Artist-duo Franz Manata and Saulo Laudares once placed speakers in the trees of a park in Rio de Janeiro in order to entice back local birds who had been driven out by non-native parakeets (After Nature, 2008). Passersby might have enjoyed the idyllic atmosphere created by the bird song until they noticed the source of origin. It’s this combination of nature and digital media that fills the artists’ 20-year career survey at Sé Gallery. Since the late ’90s, the Rio de Janeiro-based artists have become known for their experimental approach to the exhibition format and their penchant for digital language and techno-culture – spanning crafty textile pieces to sophisticated audiovisual remixes, and covering pretty much everything in between: 3D models, watercolours, bronze-casts and photography. The show is ‘programmed’ in four parts, with each section comprised of a set of open-ended works from different periods. When combined they create an ‘immersive atmosphere’, as the artists put it, borrowing from the vocabulary of electronic music.
- Fernanda Brenner