategies, which instead emerge later and organically. As a result, initially the project did not rely on funding, since it could not clearly meet standard grant criteria. But this approach led to more eclectic and diverse outcomes.
It can serve as a model for future research and innovation programs within the Science/Arts/Technology ecosystem by fully embracing improvisation, intuition, and open-ended thinking, abandoning predefined plans, fixed objectives, and ongoing accountability during development.
Innovation versus Art Markets and Economic Metrics
Casa Quemada also explores ways of presenting artistic initiatives in unconventional venues and to audiences unfamiliar with such proposals. The presentation of Casa Quemada took place at an agricultural market run by Ecologistas En Acción (https://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/), in a former communal orchard which the grassroots ecological group now uses for public events. The audience largely had no connection to the art world. The project was presented and accessed via mobile phones. Nothing was sold, and the work involved no ownership of an object. Participants simply accessed information and routes, while members of the organization and the artist provided contextual knowledge about the problems and concealed facts affecting each location. The main goal was to reject that innovation can be understood only in economic, productivity, or utility terms.
Documenting Mobilization
Casa Quemada does not merely produce knowledge but invites action by sharing an extensive text as additional document. In it, events that later appeared in the press were documented, becoming drivers of mobilization against the exposed injustices and tragic occurrences. The intention has been to help activate communities, influence public policy, and redirect technological development. Community activation is embedded in the project’s design and development by sharing not only the work itself and route data, but also a dense body of text informed by reliable sources working on the ground.
The research outcomes are publicly accessible on https://archive.org/details/casa-quemada.-burnt-house, where they can be downloaded. The KML files, which constitute the artwork itself, are available at https://palaciosrojo.neocities.com/burnt/house . There is a firm commitment to keeping the work easily accessible to anyone interested.
Artistic Devices and Localized Systems of Exploitation
The work offers a critical position within contemporary debates on research, art, and society by contextualizing how the use of a device, even for artistic production, generates a real ecosystem of exploitation in a specific location. It exposes the tension between the aesthetic pleasure of satellite imagery, the desire for innovative artistic expression, and the lived reality on the ground within a system where extraction and exploitation are normalized.
Behind Technological Promises: The Invisible Loss of Life
The project engages with the politics of research by questioning the supposed neutrality of knowledge and technology, exposing the severe consequences of concepts promoted by public institutions, private companies, and the media. Over time, this was reinforced by press headlines that construct ideals while masking suffering, such as the article “Rare earths, green hydrogen, and drones: Huelva, protagonist of Europe’s rearmament” (https://www.huelvainformacion.es/huelva/tierras-raras-hidrogeno-verde-drones-huelva-protagonista-rearme-europa_0_2003608546.html), which celebrates militarization, hidden underground treasures, exceptional geopolitical positioning, and even the prospect of becoming a new Saudi Arabia. This technological fantasy contrasts sharply with realities such as fires that also destroy nearby settlements in pine forests or, as reported by Huelva Acoge, the frequent burning of shantytowns. One such case involved the death of a Ghanaian migrant after inhaling smoke from a fire lit inside a shack to keep warm: https://www.eldiario.es/andalucia/huelva/persona-muere-chabola-incendiada-asentamiento-lucena-puerto_1_11989990.html. These are the harsh realities behind alleged treasures that will never be distributed equally. During the project’s long development, this death was documented and given the space it deserved. The victim was later identified as Charles Amoah and received a public tribute, sadly, unlike many others on the long list of fire-related deaths: https://www.lavozdelsur.es/la-voz-seleccion/reportajes/cuyo-ghanes-fallecido-huelva-vivia-sin-luz-basura-hija-no-conocio_328048_102.html. What is presented as an innocent march toward an unprecedented technological future conceals a predatory philosophy that renders suffering and misery invisible.
Care and Accountability in Research
Critical methods were incorporated to embed a deep sense of care in research and creative practice, including fieldwork with social workers directly familiar with the tragedy of migrant settlements. Responsibility was also exercised in communicating, prior to media coverage, the presence of lead levels in mullet exceeding European Union limits for fish muscle. The regional government took no action and failed to activate the required protocol to prevent the product from reaching human consumption. Only later did the report by biologist Jesús Castillo appear in the press. This approach reflects an ethic of care toward the most vulnerable and the public interest.
Making Hidden Systems Legible
Art functions here as a form of knowledge production and investigation. Like a detective or a physician, the process begins with noticing a peculiar place as a clue or a symptom, then acting upon it. Field evidence leads to consultations with experts and activists to seek answers. This involves a long process of questioning and inquiry into warning signs against fishing or hunting, turquoise-colored waters, and traces of dwellings—chairs, tables, plastic roofs—hidden in forests. Gradually, access is gained to a long history of documentation and struggle involving academia, social workers, and activists, revealing a silenced conflict over a reality deemed strategic for Europe’s survival.
Art and Intuition as Beyond Knowledge
Art is affirmed as a legitimate mode of research and knowledge creation. Artistic intuition guides the selection of locations based on aesthetic affinity. Uncovering what lies behind those images leads to an understanding of a complex reality. This investigative creative process offer new perspectives and working methods distinct from the specialized approaches of activists, academics, or social workers. Also, it opens a holistic and revealing dimension of knowledge, distinct from purely scientific or technical models.
It emerges through serendipitous epiphanies that reveal connections between seemingly unrelated problems, producing a deeper understanding of contemporary reality. As a new worldview takes shape—one that echoes historical modes of exploitation such as imperialism, isolationism, and unchecked natural resource extraction—knowledge must also be acquired in ways closer to artistic representation and the symbolic language of the humanities.
Human-Centered Methodologies Across Time
As the investigation unfolds without a predefined plan, multiple disciplines are brought together to uncover signs of hidden realities. Anthropology is engaged when entering a Tartessian archaeological site; biology addresses waters polluted by mining; sociology and social work examine migrant worker settlements; hydrology analyzes water exploitation and the desertification it causes.
From concern for past civilizations such as Tartessos, through early twentieth-century rural laborers, to today’s migrant workers living in shantytowns near agricultural sites, the project emphasizes human-centered qualities that guide its methodological and design decisions. It foregrounds workers’ suffering, the inability of low-skilled laborers to access safe and dignified housing, and the destruction of the natural environment that sustains life through practices that accelerate climate change and desertification.
Translators to Mobilize Research
Casa Quemada actively involves a wide range of stakeholders, including NGO social workers from organizations such as Andalucía Acoge (https://acoge.org), activists from civil platforms like SOS Guadalquivir (https://sosguadalquivir.es/), international collectives such as Hack2o (https://hack2o.eu/), and excavation directors researching past episodes of severe climate change, including researchers at the CSIC (https://construyendotarteso.com/). The aim was to gather a broad and diverse community engaged daily with these issues. The problem is internationalized through dissemination in European media, via circulation of information in the Hack2o forum and an appearance on the Liminal Radio podcast (https://podcast.micro-ondes.org/@liminal/episodes/from-caraibes-to-andalusia-with-antonio-palacios-rojo-about-water-issues-and-disasters). These initiatives led to coverage in the international press, including the French magazine Reporterre (https://reporterre.net/Metaux-lourds-ces-projets-qui-minent-les-Espagnols).
Since then, farmers and fishers have mobilized against river poisoning caused by mining waste, living conditions in several settlements have begun to improve slowly, and awareness of abuses has increased, helping to organize those affected through collaboration with multiple platforms and organizations. Trust and genuine participation are fostered, rejecting extractive or purely transactional models in which painful topics are reduced to artistic material without offering paths to change or transformation.
Engaging Complexity Without Premature Solutions
No simple solutions are proposed. Instead, open questions, tensions, and the political dimensions of knowledge are explored in the struggle to prevent these places from becoming sacrifice zones so the rest of Europe can access raw materials for technological development. This reflects the clash of a new era already deciding which European regions will be sacrificed, as occurred elsewhere in the past, including the Americas and Africa.
Knowledge Production Through Dialogue
Learning and critical reflections emerged through dialogue with communities, experts, and other stakeholders. It became clear that the most effective way to confront abuses is to show how other working sectors—fishers, farmers, tourism workers—are also affected by policies that ignore nature and its limits. It also became evident that the compensations offered by mining companies or large-scale agribusiness, such as promises of jobs and regional wealth, remain highly persuasive arguments to the population.
Staying with the Problem as an Ethical Position
Casa Quemada embodies the idea of remaining with the problem by documenting ongoing processes and transformations rather than offering closed or simplistic solutions. Throughout its duration, the project registered the construction of bonds, collaboration, and shared effort among communities, across disciplines usually kept apart, between social workers and activists. These actors became protagonists of mobilizations, assemblies, memorials for the dead, and policies.
False Dichotomies Foster Limiting Narratives
There is a sustained commitment to resisting false and limiting narratives. Terms such as rearmament, progress, job creation, or hidden treasure are used to mask destruction, exploitation, and abuse. The project opposes the injection of inevitability—the claim that such actions are necessary to avoid falling behind or that they are dictated by the times—by exposing and challenging these discourses.
It also challenges traditional dichotomies such as subject/object, human/non-human by erasing the boundary between an artist’s life or actions and the data they generate, as well as between raw data and the artwork itself. A conceptual approach is favored, without reliance on data visualizations common in digital art, which, in Casa Quemada, are treated as secondary. The boundary between artwork and audience is likewise dissolved, as material is provided in raw form for users to appropriate freely, emphasizing interactivity. It shifts entrenched notions of self versus others, or versus technology, and calls for change as a collective response across all sectors, so that the future accounts for and minimizes destruction and suffering.
Questioning Technological Inevitability
The work addresses the interdependence of human and environmental well-being and adopts a realistic view of the trade-offs of technological progress. Against a future marketed as inevitable and necessary, it focuses on the real cost required to achieve it. Technology nowadays is often assumed to be inherently manipulative, exploitative, and polluting. This is not the inevitable condition for progress but one possible choice.
A Long-Term, Adaptive Process
After more than a year in development, the project has reached maturity. It has continuously adapted to evolving circumstances, accommodating events as they unfolded in the visited locations and denouncing the abuses observed there.
The initial motivation was to experiment with new forms of artistic creation using widely accessible digital tools such as mobile applications, combined with artistic strategies based on walking through nearby natural environments. On site, the project evolved into an investigation of the effects of an extractive and exploitative society, the foundation of a system of abuse, prompted by the visible damage inflicted on the environment. This led to a prolonged process of data collection, interviews, public dissemination of findings—sometimes for the first time—engagement with organizations and collectives, and efforts to shift mindsets and propose solutions. This has now given way to a phase focused on promoting the project within artistic contexts that prioritize innovation, research, and new modes of thought.
Guides and Peers in the Art Community
To internationalize the project with artistic guidance, it was shared within the Webs of Water activation series, focused on the Caribbean and promoted by TBA21 and Tactical Tech. This context enabled discussion of previous unrelated works and contact with like-minded participants who helped with the dissemination through the Hack2o platform and participation in a Liminal Radio podcast.
From Field-Based Action to Cultural Consolidation
So far, it has relied on platforms, formats, and channels linked to on-site action and has even been presented in non-artistic contexts. It aims to place it within an appropriate artistic framework, with the goal of internationalizing local issues that exemplify a model of territorial exploitation intended to be replicated across the continent. This occurs at an optimal stage, following phases of research and critical contextualization, experimentation through practice, and now entering a final phase of consolidated cultural manifestation.
Infinite Progress Towards Unrest
We fail to connect place, ways of living, the technology we use, the information we receive, and the policies imposed on us, yet all belong to a single unit within a vital current. False dichotomies arise, such as humans versus digital tools, leading to simplistic solutions for complex dilemmas, insufficient governmental measures, partial information, and confrontation without transformative outcomes. Without analyzing the whole problem, solutions are impossible. Art requires technology and many scientific and humanistic disciplines to achieve not only aesthetic change but transformations in how we live.
Everything restarts in a constant spring through change, yet repeated patterns emerge because humans remain calm when there is no peace and grow impatient when there is. Nature has limits, as do human knowledge, art, and technical capacity. Belief in technological omnipotence or infinite natural resources reflects a fatal misunderstanding.