Cristina Garcia-Lasuen

Cristina García-Lasuén is a Spanish art critic and curator based in Spain. She is the founder of Open This End, a nonprofit cultural organization that researches, develops, and exhibits art created with new technologies.

Her work has been shown at venues including the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the Instituto Cervantes in Tokyo, the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018, and the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

Education

García-Lasuén holds a law degree (Licenciatura en Derecho) from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Further details about postgraduate or specialist art training are not consistently documented in publicly accessible sources.

Career

Open This End

García-Lasuén founded Open This End as a nonprofit cultural association composed of professionals from art, culture, science, and education. The organization's stated mission is to investigate, classify, develop, and exhibit artistic and cultural content produced with new technologies, and to disseminate that knowledge to both specialist and general audiences under an "open culture" philosophy.

She has also written critical essays for art exhibition catalogues, with contributions documented around 2000–2001 and again in 2016 in the bibliography of painter José Manuel Ciria.

World Expo 2010, Shanghai

Open This End organized a program of three consecutive exhibitions from 1 May to 31 October 2010 at the Madrid Pavilion "Air Tree" at World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. These exhibitions presented video works by international artists and introduced García-Lasuén's taxonomy of contemporary moving-image art, divided into three categories: "Real," "Virtual," and "Machinima." The Air Tree structure itself was designed by the Madrid firm Ecosistema Urbano and published under a Creative Commons license.

The screenings at the Expo are independently corroborated by artist Bryn Oh, who documented the event on her blog at the time, noting that García-Lasuén had approached Spanish officials to bring machinima to the pavilion and that works were screened on large HD screens attached to the Air Tree. The artist Marina Núñez also lists the exhibition in her curriculum vitae, naming García-Lasuén as curator.

CAFÉ exhibition, Instituto Cervantes Tokyo (2013)

In October 2013, García Lasuén curated CAFÉ. Una Historia de la Animación española. ARTE at the Instituto Cervantes in Tokyo, running from 2 to 26 October 2013. The exhibition presented 29 video works produced between 1999 and 2013. A notice from the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo described the exhibition as the first of five planned editions under the CAFÉ acronym (Cine+Animación+Ficción+Exposición), framing the project around the technological evolution of the arts.

En un lugar de la memoria, Coimbra (2015)

In December 2015, Open This End presented the exhibition En un lugar de la memoria at the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra (Portugal) as part of Mostra Espanha 2015. The exhibition included 35 works created specifically for the occasion and extended across three floors of the venue. In press coverage, García Lasuén described the exhibition's focus as combining new technologies with art presentation and remarked on the rarity of exhibitions unifying those two fields.

Arte es Digital. Digital es Arte, Museo Vostell Malpartida (2016)

In September–October 2016, Open This End curated Arte es Digital. Digital es Arte at Museo Vostell Malpartida in Malpartida de Cáceres, Spain. The exhibition combined contemporary digital works with immersive interactive art accessed through virtual reality (VR) experiences, which local press described using the term "metaverse."

Spain Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale (2018)

In 2018, Open This End participated in Spain's national pavilion, titled becoming, at the Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by architect Atxu Amann. The organization developed five augmented reality (AR) virtual models as part of the pavilion's informational layer and hybrid physical/virtual walls. The pavilion ran from 26 May to 25 November 2018.

ON, Bosque Templado and "Portal Art" (2018–2019)

ON, Bosque Templado (ON, Temperate Forest) is a large-scale immersive virtual reality artwork developed by Open This End. According to the organization's own descriptions, the work renders a full-scale three-dimensional VR forest environment with multisensory components including spatialized sound, scent, wind simulation, and climate parameters; it also features animals whose behavior is driven by artificial intelligence reacting to simulated natural parameters. The project was reported to have been distinguished with the "2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage" label, which was a branding and recognition mechanism issued by the European Commission for qualifying cultural activities during that year.

A public presentation of ON, Bosque Templado took place on 9 July 2019 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. Press reviews described how visitor movement within the virtual space influenced the behavior of virtual animals, for example causing a deer to react to the user's presence. The work was presented as inclusive, with claims that it enabled people with reduced mobility or limited economic resources to experience a wild forest environment.

García Lasuén has framed ON and related works under the concept of "Arte Portal" (Portal Art), describing it as an immersive, multisensory, and interactive mode of artistic experience in which visitors enter a new spatiotemporal axis and become active participants in the unfolding of the artwork, rather than passive observers. She and the organization have presented this as a conceptual "paradigm shift" in the exhibition encounter.

El Río (2019)

El Río (The River) is a related "Portal Art" work first exhibited publicly at the World VR Day event hosted by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Faculty of Fine Arts on 19–20 November 2019. The work incorporates a brain–computer interface (BCI) that captures cognitive-emotional biometric data from the visitor and uses that data to transform the virtual forest environment in real time, producing what the organization describes as a unique and non-repeatable experience for each visitor.

WEB 001, Havana Biennial (2021–2022)

WEB 001. Caminar entre realidades is an augmented reality work developed by Open This End between 2019 and 2021 and presented at the 14th Havana Biennial (2021–2022). The work proposes an artistic journey through the medieval depopulated landscape of Santa Creu de Rodes and draws on the concept of a "Virtuality Continuum" to blend physical and digital experience.

Curatorial philosophy

A consistent theme in both primary and secondary sources is García Lasuén's commitment to aligning art institutions with the technological conditions of contemporary life. She has described Open This End's guiding idea as "transferring technology to the field of art," and has emphasized ongoing research not only into artists' technological practices but also into the challenge of how to exhibit such media appropriately.

Her taxonomy of moving-image art—"Real," "Virtual," and "Machinima"—was first presented systematically in the context of the World Expo 2010 program and placed machinima at the highest degree of virtuality, linking it to accessible production tools and popular culture. In later work, the "Portal Art" framework extends these ideas toward full-body immersive encounters in which the spectator's presence and movement become part of the artwork itself.

A further recurring theme is the relationship between advanced technologies and environmental and heritage concerns. The ON project is described as linking XR immersion with sensitivity toward nature and climate change, and as enabling inclusive access to otherwise inaccessible ecological sites.

Selected works and exhibitions

+ Selected documented activities of Open This End Date  Title  Venue  Notes May–October 2010  World Expo 2010 "Air Tree" program  Madrid Pavilion, Shanghai  Three exhibitions; debut of Real/Virtual/Machinima taxonomy October 2013  CAFÉ. Una Historia de la Animación española. ARTE  Instituto Cervantes, Tokyo  29 video works, 1999–2013 December 2015  En un lugar de la memoria  Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra, Portugal  Part of Mostra Espanha 2015; 35 works September–October 2016  Arte es Digital. Digital es Arte  Museo Vostell Malpartida, Cáceres  Digital and VR works May–November 2018  Spain Pavilion becoming  Venice Architecture Biennale  5 AR virtual models under curator Atxu Amann July 2019  ON, Bosque Templado  Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid  Public presentation; "Portal Art" framing November 2019  ON, Bosque Templado and El Río  UCM Faculty of Fine Arts, Madrid  World VR Day; El Río features BCI biometric interaction 2021–2022  WEB 001. Caminar entre realidades  14th Havana Biennial  AR; Santa Creu de Rodes site

References

External links

 Open This End (official site)
 Cristina García Lasuén (blog)
 Academia.edu profile

Category:Spanish art critics
Category:Spanish curators
Category:New media art
Category:Virtual reality art
Category:Women art critics
Category:Universidad Complutense de Madrid alumni