CRISTINA LUCAS
Úbeda, Spain, 1973
Received the Fundación Botín Grant in 2002

Chain Reaction Belt, 2025
Video composition
Color, stereo sound
51’ 28’’
Acquired in 2025

Chain Reaction Belt proposes a visual chronology of the Anthropocene. A sequence of images, arranged like a continuously moving belt, unfolds the milestones of modernity—from the steam engine to artificial intelligence. Each innovation appears not as an isolated event, but as a link in a chain that triggers disruptions and readjustments in the lives of millions of people. Along this trajectory, collective responses also emerge: protests, legislative achievements, and structural transformations.

The proposal is organized around a kaleidoscopic video in which human bodies merge with constantly mutating technological gears. Drawing on a non-utilitarian and contemplative use of the materials employed, Lucas seeks traces of the past that can outline new terrains, where a culture of collective memories and desirable futures becomes possible.

The term “revolution” originates in the technical realm, where it designates a turn, a rotation. In the human sphere, however, every technological revolution has entailed a radical reconfiguration of society, biodiversity, and geopolitics. The moving belt of this work makes visible that inseparable web of causes and effects, in which the new never replaces the old without first destabilizing it.

The piece culminates in a vision of a desired future: an empowered society capable of demanding balance with the planet, with technology, and with the intimacy of its own data. Chain Reaction Belt thus invites us to maintain a critical gaze on progress, recognizing that each advance is not linear, but part of a choreography of tensions, losses, and possibilities.