CIRCUITO CELESTE: LOS TIEMPOS DEL CIELO

Y DE LA OSCURIDAD

Serigraphy and aqueduct. Pastel on wall; metal gutter, water and engine. 2018

The work is a map of the displacement of stars over time, considering the date of  Quemadero de la inquisición (Bonfire of the inquisition - 1596 to 1771) which was held in front of the old monastery, today LAA, and the current date of Alameda Circuit exhibition (2018).

Directly printed on the wall, the Sky Circuit refers to Mexican codices, manuscripts of the large pre-colonial civilizations with reports that recorded the history, the ideology and the soul of indigenous peoples of the Americas. One of these codices was transcribed to colonizers under the title “Los templos del cielo y de la oscuridad: oráculos y liturgia”. Here we replaced “temple” by “time” in the ancient Monastery San Diego (currently LAA) in front of which the Catholic Church equipment and its Quemadero were installed.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Régua do Tempo (1596 – 2018)  - data Julian: 2458283,513889

Time ruler (1596 – 2018)  - date Julian: 2458283,513889

Acrylic box with water, metal ruler

Beside the wall engraved with the Sky Circuit we have a Box with a “time ruler” submersed in water, representing the distance covered by stars in the period (1596-2018). This ruler was used to produce the work Sky Circuit, as measure of displacement of stars over time.

Gilbertto Prado y Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

3 Cajas (Cuchillos, Clavos, ¿Quién mira quem?)

At the entrance of the Low Cloister we have 3 boxes, one with machetes crossed, the other with nails and the last one in crystal clear acrylic with the following inscription aligned and fragmented: ¿Quién mira quem? (Who sees who?). The works retrace the memories of colonization, vestiges of torture and discussion about the look. The magician box that brings back, like an archeologist, rusty machetes, planted in a possible corpse trapped in the torture space.  Among them a box with nails that threaten the vision. In an acrylic box, suspended words talk about the gaze of the other and to the other, the confrontation with the different: who are you, who see who? Questions of the foreign look, of when and how we became hybridized, as these transparencies overlap.

Gilbertto Prado

AFTER TOURISM COMES COLONIALISM

Set of seven serigraphies directly printed on the side wall of the Low Cloister. At the base layer images registering native Indigenous of the Americas through the look of colonizers. These images are mixed with other pop art and conceptual art images, depicting the hybridization we have in our history and culture.  The presence of the visitor in/from other lands is the essence of the incorporation, as well as the culture shock and a series of values and precepts based on an experienced reality and the culture itself. The engravings of the post-discovery period and those more recent evoke the confrontation with the difference in points of view, incorporated in fantasies, desires and projections of the unknown place. The works raises the question ¿Quién mira quem? (who sees who?), and addresses with humor the foreign presence and look, the contamination and the cultural cannibalism.

Gilbertto Prado

Circuito celeste: los tiempos del cielo y de la oscuridad

A obra é um mapa do deslocamento das estrelas no tempo, considerando a data do Quemadero de la inquisición (Fogueira da inquisição - 1596 a 1771) que era realizado em frente ao antigo convento, hoje LAA, e a data atual da exposição Circuito Alameda (2018).

Impressa diretamente na parede, Circuito Celeste no que diz respeito ao título faz referência aos códices mexicanos, manuscritos das grandes civilizações pré-coloniais com relatos que registraram a história, a ideologia e a alma dos povos ameríndios. Um desses códices foi transcrito para os colonizadores sob o título “Los templos del cielo y de la oscuridad: oráculos y liturgia”. Aqui modificamos o "templo" por "tempo" no antigo Convento de San Diego (atual LAA) diante do qual se instalou o aparelhamento da Igreja Católica, e o seu Quemadero.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Régua do Tempo (1596 – 2018)  - data Julian: 2458283,513889

Ao lado da parede gravada com o Circuito Celeste temos uma Caixa com uma "régua do tempo" submersa em água, que representa a distancia que as estrelas percorreram no período (1596-2018). Essa régua foi utilizada para produzir a obra Circuito Celeste, como medida de deslocamento das estrelas no tempo.

Gilbertto Prado y Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

SEED BOMBS (ORANGE, CORN AND PEPPER) AND PAPER BAG

The last work of the exhibition, along with Alameda Circuits, comprises boxes containing orange, corn and pepper seed bombs, sprouting, handcrafted with earth and clay.

An action-reference in the process of dissemination and hybridization of new fruits and elements that crossed (and cross) the different sides of our oceans and our cultures. And if the visitors so wish, they can collect some seed bombs in paper bags (with Alameda circuit print on one of their faces) and take them to throw in empty lots, streets, gardens, as a continuation of the exhibition and the dissemination process.

Gilbertto Prado y Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Alameda CIRCUITS

Alameda Circuits

Projection, 2018

At the exit of the exhibition the visitor sees projected on the wall (above the boxes with seed bombs) the drawing that appears, representing the performance in the space in real time of the other visitors in the main nave – the hybrid drawing of personal paths reconfiguring the imaginary lines that connect the circles/vases/seedbeds through the sensor-necklaces – that is, the circuits of visitors inside Alameda Circuit. Their personal circuit will be seen by other visitors, but not by themselves, and always in the set of participations.

Gilbertto Prado and Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Alameda CIRCUIT

Seen from above, the Alameda Central Square looks like a diagram of a large circuit, with its round water fountains as nodes of connection and its trees and sidewalks as paths for flow and connection. While entering the LAA area, we have at the right pressed onto the wall the diagram of Alameda Circuit (the exhibition’s title), which connects us to the outside space and brings the square to the exhibition space inviting us to visit its several layers and possible routes and circuits.

Sensors in the nave will register the visitor in order to recognize the individualized path and capture each visitor’s circuit, virtually built as the visitor walks.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Alameda CIRCUIT

Seen from above, the Alameda Central Square looks like a diagram of a large circuit, with its round water fountains as nodes of connection and its trees and sidewalks as paths for flow and connection. While entering the LAA area, we have at the right pressed onto the wall the diagram of Alameda Circuit (the exhibition’s title), which connects us to the outside space and brings the square to the exhibition space inviting us to visit its several layers and possible routes and circuits.

Sensors in the nave will register the visitor in order to recognize the individualized path and capture each visitor’s circuit, virtually built as the visitor walks.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Encontros

Encontros is an interactive work based on an ancient wood piece on which two cell phones are laid, turned to each other and tied by a metal spring.  The work processes data from a world translated by networks and data from the crossings of waters and tides, which dialogue to each other and intertwine.  It addresses the impossibility of encounters (encontros), our borders and frontiers.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Clarissa Ribeiro, Claudio Bueno, Daniel Ferreira, José Dario Vargas, Luciana Ohira, Lucila Meirelles, Mauricio Taveira, Nardo Germano, Renata La Rocca, Sérgio Bonilha, Tatiana Travisani, Val Sampaio)

Alameda GARDEN

A garden, shown as the diagram of Alameda Circuit in the central nave.

In the vases, which occupy the places of fountains in Alameda Central Park, we have plants in natura: peppers, corns and oranges with their fruits, smells and textures. At the crossing of the exhibition area building axes, under the central dome, a blooming orange tree stands on a sky blue carpet.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

SCREEN – AQUEDUCT / HYDRAULIC CIRCUIT

This Aqueduct-Screen, with water pumping at the upper portion, divides the Central Nave in two ambiences and marks the passage/division of the Alameda Garden works and those of Encontros (Encounters). The work was inspired by the screen by anonymous author of Franz Mayer Museum, in the same square. In the 17th century piece there is, on one face, the inscription “La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de México” and on the other side “Conquista de México”.

The painting of the city side represents the idyllic landscape of Alameda Square, where the aqueduct from Chapultepec is outstanding, referring to the urban scheme of the time, which included the flow of water that fed the city central area.  At the extremity of the painting aqueduct one can observe the drawing of a “large circuit”.

In the exhibition, as hydraulic circuits, in addition to the aqueduct-screen, there is another one with running water under the Sky circuit and connected to Desertesejo. These running water circuits remind us the Aztec system of channels still remaining in Mexico City.

Wood, metal, water and water pump, 1 X 1 X 7 m.

Gilbertto Prado e Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Gilbertto Prado, Ana Elisa Carramaschi, Agnus Valente, Andrei Thomaz, Leonardo Lima, Luciana Ohira, Maurício Trentin, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha).

Azul Celeste II

The larger carpet of the show (3X3m) was woven by women prisoners in Brazil in 2005. The work was part of the interactive installation Acaso 30. In the Circuit Alameda show the carpet serves as the base of the central orange tree, which is below the vault of the central nave . Also of same year and origin of manufacture, a similar but smaller carpet (1X1 m), Azul Celeste II, is underneath the piece Desluz, in the room of the choir, in the upper part of the central nave.

The two carpets, the orange tree and Desluz form an axis that crosses in the middle the central nave towards the Sala do Coro.

Gilbertto Prado