ANDRÉ ARAÚJO & MARTA DE MENEZES | Vorticella: Sonic feedback loop of the ecosystem as a listening relationship
22/23 – ongoing
Keywords
Proportions | Development | Anatomy | Symmetry | Asymmetry | Dimensions | Diversity | Divergence | Generation | Growth
Synopsis
The connection between the human and the non-human, however distant and even adversarial it may appear, exists in a delicate equilibrium that must be reviewed from an artistic standpoint. One may consider this close linking that, while being tracked by individuality, also exists and is understood as a whole, all at once, in natural, organic, and beautiful chaos, starting with the concept that an ecosystem consists of a variety of interactions between various agents that are frequently reliant on one another.
From this one can question how can we develop communication systems that go beyond the human through active listening? How does sound fit into the most varied ecosystems? Can, on the other hand, all dependency connections be converted into sound exercises?
The process of developing a Sonic Feedback Loop is explored in this artist talk as it is based in the ecosystem that generates the sound and then to that responds to it. By doing so, it develops a sharing system that, like so many others, is more akin to an activity in active listening than speaking. Even further away from considering listening as merely a physical action and more toward it as a posture.
Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic planet: a new look at evolution (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 7.
Marta de Menezes, “Art: in vivo and in vitro” in Signs Of Life:
Bio Art and Beyond, ed. Eduardo Kac (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2007), 217.
Louis Bec, “Life Art” in Signs Of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, ed. Eduardo Kac (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2007), 83.
Artist Bio
André Araújo (Porto, 1999) is a Portuguese musician, visual artist and researcher. He studied Classical and Jazz Program at the Conservatório de Música do Porto and has a Bachelor’s degree in Jazz and Light Music (woodwinds) at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel – Belgium. He holds a MA in Contemporary Artistic Creation from Aveiro University and is currently a PhD student in Artistic Creation by Aveiro University (Aveiro), School of Music and Performing Arts (Porto), School Of Media Arts And Design (Porto), School Of Arts And Design (Caldas Da Rainha). Araújo’s body of work uses different mediums from Videoart and Installation to Visual and Sound Performance to explore the relationship between sound and image, as a conduit to address social issues and the themes of memory, oppression/repression and territory.
Marta de Menezes (born 1975) is a Portuguese artist, with a Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon and a MSt from the University of Oxford. De Menezes is director of Cultivamos Cultura, the leading institution devoted to experimental art in Portugal and Ectopia, dedicated to facilitate the collaborative work between artists and scientists. Marta de Menezes has worked in the intersection of art and biology since the late 90s, in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, and Portugal, exploring the conceptual and aesthetic opportunities offered by biological sciences for visual representation in the arts. Her work has been widely exhibited in major venues in all continents, presented in most anthologies devoted to bioart, discussed in doctoral dissertations, and considered an example of research in the visual arts. Among the most recent international exhibitions, de Menezes was invited for the 2019 Ars Electronica Festival: Out of the Box, and organized two 2020 Ars Electronica Gardens (Lisbon and São Luis). She was invited to be the official representation of Portugal at the London Design Biennale 2016 and exhibited at the Beijing Biennale of New Media Art 2016. DeMenezes was nominated in 2015 by Time and Fortune magazines for the Art and Technology Awards 2015.
References
Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic planet: a new look at evolution (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 7.
Marta de Menezes, “Art: in vivo and in vitro” in Signs Of Life:
Bio Art and Beyond, ed. Eduardo Kac (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2007), 217.
Louis Bec, “Life Art” in Signs Of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, ed. Eduardo Kac (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2007), 83.
