El Plano de fondo es el nombre de una exposición individual realizada en 2024 en el Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz. La exposición, concebida específicamente para la sala del Depósito de aguas, consta de cuatro proyecciones a gran escala, rótulos-esculturas luminosas y una instalación escultórica de cajas rotuladas.

This solo show is the latest development of an artistic investigation initiated by Mikel Otxoteko, an exploration that began fifty years ago, with the experiences of my mother, Margarita Olazabal, on the islands of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, south of Newfoundland, and with those first cinematographic images taken by her.

The exhibition is a challenge to the conscience and the imagination. In order to look squarely at the sea cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa), facing a probable process of extinction, four dreams need to be traversed by approaching them through the Background Plane. While the significance of this itinerary varies from one dream to the next, its function remains the same: the Background Plane retains and amplifies the light emanating from the collective consciousness, and for those who accept the challenge, the Background Plane makes them seers for an instant.

In the semi-darkness of the room, an omnipresent voice guides the spectator through four phases. The voice suggests four strategies for accessing the Background Plane: by descending to the ocean floor; through an unusual contemplation of the images of the past; by provoking a fusion of the person with the banality of things; or by reversing the direction of time to finally reach a proof capable of confirming the forced disappearance of a key species of the marine ecosystem.

With art and veiled humour, these four dreams, made up of flashes of reality-fiction, ply the paradoxes of our historical times, the food sovereignty of island populations, the sciences of biology allied to the annihilation of ecosystems, and the overexploitation of limited natural resources: underwater sea cucumber farms dedicated to the exploitation of this species for pharmacological purposes, local exotics for wholesale on the Asian market, artificial intelligence systems that not only guarantee the survival of the species, but also foster new relationships between life forms...