lugares mutantes

Installation piece co-developed by Flor and berru for O que é um espaço de liberdade?, the 2024 exhibition of Mês da Arquitectura da Maia and hosted as a special participation. Curated by Ana Resende and Nuno Melo Sousa, 50 artists were invited to contribute towards an understanding of what the exhibtion questioned — what is a space for/of freedom?.

Marking the 50th anniversary of 25 de Abril de 1974, the revolution that overthrew the conservative and authoritarian regime of Estado Novo, it is a reflexion as important now as it was 50 years ago. The plurality of the participants origins and practices created a rich network of ideas and perspectives, much needed for such an intervention in a increasingly entropic world.

Going through many iterations of concept, materials, implementations and aesthetic, the piece created wanted to touch this miriad of perspectives and complexities by means of a changing sculpture. Building upon the network of works and becoming a sort of anti-exhibition, the installation appropriated all the other pieces, generating a mutating and emergent world. This was achieved with a digital system that mashed-up, glitched and transformed the archive. The results were then projected onto moving glass surfaces and spread throughout the speaker system.

glitch and surveillance

Among the original propositions and discussions, the idea of creating a surveillance space kept showing up. Be it physical or digital, surveillance counterposes with perceived freedom. While being monitored we condition our behaviours. The promise of control reinforces itself without the need of external forces beyond the watcher and the watched. The eyes, the cameras, the microphones, the phones, the browser and the trackers all stand there as we comply. These instruments and their aesthetic suffice. Opressed by the idea of a factual rendition of reality exposed by the recordings and registers made. Our privacy made public and analyzed.

Opposing the realism of recordings and ordinary reality perceived as facts stands the glitch. Unpredicted, disorderly, deviant, corrupted. Dismantling the proper behaviour and meaning a new outcome is generated. A glimpse at what could otherwise be, an-other. Outcomes we could exploit to generate new meanings and understanding. The veil of perfection shattered.

By rendering a heavily processed and corrupted digital world with unpredictable interactions and behaviours an attempt was made at observing these alternatives and being immersed in them.