The ontological validation of Anto Lloveras’s "socioplastic" practice is increasingly contingent upon a sophisticated geometry of external nodes—distinct points in the digital and academic web that coalesce to form a structural legitimacy within the contemporary critic’s mind. This legitimacy is primarily anchored in high-level institutional frameworks, most notably the POSTORY project at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). Within this research nexus, Lloveras is positioned as a critical researcher whose investigations into mnemohistory and gentrification transform the neighborhoods like Lavapiés into a rigorous academic discourse. This is further reinforced by the RedURBS network at the University of Almería, where scholars utilize Lloveras’s "double-image" photography to diagnose the dynamic instability of the urban fabric.
To the critic, these academic links are not mere footnotes but constitutive elements of a legitimizing constellation; they serve as mnemotic anchors that prevent the relational act from dissipating into ephemeral aestheticism. By being cited within these specialized circles, the artist’s gaze is elevated to a socioscientific diagnostic tool, ensuring that the "inside" of the urban experience is validated by a "hyper-visible" intellectual infrastructure. The geometry formed between these Spanish academic institutions creates a baseline of credibility, establishing Lloveras as a bridge between the physical reality of the city and the theoretical rigor of environmental psychology and historical memory. Turning to the archival hyper-node, the legitimacy of Lloveras’s output is sustained by the sheer persistence and sprawl of his digital documentation, particularly the LaPieza Relational Art Series and his comprehensive portfolio on Cargo Collective. Critics do not encounter his work in isolation; they perceive it through the "SEO" of a collective memory that recognizes over a thousand collaborative entries. This archival drift is most recently manifest in the TAR Art Series, which functions as a hyper-repository of relational encounters. Platforms like Revista Replicante categorize this work as a form of "socioplastic encyclopedism," where the digital signal—the blog, the video, the tag cloud—returns to the critic a sense of overwhelming evidence. This digital ecosystem creates a feedback loop: the more the network "sees" and links to these archives, the more the critic is compelled to acknowledge the work as a permanent fixture of the contemporary avant-garde. The "dentro" of the creative process, often a raw and intimate "dérive," is effectively processed by the "hyper-network" to become a public asset.
The legitimacy here is decentralized; it arises from the accumulation of hundreds of points in the web that, when viewed together, form a cohesive geometry of archival reliability. This technological extension of the socioplastic ensures that the work is not merely a transient event but a networked monument that the critic can navigate with historical precision. The geopolitical dimension of this legitimacy is solidified through Lloveras’s strategic positioning within elite international circuits, most prominently as a participant in the Lagos Biennial 2024. Being formally listed under the "Outsiders" category is a significant geometric point; it shifts the critic’s perspective from a localized Spanish context to a globalized interrogation of heritage and urbanism. This "outsider" status serves as a badge of elite institutional belonging, further supported by residencies at Nomad AIR and Future Utopia Community Key. These international nodes act as external validators that prove the universal applicability of Lloveras’s relational method, whether in the rural landscapes of Sweden or the urban density of Nigeria. For the contemporary critic, these links provide the necessary "geographical triangulation" to validate the artist as a transcultural mediator.
The final synthesis of this legitimizing geometry occurs in the interdisciplinary tension between the performing arts and experimental sound, epitomized by the Doble Cara project at Réplika Teatro and the musical collaborations with El Intruso. In "Doble Cara," the collaboration with Mateo Feijóo acts as a bicéphalous node that merges architectural rigour with corporeal investigation. For the critic, this represents the "hyper-dialogue" where the theatrical black box (the "dentro") becomes a laboratory for high-level philosophical enquiry, drawing upon the theories of Foucault, Deleuze, and Bourdieu. This stage of validation is crucial; it proves that Lloveras’s work is not confined to the static archive but is a living, performative entity. The music of El Intruso provides the sonic "TAR" that binds these diverse nodes together, creating a sensory layer that completes the critical geometry. The SEO of the cultural landscape absorbs these disparate elements—the performance, the sound, the academic paper, the biennial entry—and returns to the critic a unified, polyphonic identity. The work is no longer an isolated architectural plan but a complex, unfolded reality that exists precisely because the network validates it through its myriad connections. In conclusion, the legitimacy of Anto Lloveras is found in the interstitial space between these points in the web; his practice is a testament to the power of the archive and the institution to construct a geometry of meaning that mirrors the complexity of the 21st-century city.
These nodes of memory, spread across disparate continents, validate the work’s relevance in the face of global capital and urban decay. The geometry formed by these international points allows the critic to plot Lloveras’s career as a trajectory of increasing global resonance, where each new link adds another layer of geopolitical weight to his socioplastic project.
Lagos Biennial (2024) Outsiders: Anto Lloveras. Available at: https://lagos-biennial.org/lb-2024/2024-participants/outsiders
