Irene Molina

Suave /ˈswɑːv/ smoothly gracious in manner
Everyone says she’s as suave in person as she is on screen
in person i a la pantalla
Excerpt from the poem by Alba Mayol Dura vol ser carnosa, from the book Blandito Blandito by Blanca Arias.

At some point, we stopped imagining the cloud as a white, weightless vapor. We learned it’s made of massive industrial warehouses, endless corridors of metal racks, flickering cold lights, fans humming like a constant breath. Thousands of square meters filled with servers storing our photos, conversations, 3D models, desires, and mistakes. Everything we believe to be intangible has a postal address, a temperature, a weight. The cloud takes up space.

“Machine” comes from the Greek mēkhanḗ: device, ingenious resource, means to set something in motion. It wasn’t always a physical object—it could also be a stratagem, a way to twist the course of events. They say it shares a root with magh- (to be able, to have power), the same one that shaped words like magic and majesty. “Desire” comes from the Latin desiderare: to feel the absence of the stars. It was used when a navigator, looking at the sky, couldn’t find the sign they were hoping for. It was a longing guided by astronomy: waiting for something distant and radiant that hasn’t arrived yet.

My objects have lived there first, in the cloud as data, among hard drives and fiber optic cables crossing oceans. They’ve inhabited an industrial landscape. They were lines of code and polygons on a screen before condensing into something I can touch. Because every day we move parts of our lives into those spaces, trusting they will always be there. The pieces are born from a shared archive that circulates through the network. That endless thread appearing on screens with the promise: “this is the softest thing you’ll see today.” Gentle gestures. Black boxes. We know the inputs and outputs. Inside, there’s an opaque combinatory logic that still manages to produce forms. Each piece functions as an interface: it receives input, returns output. We don’t know what happened, but now it’s matter.

I think of the essay Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari, where they use the concept of desiring-machines: a synthesis of gears that never stop producing connections. In my work, that digital flow takes shape in volumes that touch, embrace, repeat, multiply. What was once information is now skin, fold, a relief reminiscent of muscle. A cloud with weight, taking up space. Desiring-machines present a system in motion. Each piece channels desire, leaves a trace, opens pathways. Matter to keep searching for stars with our hands.

Text by Irene Molina