Inspiration: 71

Smell of Dust on a Hot Light-Bulb
Warm Photocopier Toner
Hot Metal
A Toaster
Freshly Welded Aluminium
The Ink in a Fountain Pen
Fresh Pencil Shavings
Wood and Moss
Bay Leaves and Bamboo
White Pepper
Hyacinth
Lettuce Juice.

(Fragrance notes from Comme des Garçons' Odeur 71, my perfume since 2002)

Exposição "Projecto Alvito"

Artistas:
Catarina Loura, Cláudia Neta, José Júpiter, Luís Meirinhos-Soares, Marta Castelo, Ricardo Spencer, Rita Cipriano Alves

Curadoria:
Ana Janeiro e Bruno Pelletier Sequeira

Período de exibição: 7 de Junho a 5 de Julho, Quinta a Domingo das 14h-21h.
Local: Rua da Tapadinha D. António, 2, Alvito

Organização: Câmara Municipal de Alvito, Estudos Gerais de Alvito e Atelier de Lisboa

"Projecto Alvito" tem o privilégio de inaugurar um novo espaço expositivo localizado na vila de Alvito. A mostra resultou de um desafio lançado por Jorge Gaspar (coleccionador de arte e Presidente da direcção dos Estudos Gerais de Alvito) à escola de fotografia e artes visuais Atelier de Lisboa e teve como ponto de partida a transição da actividade do antigo matadouro municipal para um centro de artes. A Câmara Municipal de Alvito participa neste evento e apoia este projecto através da recuperação e cedência do edifício.

Esta exposição integra um conjunto de 52 fotografias apresentadas em suportes distintos concebidas por oito alunos do Curso de Projecto a partir da experiência física não só do próprio lugar e das inúmeras potencialidades interpretativas que ele suscita (nomeadamente a sua dimensão simbólica enquanto espaço de morte ou de transição) como das características da própria vila que o acolhe.

Com "Projecto Alvito" o Atelier de Lisboa expande as suas competências no sentido da organização de exposições. Ao mesmo tempo o Curso de Projecto, espaço onde todas as etapas para a criação desta exposição foram percorridas, estreia-se na realização da razão de ser da sua existência.

Links:
Mais informações
Portfólios dos Trabalhos

Today's score: "Off the Wall", Michael Jackson's first album.

Pump It Up...

I never posted any videos or images that weren't produced by me on this blog. But, although almost no one is reading this blog, it has to be celebrated! In the end, this blog is all about my references and especially how music turns out to be the biggest one in my photographic work. So here's another one: Norton.

Back in 2004, I bought "Pictures From Our Thoughts" CD immediately after listening to the fantastic track "Swirling Sound". It sounded like "The Postal Service" with an incredibly amount of some familiar nostalgia and leaving a feeling of memorabilia after listening to it. It still feels strange on the back of my neck when listening to "A Whisper" and the instrumental track "Blue Interlude".

Then in 2005, when I bought "Frames (Remixes & Versions)", a friend came and told me they were from Castelo Branco, my little hometown. It sounded like some kind of riddle becoming suddenly solved, and I should've guessed it when I saw them associated with Musgo and Jaguar.

That answer was explicit enough in the CD sleeve of "Pictures From Our Thoughts". I guess that reading CD sleeves was one of those things I've lost habit since I became thirty-something, like giving up listening to the radio and TV shit and reading all the credits at the end of movies.

Anyway, they're back with a massive hit from late in the 80's: Technotronic's "Pump Up The Jam". Playing it out of the blue, out of context, today would make anyone blush and wink. Norton's remake makes it feel genuinely fun, seriously amusing and, most important, beautiful.

These guys are really having fun. It sounds like they're throwing a party with all their friends and anyone who gets along with the spirit. Boring? They don't give a f*ck. I'm sure having fun, sitting at this grey pit where I spend my day.

Or, like many of my Lisbon and Porto friends say when speaking of guys from Castelo Branco, am I chasing after some "interiority syndrome". Hell yeah! :)


Pump Up The Jam from Norton on Vimeo.

By the way, all those parties at Património Bar seem clearly celebrated in this video too.

Parabéns Norton.

See them at:
Website
MySpace
Blog
Twitter
Vimeo



Today's score: Norton's "Pictures From Our Thoughts" and looping "Pump Up The Jam".

"Who is John Galt?"

Today's score: One of the most inspiring albums from David Bowie: "Outside".

Sá Carneiro, Jeff Wall e Rembrandt

À beira da estrada, um grupo de homens reunia à volta de um buraco com o tamanho de uma sepultura. Atrás deles, o largo da igreja perde-se no meio das casas degradadas e dos carros deixados ao desespero urbanístico. O muro gigante de prédios do lado oposto: triste, pesado e ainda adormecido. Passei devagar. Tudo parecia parado. A manhã: cinzenta escura, ainda molhada pela chuva que entretanto parou.

Talvez (demasiado) influenciado pelas minhas obsessões com as imagens e textos de Jeff Wall, a cena remeteu-me imediatamente para "The Flooded Grave" (1998–2000). Ao mesmo tempo, a disposição do grupo de homens à volta do buraco fez-me lembrar "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" (1632), a enigmática pintura de Rembrandt. Todos pareciam olhar em diferentes direcções, para fora do buraco. Um deles parecia dar instruções.

Faltou-me no entanto detectar um qualquer erro, à semelhança do erro anatómico (propositado?) do quadro. Há dias que a imagem me vem à memória. Para quê?

Há 28 anos, Francisco Sá Carneiro morrera ali perto.

O buraco estava hoje tapado, com asfalto ainda negro e brilhante, a anunciar o sol que agora substituiu a chuva mas que não consegue dar dignidade a um sítio tão infeliz.



PS - E finalmente - porque sim - em português.

Today's score: Telefon Tel Aviv, "Immolate Yourself".

My Own Private Idaho

I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world.

(Quoting Mike Waters, towards the end of Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho")



Today's score: Kaito: "Special Love", at home, "Special Life", in the car.

Start Still

Start still.
Ask for nothing.
A year full of possibilities...

2009



Today's score: Emmanuel Witzthum’s new release from the Stasisfield netlabel, Chamber_music_(1.a). Download irt here.

A "hell of a job"

I wonder if my daily work has some kind of influence in my images.

Lately, I've been hating it (the job, not the images) in a daily basis. It all seems now like a five year marathon for achieving useless things and making me loose reason on myself sometimes.

So, without further annoying development on the subject, that means it's time to move on and learn with it instead of forget about it. It's time for a change. Be it huge or irrelevant, it has to happen.

But the ironic side of it, is that this "hell of a job" is somehow responsible for some of the limitations that imposed some of the ideas and images I make. The series "Sunday" and "Whispering City" are the best examples. I'll leave you to figure out why. It bothers me to pollute you with my own interpretantions sometimes...



If I leave this demanding - yet useless - job, leaving me more available to produce images, how will it affect my images?



Hey Diva?! Thank you so much for the "hell of a job" thing. :)

Today's score: Apparat "Things To Be Frickeld - Parts & Remixes" (Shitkatapult).

Game Over

Cliché time!

The more I see people spending time online, the more I see kids living through a console, the more I see people listening to others through a cell phone... The more I love looking at empty, forgotten places. And the more chances I have to register them. :)



Today's score: Stateless.

Silence Please

I always lack words to describe some images. Why do I emotionally attach to them and why they keep coming to my mind from time to time, it stays a mystery.

This weekend, at Fernando Santos Gallery (Porto), I saw André Príncipe's "Smell of Tiger precedes Tiger". This talented young artist is maybe the best example of what I've said above.

His work deals mostly with the subjects of loneliness and the difficulty of communication. This can explain why I'm so wordless to explain why it disturbs me so much and why I love it so.

Also, when I look at his series of images, I seem to forget the fact that I'm looking at photographic images.

Sometimes silence is the most demanding and valuable thing we get from images.

Regarding my own images, I've always had trouble "decoding" these:







Today's score: returning on a train, from Porto to Lisbon, Telefon Tel Aviv's "Remixes Compiled" and "Immediate Action, Vol.8".