MIRO SOARES
"IMPRECISE ITINERARIES #1 - First mpressions of a city"
"LONG DISTANCES IN SMALL PLACES #1"
28.02. - 08.03.09
Curated by Malin Barth
This exhibition displays two very recent works. They are part of a group of works that could be described essentially as actions in the world; the environment, either urban or natural. It’s about contextual art. These works are part of a current segment in art that dedicates to the displacement, trip or walking, an important role in the creation process.
The displacement, in this context, is not just a way of space movement, but equally a psychic fact, a tool for fiction in the production. This cineplastic transforms the city into a stage, as points the french critic Thierry Davila. This production can act in the limit between documentary and fiction, alternating between micro-politics and actions of fantastic (dream-like) order.
WORK 1 (main room)
IMPRECISE ITINERARIES #1 - First impressions of a city
4 screen video-installation / 3GP video in DV / 10’ / Bergen, Norway / 2009
Directed by MIRO SOARES
Co-produced by CENTRE POMPIDOU and FORUM DES IMAGES/FESTIVAL POCKET FILMS
Thanks to USF Verftet / Artist-in-residence, BEK - Bergen Senter For Elektronisk Kunst, Stiftelsen 3,14
Images and editing MIRO SOARES
Design MIRO SOARES
All images recorded with NOKIA 6280
Imprecise Itineraries #1 - First impressions of a city is the result of a project in which I’ve asked seven different people to draw up any itinerary on a map that I should follow in my first days in Bergen. For seven days, these maps were guiding me, leading to my first impressions of the city. Each day I’ve picked up a map randomly, using it as a reference as I was walking around the city. This walking device has determined my experience in the face of the city and the production of a video artwork.
The video was recorded using a cell phone camera and is divided in seven parts. Each part corresponds to one day and to a different itinerary. The artwork is conceived as a film-essay. It has a documentary approach, showing a kind of multiple “micro-events” in the daily routine, at the same time it has an approach very “pictorial”, which could express the point of view of a painter or of a photographer.
An important element in the work is the aesthetic present in the images that corresponds to the “language” of this mobile device and reflects our time. Formally we can see all the issues related to the capture format and the equipment. We can see elements like progressive brightness, filtered audio capture, the 16 frames per seconds, etc. It’s also present the specificity in the camera movements in the space that follows the movement of the walking body.
WORK 2 (lift)
LONG DISTANCES IN SMALL PLACES #1
DV / 62’ / 2009
A continuous walk around a street lamp, in front of the ocean.
Norgesnytt >>>
www.mirosoares.com
[www.centrepompidou.fr]
[artmobility.interartive.org/imprecise-itineraries-miro-soares]
[osloff.wordpress.com/exhibition]
Miro Soares was Artist in Residence at USF, Bergen, Norway.
Artist´s thanks to: USF Verftet / Artist-in-residence, BEK – Bergen Senter For Elektronisk Kunst, MIB – Mediaverkstedet I Bergen, Stiftelsen 3,14.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
I have always been interested in many different cultural and artistic fields. Also, I have always been interested in both analog and digital processes. This is reflected in my educational background and in my production. Interdisciplinarity has a significant status for me.
My recent artworks are hybrids in both formal and conceptually ways. What has interested me in the last times is rather to explore the expressive possibilities in a determined concept than to fix my production in a specific artistic category. In fact, the discussion about limits and combinations in artistic categories is something very present in most of my production. The works generally take their final form by an interdisciplinary creative process that mixes: video, audio, installation, photograph, etc. In this context I think its possible to identify three main groups of works in my production in the last three years. Chronologically it passes by approaches in the fields of materiality, actions and new medias. Anyway I think I can say that at this time I’m focused in the production of video and films.
The first group of works is linked to materiality, manual procedures and concepts of origins that go back up in pre-historical times. It can be seen by a long series of installations with different organic materials and various procedures. These works question the limits between the artistic categories such drawing, painting and installations, proposing a new combination of them. They show a particular itinerary from de twodimensional surface to the threedimensional space. The series of CARTOGRAPHIES with coffee, salt, coal and fire are instances of it. (Some few reference artists: Nuno Ramos, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy).
The second group of works could be described essentially as actions in the world; the environment, either urban or natural. Its about contextual art. These works are part of a current segment in art that dedicates to the displacement, trip or walking, an important role in the creation process. The displacement, in this context, is not just a way of space movement, but equally a psychic fact, a tool for fiction in the production. This cineplastic transforms the city into a theater of operations, as points the french critic Thierry. This production can act in the limit between documentary and fiction, alternating between micro-politics and actions of fantastic (dream-like) order. (Artists and writers of reference: Guy Debord, Georges Perec, Bas Jan Ader, Jordi Colomer, Francis Alïs, Gabriel Orozco, Erwim Wurm, Robert Smithson).
There are also a group of artworks related to the use of traditional and new medias, and different video and films supports. It presents several works in digital formats such mobile phone video, audio, video and web platforms but it's not just limited to electronic medias. Very often these works are oriented to plastic and physical experiences. It intends to achieve a wider discussion about concepts in communication in general; including the most primitive medias as the symbols, the human voice and the writing process. (Artists and writers of reference: Cao Guimaraes, Raymond Depardon, Wim Wenders, Miguel Rio Branco, Godard, Janaina Tschape, Bill Viola, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar).
Miro Soares (b.1981, in Mantena-MG, Brazil, lives and works in Paris, France. Visual artist, filmmaker, researcher and traveler, Miro Soares works in the intersection of the fields of photography, cinema, video and new media, exploring the concepts of mobility and contextual art. In most of his artworks the displacement, the journey and the walk assume a major role in the creative process. He is a Doctor in Arts and Sciences of Art from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He holds a Master’s degree in Arts from École Supérieure d’Art de Grenoble and another in Arts and Digital Media from Université Paris 1. He is currently professor at the Department of Visual Arts at Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES)