Primer Cero

Where do the origin of the universe and our own intersect?

Primer Cero

A transdisciplinary piece bringing together dance, science and technology, inviting reflection on the conception of our Origin.

Primer Cero refers to the primordial “nothing” from which the Whole inexplicably emerged. It is an allegory of the singularity from which, according to the Big Bang, the universe was born. A peculiarity we approach through imagination, since reason has not yet fully encompassed it. Every mathematical tool that has tried to address it has unravelled into divisions by zero, divergences to infinity and all kinds of indeterminate results. An asymptotic nature allows us to stand at the edge without defining it directly. At this point mathematics gives way to poetry.

Primer Cero is the result of a research process that began atEuropean Organization for Nuclear ResearchCERN in Switzerland in September 2019. Developed with support from Art@CMS at CERN, the Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia and Santa Maria workshop center in France, it led to the work entitled Primer Cero.

Primer Cero is an instal-acción, a term that we at Ymoov use to describe an installation designed to contain and operate through a stage performance.

It is an Open Source transdisciplinary work bringing together dance, science and technology. It invites reflection on the conception of our Origin, confronting the different perceptions humanity has reached in its search for Reality and questioning established positions to open a dialogue with new approaches.

Primer Cero challenges a social structure that has stopped emphasising questions presumed to have been answered: where do we come from? Who are we? Why are we here?… Delving into such essential questions could be a step towards free reflection beyond established doctrines.

In Primer Cero we conceive of the body as the fundamental unit of every interpretation and experience of the universe; when considering origin, our most intrinsic reference therefore always begins with the body itself. Meanwhile, dance has been part of human history as an artistic expression that uses the body to communicate: a universal language in constant interaction with reality, understood as the context in which all bodily sensations converge and take form.

Costume: “Dermis del espejo”

We consider the costume of Primer Cero to be a work in its own right, inspired by the work “Wandering the immeasurable” (Vagando por lo inconmensurable) by the artist Gayle Hermick, a sculpture in Plaza Galileo Galilei, in front of the Globo de la Ciencia y la Innovación at CERN in Geneva.

It is an allegory of how the metaphors and analogies we use to interpret the universe—including mathematics—contain the immeasurable despite existing only in our imagination, like the seemingly boundless depth stretched across the skin of a mirror reflecting a starry sky.

Costume: “Dermis del espejo”

Dermis del espejo costume: a body arched backwards, tattooed with symbols, over a ring of light. — «We consider the costume of Primer Cero to be a work in its own right»

We follow the path of Gayle Hermick, whose sculpture traces the main discoveries in physics throughout history, and redirect it to evoke the multiple paths humanity has taken in seeking an explanation of our origin. These include ancestral cosmogonies from Colombia and other parts of the world: concepts that have developed in parallel, evolved and remain present in our current worldviews.

An Open Source work

Primer Cero is Open Source, and all the developments behind the piece are released under a Creative Commonslicence, allowing anyone to reproduce, use and/or modify, in part or in full, every component of the work. They can draw on all the choreographies, designs, visual content, music and sounds, plans, software with source code, and conceptual material, among other resources. These features open up a wide range of possibilities for the spaces and contexts in which the work can take place.

We consider the Open Source of Primer Cero to be an important part of its conceptual foundation. For Ymoov the sharing of knowledge should be inseparable from creation and learning. We will release this work with every concept, reflection and reference that composes it, so that it can be understood, adopted, reproduced and even improved by anyone who wishes. This contributes to demystifying art: if it truly is reserved for fortunate minds, everyone should at least have the opportunity to test themselves under fair and honest conditions, without being excluded in advance by a veil of mystery that sometimes serves only to elevate empty ideas into the realm of the eruditely incomprehensible.

The resources can be accessed through our online repository. It is currently taking its first steps and is under continuous development, but it is already accessible here.

Residency at CERN

This project was born in response to the invitation received by Margareth Arias and Adrián Serna, creative directors of Ymoov, to undertake an artistic residency at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. We spent two weeks in the laboratories, accompanied by a group of scientific and artistic mentors who were fundamental to our project’s conceptual development.

The residency required us to develop a preliminary idea for a work in which our artistic disciplines would engage with particle physics or research being conducted at CERN as a source of inspiration. Starting from dance and technology, the two foundations on which Ymoov was created, we began our search by exploring studies of Origin and its conception.

This residency was made possible by the programme Suratómica, with support from @artcms, from 19 September to 3 October 2019, with support from the Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia through one of its international mobility grants⁴ under the 2019 estímulos programme.

After completing the residency at CERN, with extensive information and key contacts, we completed the conceptual integration and the overall script of the piece. This allowed us to join the artistic residency programme at Santa Maria workshop center in Heleta – Francia, where six weeks were devoted to pre-production and to defining the different factors that would make the work possible.