LA FÀBRICA TRANSPARENT (THE TRANSPARENT FACTORY)

07/11/2025 – 10/01/2026

Exhibition by Marta Azparren, Roc Parés, Marc Villanueva, Alán Carrasco, Mónica Rikić, Total Refusal, Ezequiel Soriano i Raquel Friera.

Curated by Marc Villanueva.

Opening, November 7 at 7:00 p.m.

Exhibition co-produced by Festival Panòptic and M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani, which is part of the Programa d'Exposicions Itinerants 2025-2026 (Travelling Exhibitions Programme) of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, with the collaboration of ACVIC Centre d'Arts Contemporànies.

The exhibition is part of the Vic Digital Arts Cycle.

One of the first shots in the history of cinema is of workers exiting a factory. Filmed in 1895 by the Lumière brothers in front of their own camera factory, the famous sequence shows us how workers cease to be a homogeneous group and become a dispersed crowd.

As we enter an increasingly digital world, work becomes more flexible, precarious and ubiquitous, and often no longer defines us as individuals. Even during our free time we continue to work unpaid, generating content or data. In the transparent factory, it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish when we are inside and when we are outside.

Video games are particularly volatile arenas in this process of transformation. Although we tend to think of them as a leisure activity, video games are seeming increasingly like a complement to the workday. Short games, simple rules, repetitive routines, and a meticulously calibrated balance between gratification and frustration are the ingredients of a new digital ergonomics, which conquers screens and blurs the boundaries between leisure time and work time, between unproductivity and hyperactivity.

This exhibition, which takes as its title the homonymous research by the Mataró artist Octavi Comeron (1965-2013) on art and post-Fordism, questions us about the relationship between play and work, as well as about the value of time and imagination, at a time when our bodies engage the symbolic gears of an activity which we no longer call work.

Image: Helena Roig, Panòptic

07/11/2025 – 10/01/2026

This is an exhibition by Marta Azparren, Roc Parés, Marc Villanueva, Alán Carrasco, Mónica Rikić, Total Refusal, Ezequiel Soriano and Raquel Friera.

The exhibition is organised by Marc Villanueva.

Opening day: November 7 at 7:00 p.m.

This exhibition is made by Festival Panòptic and M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani. It is part of the Travelling Exhibitions Programme 2025-2026 from the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya. ACVIC Centre d'Arts Contemporànies helps with the exhibition.

The exhibition is part of the Vic Digital Arts Cycle.

One of the first films ever made shows workers leaving a factory. It was filmed in 1895 by the Lumière brothers in front of their camera factory. The film shows how workers stop being one group and become many different people.

Today, work is changing. It is more flexible and less stable. Work happens everywhere and anytime. Sometimes, work does not define who we are. Even when we are free, we keep working without pay by making content or data. In the "transparent factory," it is hard to know when we are working and when we are not.

Video games are part of this change. We think video games are for fun. But now, video games feel like part of work. They are short, simple, and repeat many times. They mix reward and frustration carefully. This creates a new way to use screens. It makes it hard to see the difference between free time and work time, between not working and working a lot.

This exhibition is named after a study by the artist Octavi Comeron (1965-2013) from Mataró. The study is about art and post-Fordism (a way work changed after big factories). The exhibition asks us about the link between play and work. It also asks about the value of time and imagination. It shows how our bodies join in an activity we no longer call work.

Photo by Helena Roig, Festival Panòptic