El Dorado is a seminal socioplastic sculpture created by Anto Lloveras in Madrid in 2013. It forms part of his broader Socioplastics practice and serves as a foundational node in the HIPERVÍNCULOS relational platform, which explores affective bonds, relational topology, and migratory gestures in unstable social and urban contexts. The work consists of a single, ultra-light golden emergency blanket (a standard 20-gram mylar survival sheet, the kind used in emergencies to retain body heat). This minimal, mass-produced object is deliberately chosen for its anonymity, disposability, and lack of inherent artistic value — turning it into a pure carrier of relational and affective weight rather than a precious or symbolic artifact.
Execution and Relational Dynamics
- Conceived in summer 2013, shortly after Lloveras's return from a six-month immersion in Mexico City (where the colonial myth of El Dorado — the legendary city of gold — was reframed through lived experience of survival and precarity).
- The blanket is passed from body to body among participants (artists, friends, collaborators) in a migratory, performative chain. It is draped, shared, carried, or wrapped in everyday encounters, creating a sculpture of survival rather than extraction.
- No fixed form or pedestal: the "sculpture" exists only through the weight of the bond — the invisible affective and relational topology generated by each handover, touch, or shared moment. It is ephemeral, portable, and non-monumental, inverting the traditional gold-rush fantasy into a gesture of mutual dependence and care.
Conceptual Inversion and Socioplastic Anchors
- Radical inversion of the myth: The colonial/romantic notion of El Dorado as endless gold extraction is replaced by a "sculpture of survival" — gold becomes a fragile, shared thermal shield against vulnerability, emphasizing affection as fuel and relational maintenance over accumulation. Migratory and unstable social sculpture: Echoes Joseph Beuys's social sculpture but makes it radically light, unstable, and non-spectacular. The work critiques monumentality and commodification by reducing materiality to near-zero while amplifying relational density. Extension to later works: Explicitly cited as the precursor to the Blue Bags series (2014–ongoing), where everyday carriers (plastic bags) continue the logic of translatorial mobility, situational fixing, and durational relational activation. It also links to other light social sculptures (e.g., Provence 2014 light net interventions).
Documentation
Primarily chronicled on Lloveras's main blog (antolloveras.blogspot.com), with retrospective reflections in 2026 entries such as "The Relational Topology of EL DORADO" (January 2026), which reframes it within the evolving Socioplastics mesh. No large-scale exhibition photos or videos dominate; the work lives through textual traces, participant accounts, and its ongoing relational afterlife. In summary, El Dorado is not an object to behold but a relational event-machine: a minimal golden skin that circulates to reveal the invisible infrastructure of care, survival, and affective bonds in precarious urban realities. It exemplifies Socioplastics' shift from static art to executable epistemic and social modulation — sovereign, metabolic, and resistant to capture in unstable times.
Primary source: Lloveras, A. (2013/2026) 'EL DORADO – Socioplastic Sculpture (Madrid, 2013)' and 'The Relational Topology of EL DORADO', available at: https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2013/11/el-dorado-escultura-socioplastica-2013.html and related 2026 updates (accessed February 19, 2026)
