Mario Santamaría (Burgos, 1985) explores the physical infrastructures that underpin what we perceive as intangible: the internet, energy and data flows. His method involves physically inspecting those systems. Following a residency at the City of Energy Foundation (CIUDEN) of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in Cubillos del Sil, the artist travelled between L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Cubillos del Sil, passing through Asturias and following the route of the gas pipelines, in order to adopt the logic of the gas’s own flow across the territory.

The installation translates this route into a continuous line of six iron plates on which photographs, engravings and annotations are displayed: junctions, pressure-equalisation stations and changes in vegetation that give away the underground route. At the same time, a vertical video introduces a second journey —this time an algorithmic one— filtered through the recommendation systems that the artist himself feeds and exaggerates by using them as a research tool. The result is a series of hypnotic, sculptural images, full of humour, in which the cylinder serves as a unifying theme. The work thus proposes a dual shift and reveals that energy and digital infrastructures share the same planetary metabolism, underpinned by a common material basis.