Perception Spot

Soy Capitán is pleased to present Perception Spot, their fourth collaboration with artist Camilla Steinum. The exhibition features three installation works by Steinum that surprise through the use of unusual materials and a strong emphasis on reactive and participatory elements. Through a combination of light, movement and materiality, Steinum creates a way of looking at art in which one is not merely an observer thinking about the art, but is enmeshed in it. In You Can Move (2022), a flock of dark birds made of wood hang suspended overhead. Their bodies are ambiguous as it’s neither clear which direction they’re headed, nor which exact bird family they belong to. Metal chains attached to their bodies evoke the image of jacks, children’s toys that belong to a time before smart phones and video games. The viewer is invited to pull the string, and elicit a gesture of movement. They become a trigger within a larger system, in which we think we grasp cause and effect, only to be confused by the birds’ refusal to reveal more about themselves. Set against the birds is the work series You Count (2026). Silkscreened mirrors printed with lottery coupons hang on the walls. The scattered crosses bear the trace of someone else’s choice of lottery numbers. Band-aids spotted with ink blotches have been placed onto the surface and partially obscure the boxes neatly filled with numbers ranging from 1 to 49. Taking a closer look, one finds different zodiac signs printed in German next to the upper titles. What is more, one finds oneself reflected back, as the mirror incorporates the viewer into the picture. In recent times, astrology and numerology have given rise to curated identities carved out by zodiac signs, birth charts and angelic numbers. As such, the coupons tickle our vanity, as we will certainly seek out our sign in the row of lottery coupons. But these measurements are far from being purely narcissistic tools. Numbers and horoscopes also provide a sense of comfort and order in times of heightened vulnerability and uncertainty. In these works, chance and fate collapse into each other, instead of being juxtaposed as two different belief systems. By linking both concepts, Steinum alludes to the way these systems serve as symbolic tools for navigating a world in which control always seems beyond our reach. Continuing this line of thought is Under the Lids (2026), which extend this idea into even more fragile territory. Made from toilet paper and wood glue, the colored balls hang on ropes colored by pigmented beeswax. Their colors recall impalpable fields of light, like those that flicker behind closed eyes. Numbers spraypainted onto the surface mark them as enlarged lottery balls, but while the latter are usually hollow and light, these contain sensors and programmed light elements that respond to movement in the gallery room. And while the former blow around maniacally in a glass container on TV, these spheres hang from the wall like an upside-down abacus. Alluding to systems of measurement and rationale, chance as a construct gains a new meaning in which the logic of privilege is veiled. Who is favored and who is not has little to do with a well-dressed moderator drawing numbers from an air mix machine. If anything, we find ourselves subject to systems in which chance, understood as luck, is carefully molded to favor the right socio-economic status rather than adhere to the logic of unpredictability. Here is where the works come full circle. They all draw attention to how we are situated in our environment. While the birds in You Can Move (2022) make painfully clear our lack of control, the lottery coupons and balls in You Count (2026) and Under the Lids (2026) reveal the belief systems and biases that are baked into the concept of chance. But instead of being overcome by a flush of senselessness or being bridled by our impotence, we could take a step back and let all of it sink in. By halting and observing, we might slowly find the one thing the works insist on: that perception itself is where the capacity to act takes shape. —Luisa Del Prete

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