r:EGEAC / NOVA FCSH

To inhabit writingMariana Dias Coutinho

In a continuous and particular search for what it means to inhabit, the following essay approaches writing as a place of refuge, freedom and inner transformation. Loaded with multiple qualities and power, this place reveals through its nature, the process of thinking and the condition of constant change in our existence.

Inhabiting this space, cultivating an integrated perspective on life, embracing the power of self-reflection, are tools for the intimate dimension of being. Occupied by the written language, relational between the human being and its surroundings, it constitutes a space that is stimulating, that feeds a certain confrontation and concentration to unlock an understanding of life.

The discontent (here understood in the sense of not submitting to conformity, to the conventional and to resignation) and the individual spirit of revolt, find in this practice the structure for the discovery and transformation in profundity.

Stock ImagesBruno José Silva

When trying in a simple way to approach the result of a conscious decision, a decision made for a subject who observes a certain landscape, in an aesthetic that has as its ultimate aim the disappearance of what was previously revealed, intends, with a short reflection of the epistemological hypothesis, to support a consensual analysis about the technological reality of the image and the ways of seeing. Dialoguing about an aesthetics of vanishing in an era in which the paradigm is totally technocratic and the information visibly reported, in which the eye is directly connected to the screen, in which liquid and constant mutations of time, speed and space seem to determine ways of look, the limits of perception are questioned and suffer consequent changes.

The haptic perception - “the tactile space” - which demands the need for sensory touch, is under the indication of a certain a priori recognizable disposition, of thinking, acting and looking; touch on a material surface is enough: where the sensorial effects are already recognized and identifiable, to access a database with a difficult dimension to take into account. The project is ambitious, terabytes of organized cartographic data, identifiable locations, where a click opens a new inscription on the map of the concept of distance and where barriers of globalization seem to be overcome and now “invisible”.

The algorithmic system is the new agent, the one that acts, the one that reacts, the one recognizable and the one identifiable. Perception, in a first analysis, denounces itself as conniving an automation in which the objective reality is transposed by an artificial vision, where the “artificial” has multiple openings and underlying grammars; the creation of new referential universes, however, in a pessimistic theory, the artificial can be the dissident body and the obstacle to praise the natural, a constant mediation between an - in naturalis- perspective and a totalizing technological perspective. The sense of ownership and super-individualization that the technological interaction evokes can be predictable and standardized - Nowadays I sensorially detected little differences between one and two.

Knowing the guidelines of Paul Virillo, who assumes a pessimistic position in relation to the homogeneous reality of technocratic massification, the bodies are subdued to machinery in constant speed and, absent of particular purpose, are driven to the vanishment by the industry of annihilation, propelling a technological programming (on a large scale) of its own disappearing act, which in extreme conditions, can lead the subject “to conscious forgetfulness” as self-perception. The act of seeing is the act before the action, a pre-action endowed with a potential energy, also kinetic kinematics. In this specific case, the decision process to look at the next image is almost like the continuation of a contradictory and self-destructing project, because by promoting substantial value and theorizing the landscape, it empties specificity and its ineffability. The act of looking at the image is the perpetual risk of diminishing and distorting.

There is a sublime negativity in this aesthetics of disappearance, while intending to inscribe an image in time, we risk witnessing its disappearance as a result of what is seen. Opening a possibility is also opening a new accident: in this case - its disappearance.

Text by Ana Libório

Special Thanks
Ana Libório, Beatriz Vasconcelos, Carlos Cardoso e Raimundo Cosme

Pedro Lira

For some reason, my initial desire for this project was to physically build several shelters around town for the single purpose of interacting with the city itself. Mostly inspired by the images of primitive shelters and by a particular image referent to an exercise at the Institute of Design (of Chicago), first published in the Arts & Architecture magazine, July 1952, pag. 33. Then I thought that after all those constructions, those site specific, a few photos would do the trick. Probably I should have just gone ahead with all that, but I chose otherwise. Due to some personal and public limitations, the digital nature of the project itself, and a second review on the proposal led me to this path that is exhibited here.

I immediately thought it would be an interesting project to co-investigate along with some of my friends as I could sense a certain element of correlation between me and all of them. We were all living abroad. I was interested in developing a multiple approach to the experience of the city and the term shelter. As foreigners the relation kept with their present environment was built on previous experiences and in a sense it requires some adjustments.

I thought it would be a great thing to have access to those personal paths, to their sensibilities, to their places of reference that reflect one's landscape and in an overall way to gather a certain individual geography. A personal cartography.

I was interested in the collapse of those past and new geographies into one single map, possibly observed through their sense of discovery of their new town of residency, their own perspectives, their routines, places of reference, human connections, in a word, experience.

Another thing that interested me was a more concrete and graphic render of those personal territories. So, individual maps were built, not totally accurate, but enough to convey a deeper sense and understanding of the real personal territories each one of us inhabits. A cartogram.

Other so much desired questions were left untouched or barely observed but arised nonetheless. Could certain past patterns be recognized in new territories? What if we transported those specific lines from one territory to another, what would we get? How much renewal can one achieve by simply changing the living environment? Is there any correlation between drawing and living patterns? Or better is your drawing affected by your living patterns? What correlation is there between painting and saturated landscape information?

This exercise allowed me to multiply the number of perspectives and in a certain sense visualize other forms of living, accessing different sensibilities. They do not correspond in its fullness to reality but allow an equally important thing to flourish from it, to ponder and initialize a thinking about something, it feeds a driving engine for the thought.

The act of unfolding a single perspective forces you to see from different angles, different ways. The act on its own is a revelation upon each gesture, each corner turned. This multitude seems to be much more interesting and a good technique to get a better grip of reality.

Plus, and in a very mundane way to me, I can only remember what a dear teacher used to say when telling us a story of a certain nun that wrote books (and here I am paraphrasing) "my life is not that interesting so I write about other people's lives". Being so busy with survival, art practice seems altogether a mirage of distant times. A luxury so much desired but nonetheless a luxury. I guess it was Gerhard Richter that once said that art was the highest form of hope. Go figure!

My intentions were to build a work that didn't focus on a single perspective, a single individual, a single path, a single ego, a single solution, a single construction but that still allowed each individual to manifest himself as it pleased, either through memory, current experience, or both. That on every single exhibited path shown here one could find throughout the act of unfolding a gift on the most mundane and extraordinary event of life, the rise of a singular individual experience.

At this point, I feel that someone else's words can do much better so I would very much like to quote from Roger Sansi book "Art, Anthropology and the Gift" offered to me by another dear teacher. "In his seminal essay The Gift, Mauss famously said that "On se donne en donnant" (Mauss 2003: 227), one gives oneself while giving. With that expression, Mauss implied that social persons may not be just single minds in single bodies, but they can be constituted by an assemblage of elements, including bodies, things, names, that may be physically detached from one another while remaining the same." (Obrigado Isabel B.)

After all this process I can only think that the act of living and construction is one and the same.

"Shelter is us"

I would like to thank to all the collaborating artists:
Bruno de Marco, Emma Jacobs, Francesca Farroni, João Franca, Kevin Claro, Miguel Figueira and Tiago Rocha

Where goes the water from my roof?André Banha

Since the beginning, water and home have been inextricably linked to housing - man has always tried to settle close to this vital resource - and this symbiosis can still be observed today; we just have to look at maps from anywhere, any country.

In the Portuguese vocabulary for Constructing, the words water and roof are complementary: for example, the number of “waters” define the roof's configuration - it can have one, two, three, four or multiple waters.

In my research process, this complementarity is materialized, unfolding along a path. The same path the water has (when falling, flowing, raining) from my roof.

Despite being a trail in a rural environment - crossing its path from the entangled woods to the limits of the montado forest, passing through water lines towards the great lake - where apparently the contrast with the urban couldn't be bigger, we find ourselves more isolated, although surrounded by the whole landscape. And here, there is a very strong connection with the urban feeling of being alone, in the crowd. Within the landscape, we are also anonymous and although not being lost we can find ourselves.

Special thanks to Carmo Moser… my home!

Bibliography and references

Vídeo 1: André Banha

Vídeos 2 e 8: REGO, José Lins do, A Casa e o Homem, Rio de Janeiro: Organização Simões, 1954.

Video 3: MOLDER, Maria Filomena, Causas que Seguem os Efeitos ou Ameixas Doiradas com Orvalho – sobre Jaime de António Reis, in: VÁRIOS AUTORES, Descasco as Imagens e Entrego-as na Boca – Lições António Reis, Ramada, Documenta, 2020.

Video 4: André Banha

Video 5: FRY, Jane and Maxwell, Architecture for Children, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1944.

Video 6: Heraclitus

Video 7: SARAMAGO, José, Levantado do Chão, Lisboa, Editora Caminho, 1998.