POÉTICAS DIGITAIS BLOG

The group's latest work is Amoreiras (2010), an installation about autonomy, artificial learning, nature and the environment. The main actors are five young mulberry trees at Paulista Avenue, São Paulo’s cultural and economic hub.

Each one of the trees has an implanted poetical prosthesis, a device with the purpouse of supplying, correcting, and enhancing a natural but compromised function, thus guaranteeing the tree’s survival. This prosthesis consists of a band of metal, rubber and acrylic prosthesis connected to a small motor and to an Arduino board to make the young trunk vibrate in dialog with the factors related to the pollution.

A dance of trees, prosthesis and algorithms, making apparent and poetic the swaying of the branches, sometimes (in)voluntary-mechanical , sometimes caused by the wind itself running against the leaves.

Grupo Poéticas Digitais is made up in this work by: Gilbertto Prado, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Claudio Bueno, Daniel Ferreira, Luciana Ohira, Lucila Meirelles, Mauricio Taveira, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha, Tania Fraga and Tatiana Travisani.

POÉTICAS DIGITAIS BLOG

Insects use the light of the moon and stars as a marker of location, keeping in constant angle to get to and from their breeding places. With artificial light of our electric lights, insects start to become confused, trying to get close to light sources, flying in circles, forming clouds, attracted by light in endless loops. The light that attracts them is infrared, a wavelength the human eye is not able to see, yet it is a potent sexual attractor of moths. Thus, electromagnetic frequencies are covertly perceived through the ages under the moonlight or electric light, perpetuating the survival of species.

Desluz is about the discovery of the invisible, our provisional places, our flows and grids, layers that subtly overlap one another, lure us not letting us see them, betray our hidden, yet so apparent, senses, and bring to light our desires in endless pursuit of following the stars.

Desluz is a non-light, as an intense desire that burns but does not light; it is felt but not seen. The light will only be visible through mobile cameras that mode around the LED transparent cube, in a stripping operation than the eye cannot see.
 

POÉTICAS DIGITAIS BLOG

We have a virtual blue cube on the web with a stone on its base. Upon accessing it, the interactor writes a word and chooses a place to put it. The words can overlap, or combine with others spread and scattered around the cube. In the gallery, there is a virtual stone, inside a cube with blue LEDs (8X8X8), which responds to the interventions, varying with the intensity and frequency of light, according to the choices and nominations.

The web-installation handles choices, inscriptions and sharing, from the process of naming things, placing brands and choice of territory, creating shared light spaces, causing chain actions in a symbolic, physical manner.

Pedralumen (light-stone) is a project of contemplation, and the public in direct contact with the piece, does not have a way to interact locally with the project. At the location, only the LED cube is found (and the computer connected to the internet and to the piece, but without the keyboard, mouse or monitor for public access). It is a project of reflection on the interaction and sharing with one another, you can see the intervention of another, locally distant for that piece, but not that of your own action at that moment.

This project was presented in September /October 2008 at the exhibit “Chain Reaction” at the Museum of the City of Skopje, Macedonia, as part of the 3rd Upgrade! International Meeting and also at the Exhibition EM MEIOS, at the Museu Nacional da República, Brasília, as part of the #7.ART - Encontro Internacional de Arte e Tecnologia: to comprehend the current moment and think of the future context of art.

POÉTICAS DIGITAIS BLOG

Incógnito (2007) a videopoem that consists in a virtual journey inside the root of the word "cognito". The subjective camera travels along the letters, which are arranged in three-dimensional space, without ever revealing them completely. Through this visual walk, planes and superpositions of layers appear to the viewer.

In a similar manner, the sound is a journey inside the interior spaces of the spoken word, through the "corners" and superpositions of sounds, without allowing the complete word to be recognized.

This work was presented at the exhibitions Palavras sem fronteiras: mídias convergentes, at the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Rio de Janeiro, 2007, curated by Alberto Saraiva), Cópias Ilimitadas, at NOEMA/Galeria Vermelho - Second Life (São Paulo, 2007, curated by Giselle Beiguelman), and Braaaasiiiil: Cine, vídeo, performance, concierto, at Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2008).

One of the frames in the video (which runs at 24 frames/second) contains the word "cógnito" in the bottom, which can´t be read in normal speed (it is necessary to freeze the frame), but is subliminally perceivedd by the brain. That is the only moment in which the word "cognito" is formally presented in writing, but not visually legible.

This work is about the different possible ways to interpret the world and perception itself.

POÉTICAS DIGITAIS BLOG

The game Cozinheiro das Almas (Cook of Souls) is based on the book " O Perfeito Cozinheiro das Almas deste Mundo" (The Perfect Cook of the Souls of this World), diary of the garçonnière (bachelor pad) kept by Oswald de Andrade in 1918/19. The text deals with the relationship between Oswald and Deyse, who is a 17 year-old high school student at the time and other visitors to the bachelor pad. Deyse dies from tuberculosis at the age of 18 and marries in extremis Oswald on her death bed.

The video game is in the first person - in which the the player, gets lost in a virtual representation of Sao Paulo in 1918 and interactively visits a number of different environments in which little by little he/she finds out what is going on.

Everything takes place in the space of a single day and the character is flung from one place to another regardless of his/her wishes. In this way, it is a script of a doubly labyrinthine virtual atmosphere: there are spatial labyrinths as well as temporal ones.

The game is exploratory, but with a "mission" for the player. This is not stated ostensively and the player will discover it during the play.

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Acaso30 (2005) is an interactive installation in memory of those killed in the massacre that took place in the Queimados neighborhood of the coastal area of the State of Rio de Janeiro sometime between a Thursday night and dawn that Friday, in March 2005 where 30 people were eliminated.

The installation is set up in a half-open space, as if it were a town square, where there could be a lot of people moving around, but that is not well-lit. In the center of the space there is a large heavy totally handmade blue rug, like those made by prisoners' wives. The series of images as well as the spots onto which they are projected occur in a random way. Once a person steps onto the rug two things happen: an image of a nude body is projected onto the ground and a strong wind is created by a fan from a wall facing the spectator. The only noise is that of the wind from the fan which creates tension and instability. As for the images, from the moment that they are projected onto a given spot tension zones are generated tension with the result that the actions of the bodies react when the spectators get closer and when they move away. When the spectators reach the bodies the situation becomes irreversible with the death of the characters and the disappearance of the images. An interval without any projections or actions follows.

This work was presented in the Mostra Cinético Digital show, at Itaú Cultural, as well as nominated at Canariamediafest06 - 12º Festival Internacional de Artes e Culturas Digitales de Gran Canária in Spain, 2006.

Credits

Gilbertto Prado, Cinético_Digital, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo from June 5th to September 11th 2005.

Support Team: Fábio Oliveira, Gaspar Arguello, Jesus de Paula Assis, Luciano Gosuen e Maurício Taveira
Programming: Luis Henrique Moraes
Actors: Francisco Serpa e Karina Yamamoto

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Desertesejo (http://www.itaucultural.org.br/desertesejo) is an artistic project by Gilbertto Prado Developed at Program New Media Directions - Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil in 2000. The project is a networked virtual web-based environment, that allows 50 participants simultaneously on-line.

Desertesejo is a poetical exploration of geographical extension, the temporary ruptures, the loneliness, the constant re-invention and the proliferation of points of meeting and sharing.

On entering the virtual environment, the traveler comes across a cave which has rocks falling gently from the ceiling. Any of these rocks can be clicked on. After having clicked on a rock, the traveler is then transported to a new room, in which he or she has to carry the rock selected. The traveler can then place the rock on one of the various heaps (apaicheta) that are found in different locations. The rock will show that this traveler has been through here and will act as a sign of his/her presence to other travelers.

There are three different ways to enter this room. By clicking on a rock inside the cave, the traveler will be transported as a tiger, a snake or an eagle. In other words: the traveler will be able to walk, slither or fly across the room, as if in a shamanistic dream, but the traveler won't know beforehand what form he/she will take on in this new location.

The rooms are made up of landscapes, and fractions of memories and dreams, with there being three distinct routes that cross each other and alternate with each other, forming a chain, and creating various oniric paths:

1. GOLD. This is the zone of silence. In this first room the navigation is lonely.

2. VIRIDIS. This is the space of heaven and colors. Inside it, the traveler will see signs that indicate the presence of other travelers, but won't have any direct contact with them.

3. FEATHERS. This is the axis of dreams and mirages. Within this room the traveler interacts directly with others, via 3D chat. This is the zone of contact and partition between the avatars of different users.

The device consists of 6 interactive terminals in a set of 9 monitors. It is based on "A Reprodução Interdita (Retrato de Edward James)", a work by René Magritte (1937). Each one of the elements that form the work were isolated and reconstructed so that they "shatter" when the viewer touches them.

The isolated elements can also be composed individualy in the environment, allowing other compositions, showing through the hidden parts. The interactions combine themselves in a chain of possible paths of fragmentation and revelation, shared by the participants until they are faced with the image of the empty room, in front of a mirror with no reflections. Presented in "Imaterials" exhibition - Instituto Itaú Cultural (Aug-Oct 1999).

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The installation "Depois do Turismo vem o Colunismo" (After the Turismo comes the Colunismo*) consisted of a “portal” with two Webcams connected to Internet which were started by sensors disposed in the physical space of the installation through the visitors’ passage. That local image grabbed in real time was mixed with the ones of an image data base and made available throughout the net.

The images available on the data base arise from scenes of anthropophagi, pictures of XVI and XVII centuries, witch portray the foreign view of the first visitors, tourists of the Terra Brasilis, mixed with artistic references, contemporary and also from other periods. The Web users could look at the space through webcam.

The work was made with humor about the presence, the foreign look, the contamination and the cultural cannibalism.

This Web installation took part, between September 3 and October 31, 1998, in the exhibition “City Canibal” at the Paço das Artes in São Paulo and in the sites selection in the Web Art of the 24th Biennial, in São Paulo, 1998.

* Play on words in portuguese among: colunista (columnist), coluna (spine) and colunável (celebrity).

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The device consists of 4 interactive terminals in a set of 9 monitors placed over the head of the participants, in which the navigation is done through the touch screen. As the participant, with his fingertips, touches the screen, a sequence of actions will be occurring at the same time that sounds, images and texts will be chaining together in different successions and ways. On both, ceiling and floor of the structure's device, there are reflective acrylic plates which reflect the participants found imersed in this environment, generating a mirrored relation and juxtaposing their images with the "electronic blue" of the screens, which is the base color proposed for the interactive animation.

The images create a great blue mosaic, chained together they are arranged in possible oniric routes, which will be shared with other participants. The images are fragments of (un)recognizable elements juxtaposed between parts of the ski, depth marines,...

The intention is to have the participant interacting in an intimate and shared way. He does it through a direct manipulation: at the same time that the environment where he is integrated is being modified, eventually he will be sharing it with others.

Finally, the advice requires direct actions in order to invoke and answer the events, taking on the participant as a voyeur and forcing his proximity to the screen in an unusual watching position. The participants will be moving around in the device, with their own touches they will be interrupting and modifying the sequences of sounds and images. Effectively, the visitor enters and modifies the inner space. The animation will become fragmented by the participant, who is who adds "unpredictable" rhythm to the device, incorporating the presence of the participants in what concerns rhythm and space.
Exhibited at Arte & Tecnologia, Espaço Cultural Itaú, São Paulo, September/October 1997.

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M.A. (desejo) is an interactive installation which compounds a cylindrical fiber glass element of 2,70m diameter by 1,70m height, rounded by three masks and three stairs that take to the upper top where through three other masks the interior of this pink element can be partially seen: one video camera was put behind the spectator who then is taking a voyeur's position, and through the two holes of the other masks, two multimedia computers were disposed there to be navigated.

Inside we had a CD-ROM which compounds 9 written and sonorized poems, some passages are videos and an amount of scanarized images and/or produced for this purpose. The starting image was an Polaroid of, a sailor looking at strip-girls' posters, found in a street of Paris. To this first image I added, searched, excavated other memories of trips and my childhood, which I spent in a portuary Brazilian city: an oblique look over our relations, voyeurism and desires. Exhibit at Art & Technology - Museu de Arte Contemporânea - MAC/USP - São Paulo, Brazil - December 1995.

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Since 1995,this project has researched more specifically the production of artistic events that use the net in a direct relation with the telematic art.

The wAwRwT project intends both to develop artistic work for the Internet as well as to reflect upon the technological poetics, focusing on the artistic-telematic dimension. Besides, this project intends to investigate whether and how these new technologies are influencing and being influenced by the construction of those new spaces of creation and intervention.

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Using the principle of shared screen via ISDN, you are invited to take place beside your partner and construct with him/her a hybrid image in real time, without ever touching or (even) seeing him/her. This ambiguity is at the heart of the project. An ephemeral relationship is created in which growth and composition depend on the other and on the dynamics of the exchange.Breath-poetry, a constant alternation of poles of representation, transformation of shadow into pixel-light.

Procedure:
1- A space (circle) divided in two appears on the screen.
2- The two participants work alternately, one on the left side, the other on the right.
3- Each participant's work consists of making whatever he wants on his half of the screen (drawing, photo,..., any kind of digital image, taking into account the other's participation, thus establishing an dialogue in images.
4- A participant has access to only one half of the sphere. He can possibly take elements from the other side (for example by copying and pasting) but he can't intervene graphically in the composition of the other half.
5- After the intervention, the participant turns over the control of the screen to his partner.
6- As soon as the image is finished, the participants click on a "button" at which time:

a: The center line disappears.
b: The image is given the name of a crater on the dark side of the moon, using chance procedure.
c: The image is saved (memorized).
d: The image disappears.
e: The blank screen is (again) ready for a new connection.
7- All the images made (this way) reveal a dark side of the moon, available in the form of an image bank, accessible by clicking on a "point" of the moon map created.
This project was developed during the exhibition "Machines à Communiquer" in the "Atelier des Réseaux" at Cité de la Science et de l'Industrie La Villette - Paris, with the collaboration of "Café Electronique" also at La Villette. The first images built together were made the 4th of July 1992 between Gilbertto Prado at "Café Electronique" (Paris) and Hermann Keldenich at Electronic Cafe (Kassel - Germany), during the IX Documenta. Other exchanges followed on the 5, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25 July 1992. Other exchanges were made, for instance on July the 29th and 30th of 1992 between the "Cafe Electronique" Paris and Electronic Cafe International at Chicago during the Siggraph.

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From an initial image, a chain reaction transformation started, where the paths, contacts and images were memorized under a certain topography. Each interventor modified the received image and then marked the ramification done on the route over the map and registered the dates of the contact to sent it to two others participants on the net. The route of the map was built from the bifurcations of the image and its transformations. In other words, each participant received the successive transformation stages that the image had gone through. The intention was to send this series of transitory stages instead of sending the final product of the transformation work. The main idea was to connect and reconnect these series of stages and transformations with an interactive animation.

This project was developed during the exhibition "Machines à Communiquer" in the "Atelier des Réseaux" at Cité de la Science et de l'Industrie La Villette - Paris from November 1991 until July 1992. The participants are artists, students and teachers from different universities and schools linked by the telecommunication network: Gilbertto Prado, Marc Colson, Pierre Granoux, Pierre Amatore, Michel Suret-Canale, Claire Jovanovic, Laurent Clavier, Christophe Le François, Liliane Terrier, Marisa Gonzalez, Karen O'Rourke, Martine Jolly, Thierry Dupuy, Marie-Paule Cassagne, Lydie Le Glehuir, Ségolène De La R. Saint-André, Isabelle Millet and Mathias Maffre.

VIDEO - DESCRIPTION (in portuguese - Windows Media)
VIDEO - DESCRIPTION (in portuguese - Quicktime)
VIDEO (Windows Media)

From an initial image, a chain reaction transformation started, where the paths, contacts and images were memorized under a certain topography. Each interventor modified the received image and then marked the ramification done on the route over the map and registered the dates of the contact to sent it to two others participants on the net. The route of the map was built from the bifurcations of the image and its transformations. In other words, each participant received the successive transformation stages that the image had gone through. The intention was to send this series of transitory stages instead of sending the final product of the transformation work. The main idea was to connect and reconnect these series of stages and transformations with an interactive animation.

This project was developed during the exhibition "Machines à Communiquer" in the "Atelier des Réseaux" at Cité de la Science et de l'Industrie La Villette - Paris from November 1991 until July 1992. The participants are artists, students and teachers from different universities and schools linked by the telecommunication network: Gilbertto Prado, Marc Colson, Pierre Granoux, Pierre Amatore, Michel Suret-Canale, Claire Jovanovic, Laurent Clavier, Christophe Le François, Liliane Terrier, Marisa Gonzalez, Karen O'Rourke, Martine Jolly, Thierry Dupuy, Marie-Paule Cassagne, Lydie Le Glehuir, Ségolène De La R. Saint-André, Isabelle Millet and Mathias Maffre.

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The project Connect is a fax-action that will enable people at different locations around the globe to make a unique artwork in real time. The participants must have two fax machines in each site. When the messages start to arrive, they are invited to feed that thermal paper roll (without cutting it) into the other machine, transforming the images in the process and then sending it to another site. In this way a loop is formed and the participants will build together one integrated work. An ephemeral and interactive curve will be drawn through the artistic network of communication.

The first connect action took place the 31th May 1991 between Paris (Art-Réseaux / Université de Paris I - Centre Saint Charles) et Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellow University - Studio for Creative Inquiry) and the participants: Gilbertto Prado, Karen O'Rourke, Christophe Le François, Claudine Romeo, Isabelle Millet and Patricia Franca (at Paris) and Artur Matuck, Maria Matuck, Rachel Allard, Jeniffer, ShowBin and Pamela (at Pittsburgh). Other exchanges also took place the 22 and 23 November 1991 between Paris (Art-Réseaux) and São Paulo (Workshop Project Reflux - XXI Bienal de São Paulo - Centro Cultural Oswald de Andrade).