Eduardo Montelli is the second artist to occupy the third edition of Pivô Satellite, Pivô’s platform for digital projects. Só sei me transformar, apenas não sei em que (I only know how to transform myself, I just don’t know into what) is the title of the project that presents a series of experimental compositions in the digital format .gif that Montelli has been creating since 2010. The images will be posted daily on the platform, between 13 August and 16 September, as part of the curatorial project Sex, Lies and Videotape, by Raphael Fonseca.

Watch here.

The artist explores different types of performativities inspired by the Merzbau, by German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). Considered the first artistic installation, the Merzbau was a combination of collage, sculpture and architecture that began by occupying a corner of Schwitters’ studio and was gradually expanded to eight rooms in his home in Hannover. Similarly, the gif modules designed by Montelli simulate a three-dimensional spatialisation on Pivô Satellite’s website, producing a floating architecture that builds and deconstructs itself as the visitor moves around the page.

In his artistic and theoretical research, Eduardo Montelli investigates the influence of documentation, narratives and other forms of “inscription of the self” on the way people live and how they are socially recognized.

About the curatorial project

Sex, Lies and Videotape takes its title from Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 film of the same name. One of the film’s iconic dialogues reads, “A liar is the second-worst form of a human being.” From this provocation, the narrative revolves around the notion of desire, sex, truth, and virtuality. In the 1980s, access to portable video cameras became popular – as did the notions of surveillance and fiction around our own filmed images.

The four artists gathered in this third episode of Pivô Satellite – Laura Fraiz, Eduardo Montelli, Ventura Profana and New Memeseum – constantly challenge the boundaries between documentation and fiction. Through videos, audios, gifs, and memes, they constantly explore their self-images, making public questions about faith, narcissism, hegemonic narratives, and institutional critique. Beyond the increasingly invisible limits between what could become a “truth” or a “lie” in 2021, there is another essential element that unites them: the ability to seduce the public eye.