Page 122 - ARTE!Brasileiros #56

ENGLISH VERSION IMAGE AND POWER

Evidence of this are the phenomena – or bugs, if in 2001) what the French philosopher, Marie-José fear of pandemic times he brings an important
we opt for optimism – of racism and misogyny Mondzain, wrote in her book Can images kill??: “The contextualization to O rio é uma serpente (The river
evidenced by algorithms on social networks. These enemy had organized a terrifying show. In one sense, is a serpent), name of the third edition of Frestas
cases, as correctly analyzed by Beiguelman, are in massacring so many people, in striking those – Trienal de Artes, organized in Sesc Sorocaba.
investigated by researchers who are dedicated to towers, we were given the first historical spectacle With 53 artists and collectives selected by
the analysis of ai fairness, a “court justice of artificial of the death of the image in the image of death.” Beatriz Lemos, Diane Lima and Thiago de Paula
intelligence”, which seeks an “impartiality” of these But does the image have this kind of power? After Souza, it is the first time in Brazil that a biennial-
algorithms. According to Google and Facebook’s all, the image, photography is a representation, full like exhibition has in the artistic direction a black
2018 statistics about their own artificial intelligence of symbols and codes to be unveiled, it is true, but team, a merit of Sesc that undoubtedly deserves
teams, only 10% and 15% are women, respectively. its reception is much more decisive. “Photographs reflection of other shows of the same kind as Bienal
This reflects that, although an attempt at impartial continue to be interpreted long after they are made”, de São Paulo and Bienal do Mercosul.
inputs exists, there are always ethical tendencies recalls Boris Kossoy. With each new visuality it Scheduled to be inaugurated in 2020, Frestas
that “escape” to the way in which these artificial changes before our eyes, always allowing new and was eventually extended to this year, thus carrying
intelligences think: that of the white man. As Alan countless interpretations . The symbol-image of the various fears of what it means to organize a
Jones put it: “Algorithms are not racist - we are”. the attack neither affirms nor denies anything. face-to-face event in a country that approaches
The images are not just symbolic representations, It is the record of an assembled scenario. Some 600,000 victims of a genocidal policy.
but they are objects in themselves: the image is not newspapers back then even claimed that the time Thus, even discreetly, contextualization gives
the representation of something, it is something between the crash of the planes had been inspired parameters to visitors that show Frestas is not
in itself. It is reiterated that, just as there was an by the Hollywood films: “Here we find images in the just another show, but an exhibition conceived
epistemological revolution in Western thought in box of the accused”, reports Marie-José. A way, as in times of war.
milestones that dictated the pace of society, such common sense says, to kill the messenger and not The war, it is true, does not occur only here,
as industrial and computer models, it is necessary the cause of the attack. much less restricted to the years 2020/21, as can
to write a new guideline on how to navigate the But we cannot deny that in the “Western world”, be seen in the installation A dívida impagável (The
world of the datasphere. centuries and centuries of idolatry have led us to priceless debt), by Musa Michelle Mattiuzzi, a
In Políticas da imagem – Vigilância e resistência a visual alienation. We accept the image, we don’t sonorous and non-literal version of the book of the
na dadosfera, Giselle Beiguelman performs question it. We forget that there are no innocent same name by Brazilian based in Canada Denise
a literality worthy of Mary Shelley, writing a looks, but intentionalities behind those who produce Ferreira da Silva, organized in Brazil by the Political
“contemporary Prometheus”, and the forcefulness or select a photograph and elect it as the only Imagination Workshop and Casa do Povo; available
that Gilles Deleuze materialized in The Time Image possible representation of a fact. Its repetition for free download.
and The Movement Image. In a society where leads us to believe that there is only one way to The vast majority of the works of the Trienal
treaties no longer work, Beiguelman writes an see. Today we judge and are judged by the images. are arranged in the Sesc’s basement and the
imagery atlas for contemporaneity. In the ephemeris, lights have taken the place installation of Mattiuzzi is of the few near the
of the Twin Towers, another dramatic image that entrance of the building, an environment that seems
Column critical EyE [paGEs 102 and 103] recalls the indelible original. Perhaps now is the a festive space, all mirrored and with effusive light,
time – or has passed – to start decoding the images, but nourishes itself from the hard-hitting text about
THE IMAGE THAT forgetting the iconographic description and taking the current world and “what becomes accessible to
more care of iconology, the not-so-evident meaning
the imagination, the kind of ethical openness that
INTENDED TO CHANGE of the image. can be glimpsed with the dissolution of the yoke of
Understanding and the surrender of the World to
As French image researcher Martine Joly (1943-
THE PERCEPTION 2016) points out: “An image can be everything and the imagination”, in the words of the author herself.
In a way, several works of the show participate
OF THE WORLD its opposite – visual and immaterial, manufactured in this kind of game of suggestions that moves
and natural, real and virtual, mobile and immovable,
In the debut of her new column, Simonetta sacred and profane, ancient and contemporary, away from explicit or militant approaches to seek
Persichetti analyzes the image of the attack linked to life and death, analog, comparative, more seductive poetics, but not for this reason
on the Twin Towers, poses questions about conventional, expressive, communicative, builder, less political. This is the case of Panorama
the strength attributed to it and recalls the destructive, beneficial and threatening”*. Catatumbo, by Colombian Nohemi Perez, an
importance of considering the construction Its reception requires interpretation codes, codes immense panel composed of charcoal drawings
of a photograph that widened or narrowed over time. The image that on canvas paintings. By far, the image of the forest
is resignified by a look that only exists because a
is enchanting, even in black and white, but those
subject decided to look at it. As Kossoy reminds who approach notice discreet drawings of scenes
By simonEtta pErsicHEtti us, “throughout its trajectory, the image’s meaning with weapons, pointing to the persistent violence
changes, it oscillates according to the ideology of of the Catatumbo region, border area between
9/11, a Date known anD reCognizeD as the each moment and the mentality of its users.” Colombia and Venezuela.
DaY of the terrorist attaCk on the uniteD After 20 years, the photograph that intended to This strategy is similar in the work of Pedro
states, is immortalized in the image of the crashing change the perception of the world remains there, Victor Brandão, with a painting in strong colors that
of two planes on the Twin Towers of the World Trade static and silent. Only remembered when someone looks abstract, but is actually a possible graphic
Center in New York. takes it out of the drawer and reproposes it before on indebtedness and default in Brasil. The same
In its 20th anniversary, the same images appear our eyes. happens with the monkey bars of Rommulo Vieira
and, repeated, remind us of the horror of what we *Loose translation from the Portuguese version of Martine Conceição, installed in the external area of Sesc,
watched live, not through social networks – which Joly’s writings. which looks like a playground toy, but in fact it
didn’t exist yet – but by the repetition of the planes is a dysfunctional composition that has in its
that hit the Twin Towers. Incredulous, we needed text review frEstas [paGEs 104 and 105] construction even elements that can hurt.
that could give meaning to what we were watching. The show concentrates most of the works in the
In recent weeks, social networks have bombarded us POLITICAL POETICS basement of Sesc, where in fact is the garage of
(pardon me for the wordplay) asking, “Where were the building, which ends up revealing a suitable
we on September 11th?”. I know where I was. But Frestas - Triennal of Arts, at Sesc de space. The curatorship did not seek to hide this
why is it so necessary to remember this moment? Sorocaba, which is already being called characteristic, thus reinforcing the strength of
By the force of an image, which is neither the best “Sorokassel”, addresses the dramas of the what is not within the conventions.
nor most significant, but which was chosen to recall contemporary world in a lyrical way O rio é uma serpente (The river is a serpent) is
the astonishment of the unexpected. What matters configured as well as a show with strong visual appeal
is that it became the mark of social transformation, By faBio cypriano – the wall of matchboxes of Antonio Társis, Vermelho
the changing of the historical context. A change that como brasa (Red as ember), is part of the same logic,
has had consequences for which we pay until the “Although our conversations always began with as well as the powerful installation of drawings of
present day (Iraq War, Afghanistan, etc.). amenities, every time the path flowed into the birds of Laura Lima – which deepens into urgent
Many contemporary thinkers, Jean Baudrillard pandemic issue. It is very painful, this moment. At themes without being pamphleteer. With this, the
(1929-2007), for example, have decreed September the time I was with her, only on the street where she exhibition approaches one of the most important
11, 2001 as the entrance to the 21st century and, by lives, six of her friends passed away by covid-19. In events with such a proposal, documenta X (1997), in
the dramaticity of images, a new era of imagery one of the weeks I was sailing the rivers of mariWÁ, Kassel, entitled Politics Poetics and organized by the
representation. The images would no longer be the she was infected by the virus, we went two weeks French Catherine David. There are even people from
same. Would no longer follow the impact of reality without talking. I Was afraid,” wrote the jaguar- the circuit calling Frestas “Sorokassel”.
so dear to the last century, but would turn to the artist, as Denilson Baniwa calls himself, in one of Regardless of the jokes, it is inescapable to confirm
suggestion of the staging that gradually inserted the walls of his large installation Nhíromi. that, with only three editions, Sesc has consolidated
itself in the 21st century. We entered, perhaps, in the In the center of Nhíromi is a canoe from Rio Negro, an important contemporary art laboratory, outside
age of images. A media attack mounted as a true the Amazon region where Baniwa was born. His the conventional circuit, highlighting bold curators,
spectacle. The news was no longer sought after, it account addresses several other issues surrounding offsetting the difficulty of representation faced by
came to us. We watched live (who was old enough the visit to his grandmother, but by exposing the the other biennial shows of Brazil.
122