Sra. Gaivota (Mrs. Seagull)
Since her first videos, in 2006, Mónica Heller has used animation as a method to create fantastic scenarios in which the characters that inhabits these worlds, humanized animals and cartoonish humanoids, address issues of contemporary life through humor, absurdity and repetition.
The videos Il piccione parlante (the talking pigeon), presented at the Argentine Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2022 and Sra. Gaivota, commissioned for Pivô Satellite #6 in 2023, are part of a series featuring talking birds that have adapted to urban life. A pigeon in Venice and a seagull in São Paulo, animals known to all, which inhabit most cities, subsist by consuming human waste and are highly adaptable to different contingencies.
In Sra. Gaivota the artist introduces us to a transitional world, where a seagull with prominent eyes and a beak of great plasticity -which seems to have acquired a certain wisdom through its travels- challenges us by talking about food, war, husbands, freedom, ATMs, trust, vacations… Seagull can easily cross borders, since her passport is not verified and she has no profile picture.
– Violeta Mansilla
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Sra. Gaivota (Sra. Gaviota)
Desde sus primeros videos en 2006, Mónica Heller utiliza la animación como medio para crear escenarios fantásticos en donde a través del humor, el absurdo y la repetición, los personajes que habitan esos mundos, animales humanizados y humanoides caricaturescos, abordan temas de la vida contemporánea.
Los videos Il piccione parlante (la paloma parlante), presentado en el Pabellón Argentino de la Bienal de Venecia 2022 y Sra. Gaivota, comisionada por Pivô Satélite #6 en 2023, son parte de una serie que tiene como protagonistas a aves parlantes que se han adaptado a la vida urbana. Una paloma en Venecia y una gaviota en San Pablo, animales conocidos por todes, que habitan la mayoría de las ciudades, que subsisten consumiendo desechos humanos y que poseen una gran adaptabilidad ante distintas contingencias.
En Sra. Gaivota, la artista nos introduce en un mundo que está en transición, en donde una gaviota con ojos prominentes y un pico de gran plasticidad, que parece haber adquirido cierta sabiduría con sus viajes, nos interpela hablándonos de la comida, la guerra, los maridos, la libertad, los cajeros automáticos, la confianza, las vacaciones…Gaviota trasciende las fronteras con facilidad, ya que su pasaporte no es verificado y no tiene foto de perfil.
– Violeta Mansilla
The intervention of time
The word-images created by artist Keyla Sobral became present in the city of Belém, in Pará, on two streets with a heavy traffic flow. The In case you forget my name intervention on two LED outdoor signs lasted for fifteen days, activating 360 daytime and nighttime insertions.
Far from feeling bored, as the projection progressed and slowed down, the pace also varied, gradually reaching the psychological climate of the stillness and slowness of dawn. This sense of time stretched and shrank, in tune with the speed of the cars and the movements of life, all implicitly present in the symbolic light of the green phrase in contrast to the black background of the screen.
I can say that time was efficiently extended in the course of daylight and went from being a visual short-circuit to reaching a new extension through speed, polyphony reproduced in sounds and the perspective of the meridional that is time outside of time, sometimes flexed, sometimes unbridled, mixed with visibility and invisibility. However, it retained an intrinsic desire to shout, to cry out in a narrative that left the private to become public, marking its presence by saying: ‘I’m here in case you forget my name’.
Keyla raises questions about reconfigured rhythms beyond the anachronism that is apparently circumscribed there, in the support of the LED outdoor sign, and provides a revived awareness of Lacanian desires in which our desire is recognized in the desire of the other, which causes the feeling of incompleteness that contaminates the city with the perspective of modernity that does not have a contractual time.
The soundtrack Look at me by our queen of technomelody Vivi Batidão in the final video, edited from the days and nights of Keyla’s intervention, crosses over and invents new desires that can’t be avoided and writes the graph: here there are feelings of presence and absence. There are feelings of melancholy and foreboding of something that never ends. The beats of the sound mark Kairós times and the lyrics of Vivi’s song reinforce this: ‘We can’t wait any longer, time is punishing us’.
What was seen in Keyla’s intervention remains suspended and threw devices of desires and fears, feelings and senses that were activated in an instant that crossed the urban highway.
Vânia Leal
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La intervención del tiempo
Las palabras/imágenes creadas por la artista Keyla Sobral se hicieron presentes en la ciudad de Belém, en el Estado de Pará, en dos calles de gran afluencia de tráfico. La intervención En caso de que te olvides de mi nombre en dos carteles LED duró quince días, activando 360 inserciones en el día y en la noche.
Lejos de sentirse aburrido, a medida que la proyección avanzaba y se ralentizaba, el ritmo también variaba, alcanzando gradualmente el clima psicológico de la quietud y la lentitud de la madrugada. Esta sensación de tiempo se estiraba y encogía, en sintonía con la velocidad de los coches y los movimientos de la vida, todo ello implícitamente presente en la luz simbólica de la frase verde en contraste con el fondo negro de la pantalla.
Puedo decir que el tiempo se extendió eficazmente en el transcurso de la luz del día y pasó de ser un cortocircuito visual a alcanzar una nueva extensión a través de la velocidad, la polifonía reproducida en sonidos y desde la perspectiva de lo meridional que es el tiempo fuera del tiempo, a veces flexionado, a veces desenfrenado, mezclado con la visibilidad y la invisibilidad. Sin embargo, conservó un deseo intrínseco de gritar, de clamar por una narración que saliera de lo privado para hacerse pública, marcando su presencia al decir: “Estoy aquí en caso de que te olvides de mi nombre”.
Keyla plantea cuestiones sobre los ritmos reconfigurados más allá del anacronismo que aparentemente se circunscribe allí, en el soporte del cartel LED, y proporciona una conciencia reavivada de los deseos lacanianos en los que nuestro deseo se reconoce en el deseo del otro, lo que provoca una sensación de incompletud que contamina la ciudad con la perspectiva de la modernidad que no tiene un tiempo contractual.
La banda sonora Mirame bien, de nuestra reina de la tecnomelodía Vivi Batidão, que aparece en el vídeo final que se editó a partir de los días y las noches de la intervención de Keyla, atraviesa e inventa nuevos deseos ineludibles y escribe el grafismo: aquí sí que hay sentimientos de presencia y ausencia. Hay sentimientos de melancolía y presentimiento de algo que nunca termina. Los latidos del sonido marcan los tiempos de Kairós y la letra de la canción de Vivi lo refuerza: “No podemos esperar más, el tiempo nos castiga”.
Lo visto en la intervención de Keyla queda en suspenso y arroja dispositivos de deseos y miedos, sentimientos y sentidos que se activaron en un instante que atravesó la vía urbana.
Vânia Leal
Ronquidos Oceánicos is a project that began in 2017, conceived by Florencia Rodriguez Giles and Emilio Bianchic, with the intention of exploring the underwater world and its connections with the unconscious.
The first experiment was to film under the Red Sea, and the result was presented during the Bienal de Performance de Buenos Aires in 2019. The proposal was a videoinstallation, which consisted of a pool filled with cushions that simulated water and an oblique screen so that one could watch the video lying down, as if floating. Sometimes, cushion performers appeared, lying nearby and massaging the viewers.
In 2022, they were invited by Palm Heights Residency to visit the Cayman Islands to continue the project. The trip gave birth to Ronquidos Oceánicos II Insomnia, presented on Pivô Satélite.
In this second episode, the sensations are intensified in the manner of a horror fiction documentary.
It can be said that this series of videos is an implicit denunciation of the “use” of the land and the sea and the capitalist excess that keeps us awake at night, a request for environmentalist help, as well as the presentation of a body that transmutes into a new species, among other things. Florencia and Emilio once again achieve an ambiguous hypnosis of survival among fish, seaweed and luxury hotels.
Violeta Mansilla
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Ronquidos Oceánicos es un proyecto iniciado en 2017 por Florencia Rodriguez Giles y Emilio Bianchic, con la intención de explorar el mundo submarino y sus conexiones con el inconsciente.
La primera experiencia fue filmar bajo el Mar Rojo y el resultado se presentó durante la Bienal de Performance de Buenos Aires en 2019. La propuesta fue una video-instalación, que consistía en una pileta llena de almohadones que simulaban el agua y la pantalla oblicua para poder disfrutar el video acostadx, como flotando. Por momentos aparecían almohadones performers que se acostaban cerca y daban masajes a lxs espectadorxs.
En 2022 son invitados por Palm Heights Residency a las Islas Cayman a continuar con el proyecto, que da lugar a Ronquidos Oceánicos II Insomnia presentado en Pivo Satélite.
En este segundo episodio, las sensaciones se intensifican a modo de una ficción de terror documental.
Se podría decir que esta serie de videos es una denuncia implícita al “uso” de las tierras y mares y al exceso capitalista que nos quita el sueño, un pedido de socorro ambientalista, como también la presentación de un cuerpo transmutando a otres especies, entre otras cosas. Florencia y Emilio logran una vez más una hipnosis ambigua de supervivencia entre peces, algas y hoteles de lujo.
Violeta Mansilla
Ancestrality, nature and culture
I met Ramon Reis in 2022, at Arte Pará – edition 40, with the work Corpo (In)Finito? – Prologue [Insurgências], a performance for a video. The poetic proposal is made up of many layers about the body, corporality and finitude. These relations made me ask a series of questions and reflect on the shelter-territory where flesh and earth do not dissolve.
Although the issues of life and death (matter-substance/nature-culture) in constant movement were vehemently crossed, the territory is body, and the images and the relations with the texts present in the work pervaded the idea of construction, that life and death are rituals of memories, bonds, affections constituted of various levels of tension and exhaustion with deep unrest that mark the body grounded on the approximation between anthropology and visual arts.
In this sense, the artist had an active participation in the whole exhibition process of Arte Pará, through educational actions, such as: conversations with the public, performances and interviews, among other activities that significantly motivated my desire to do curatorial research. The Satellite Pivô made it possible for us to activate our dialogue with other possibilities of Ramon’s creation process.
Our first meeting started driving our attention to the experience and the existing. Experience as a mark of that time in a link between individual and collective memory. And existing as the perspective of achieving one’s own path with the link between past and present, which should be built, as it does not exist naturally.
From paths traced in individual experience, ancestry signalled the discourse that is present both in Corpo (In)Finito? – Prologue [Insurgências] and in Viriandeua-Virianduba, presented at Pivô Satélite, which brings Ramon’s body-territory that was constituted of the bonds established in the Atlantic Amazon, in Salinópolis, his hometown, which is approximately 210 kilometres from the capital, Belém, Pará.
It is important to highlight the title Viriandeua-Virianduba, which alludes to the ancestral know-how of the indigenous Tupinambá people, whose meaning refers to the occupation of the territory by birds; these was also the first name gave to the city of Salinópolis.
The artist’s relationship with ancestry goes through the construction of the past in the here and now, which is only possible from the person who writes it, who lived it and lives it. As a present-body eyewitness, I saw the images of the past taking shape through the artist’s speeches and/or narratives, which made themselves present through the stratigraphic remains, such as mangrove, mud, trunk, earth, sea and territory stripped of worldly senses and meanings in an ancestral mobility that is constituted from the inside out. There, the whole environment strengthened what Bené Fonteles says in favour of human ecology and what Milton Santos defines as shelter-territory, as a lived experience of being and being in the world, of our places, of our people.
Ramon wrote this story with the body-territory-shelter as a visceral exhibition place, through the mechanism of an economy of feelings and of the enjoyments of an economic capital based on the local workforce resulting from the relationship between human activity and nature.
Ramon possessed himself through the body-object in an emancipatory attitude. A body that transmuted into the mangrove and became a crab. A body that transmuted into the sea, turned into a scarlet ibis and freed amidst the immensity of the oceanic Amazonian waters and of the transatlantic flows.
Ramon’s body is the locus among ancestry, nature and culture. So be it!
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Ancestralidad, naturaleza y cultura
Conocí a Ramon Reis en 2022, en Arte Pará – edición 40, con la obra Corpo (In)Finito? – Prólogo [Insurgências], una performance hecha para video. La propuesta poética se compone de muchas camadas acerca del cuerpo, la corporalidad y la finitud. Estas relaciones abrieron una serie de preguntas y me hicieron reflexionar sobre el refugio-territorio donde la carne y la tierra no se disuelven.
Aunque atravesaba con vehemencia las cuestiones de la vida y la muerte (materia-sustancia/naturaleza-cultura) en constantes movimientos, el territorio es cuerpo y las imágenes y las relaciones con los textos presentes en la obra impregnaban la idea de construcción, de que la vida y la muerte son rituales de recuerdos, vínculos, afectos compuestos de varios niveles de tensión y agotamiento con profunda inquietud que marcan el cuerpo a partir de la aproximación entre antropología y artes visuales.
En este sentido, el artista fue intenso en todo el proceso expositivo de Arte Pará, a través de acciones educativas, tales como: conversaciones abiertas para aproximarse con el público, performances, entrevistas, entre otras formas que activaron significativamente mi deseo para la investigación curatorial. Y Pivô Satélite fue, entonces el desdoblamiento para que otras posibilidades del proceso de creación de Ramón activaran nuestro diálogo.
Nuestro primer encuentro partió de puntos de atención sobre la experiencia y la vivencia. Experiencia como marca de aquel tiempo de vínculo entre la memoria individual y la colectiva. Y la experiencia como perspectiva de realización de un camino propio con el vínculo entre pasado y presente, que debe ser construído, ya que de ninguna manera se da de forma natural.
A partir de caminos trazados en la experiencia individual, la ancestralidad señaló el discurso que está presente tanto en Corpo (In)Finito? – Prólogo [Insurgências] como en Ensayo Viriandeua-Virianduba, presentado en Pivô Satélite, que trae el cuerpo-territorio de Ramon constituido de vínculos establecidos en la Amazonia Atlántica, en la ciudad de Salinópolis, su ciudad natal, que dista aproximadamente 210 kilómetros de Pará, la capital de Belém.
Es importante destacar el título Viriandeua-Virianduba, que alude al saber ancestral del pueblo indígena Tupinambá, cuyo significado se refiere a la ocupación del territorio por las aves, que también fueron los primeros nombres dados a la ciudad de Salinópolis.
La relación del artista con la ancestralidad pasa por la construcción del pasado en el aquí y ahora, que solo es posible a partir de quien lo escribe, de quien lo vivió y lo vive. Como testigo presencial, vi las imágenes del pasado tomar forma a través de los discursos y/o narraciones del artista, que se hicieron presentes por medio de los restos estratigráficos, como el manglar, el barro, los troncos, la tierra, el mar y el terreno despojado de sentidos y significados mundanos en una movilidad ancestral que se constituye de adentro hacia afuera. Allí, todo el entorno fortaleció lo que Bené Fonteles dice a favor de la ecología humana y lo que Milton Santos define como refugio-territorio, como experiencia vivida de ser y estar en el mundo, de nuestros lugares, de nuestra gente.
Ramón escribió esta historia con el cuerpo-territorio-refugio como lugar de exposición visceral, a través del mecanismo de una economía de los sentimientos y de los goces de un capital económico basado en la mano de obra local surgida de la relación entre la actividad humana y la naturaleza.
Ramón se poseía a través del cuerpo-objeto en una actitud emancipadora. Un cuerpo que se transmutó en el manglar y se convirtió en un cangrejo. Un cuerpo que se transmutó en el mar, se convirtió en pájaro rojo guará y se liberó en medio de la inmensidad de las aguas oceánicas amazónicas y de los flujos transatlánticos.
El cuerpo de Ramón es el locus entre la ancestralidad, la naturaleza y la cultura. ¡Qué así sea!
Satellite 2023
Criada em 2020, a plataforma Pivô Satélite é uma espécie de sala de projetos dentro do site do Pivô. Em seus primeiros anos, seu programa foi concebido por artistas e curadores convidados pela instituição, compreendendo propostas artísticas em formatos variados pensadas especialmente para os meios digitais.
A diversidade e qualidade das propostas que ocuparam a plataforma ao longo dos últimos dois anos nos levaram a pensar em como manter este projeto relevante – e ainda mais experimental. Em 2023, o Pivô propõe outra reformulação no programa Pivô Satélite com o intuito de ampliar o alcance do projeto, trazendo novas discussões e parcerias. A partir de uma análise curatorial e consulta aos patronos que atuam como embaixadores do projeto, identificou-se a relevância dos conteúdos audiovisuais comissionados ao longo dos anos. O impacto desta mídia no Programa foi percebida tanto em termos de recepção e de engajamento do público, quanto no processo de concepção poética e conceitual dos trabalhos, que contribuem ativamente para a cena cultural contemporânea e para a emergência de outras narrativas e imaginários. O projeto passa a ter um caráter de produção anual, dividido em dois momentos de apresentação, entre o primeiro e segundo semestre.
Convidamos, como curadores do projeto, duas importantes instituições no contexto latino-americano: o UV Estudios e o Arte Pará. Com práticas distintas, as duas contribuem para o fomento de uma prática experimental local e para a difusão da arte no contexto latino-americano. Vânia Leal, uma das curadoras do Arte Pará, e Violeta Mansilla, curadora do UV Estudos, são as nossas interlocutoras neste processo e, no primeiro momento de apresentação, o Satélite divulga os trabalhos do artista Ramon Reis e da dupla Florencia Rodriguez Giles e Emilio Bianchic.
Apesar produzidos em contextos distintos e de forma independente, existem diálogos entre os dois filmes. Ambos partem de um desejo de imaginar alternativas às formas de habitar o planeta que construímos enquanto civilização moderna ocidental no Capitaloceno. A seu modo, ambos os filmes, são um chamamento para que criemos histórias a serem contadas pelo ser humano e pelas diversas espécies que compartilham com ele o mundo. O Satélite 2023 é um convite para ‘pensar diferentemente’ e para criar ficções mobilizadora de outros mundos.
[1] PLUMWOOD, Val. Nature in the active voice. In: The handbook of contemporary animism. Routledge, 2014. p. 441-453.
Arte Pará reached, in 2022, its 40th edition and arose from the project idealized by the journalist Romulo Maiorana (1922-1986), at the beginning of the 1980s, to create a space to support Para artists and a dialogue between the North region and the country. At a time in history when the Amazon was not generating expectations on a global scale, Maiorana awakened the public’s sensibility through the social function of art, from space for meeting and encouraging artists.
Arte Pará was born with the vocation of establishing the presence of the Amazon on the map of the arts as a salon. Throughout its uninterrupted editions, it has become a national art and education project and a place for intellectual exchange between artists, curators, and cultural agents, as well as a space for reflection and criticism, which legitimises young emerging artists. For over 20 years, Paulo Herkenhoff, one of the country’s most relevant art critics and thinkers, has been leading Arte Pará as the event’s general curator.
With a professional trajectory that articulates institutional work and innovative research, Paulo was assistant curator in the painting and sculpture department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MoMA (1999-2002), general curator of the São Paulo Biennial and curator of the Brazilian Pavilion at the 47th Venice Biennial. He was a consultant for the IX Kassel Documenta in Germany (1991). For him, Arte Pará has “an important role in the socialization of art, developed through the educational process, much more than the art market”.
The educational project of Arte Pará is one of the most comprehensive in the national context and offers a parameter of the relationship between a complex of communication and the social insertion of art.
Violeta Mansilla (Santa Fe, Argentina 1987) works as a curator, producer, hostess, manager, teaching performer and lawyer. Since 2015, she works as the director of UV a project of residencies, research and exhibition, from 2015 to 2020 operated in a house in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, Buenos Aires where more than 60 solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, perfuchs, presentations, workshops and parties were held. Since 2022 it opened its doors in a new house in the historic center of the city of Santa Fe. She has worked with galleries, institutions and projects throughout Argentina, as well as in Latin America, Europe and the United States. Some of her curatorial work includes “MD” at ICBC Foundation (Buenos Aires) in 2017; “LCD LSD LED”, at Museo Arte Contemporáneo (Montevideo) in 2018; “Sub-versions” at KM Gallery (Puerto Rico) in 2019, “Camp Fires” at Last Tango, Shedhalle and Tanzhaus in (Zurich) in 2021, “Greenhouse Club” at Toxi Space (Zurich). His work has been reviewed in ARTFORUM, ARTnews, The art Newspaper, Terremoto among others. From 2020 to 2022 she worked as Curator of the Residency Program of the Ama Amoedo Foundation in Uruguay. Violeta lives and works between Buenos Aires and Santa Fe.
Violeta was curator of Pivô Satélite 2023.
Satellite 2023