Bruno Alves de Almeida | Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht (original) (raw)

Papers by Bruno Alves de Almeida

Kunstlicht vol.45 n.a1/2- Reverberant Ecologies: On the Relational Impact of Sonic Practices, 2024

This paper delves into the transformative potential of sound and sonic practices as tools for att... more This paper delves into the transformative potential of sound and sonic practices as tools for attuning to and comprehending the agency and murmurings of various material, viral, vegetal, animal, and atmospheric entities. Departing from Isabelle Stengers' cosmopolitical proposal, this essay advocates for a re-evaluation of power dynamics in political arenas by engaging with the diverse murmurings of what Stengers defines as the "cosmos" — the unknown constituted by multiple, divergent worlds.
The paper is grounded on the analysis of artistic contributions to the event Murmuring Matter: On the Cosmopolitics of Materials, held at the Jan van Eyck Academie in 2023. The event proposed a collective exploration of the materials, bodies, river, forest, and cityscapes of Maastricht and beyond, through sound experiments, listening exercises, and sonic immersions. The paper explores the potential of such sonic practices as effective responses to Stengers' proposal by attuning to and illuminating positions that often go unnoticed, thus prompting a reconsideration of humanity's connections with the environment. Illustrated with concrete examples, this paper demonstrates how sonic practices within the event fostered conditions for pre-cognitive attunement to the environment and unveiled new relationalities between humans and ecosystems at various scales.

Environmental Identities, 2020

Environmental Identities consisted of a series of online and offline conversations, performance... more Environmental Identities consisted of a series of online and offline conversations, performances, digital works and screenings, which explored the correlation between our self/social identities with a fast-changing natural environment. The events fostered exchanges between cultural practitioners and researchers from the natural and the social sciences, exploring alternative ways of construing our identities in a world marked by unsustainable and outdated notions of humanity. Their multi-layered exploration of the notion of ‘environmental identity’ reflected on its relation to group identity, political affiliations, social justice, conceptions of individual, gender, race, female subjectivity, among other topics.

De Appel, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2019

Landscape with Bear is a project (within the framework of De Appel Curatorial Programme) investig... more Landscape with Bear is a project (within the framework of De Appel Curatorial Programme) investigating De Appel's Collection (Unintended) and developed collectively across eight months by fourteen individuals: the participants of De Appel Curatorial Programme, along with three artists, an archeologist, two designers, an architect and a writer.

The project progressed through a series of meetings with and alongside the Collection (Unintended)—a group of artworks, props, objects and documents that make up a small part of De Appel’s extensive archive. Its name reflects the fact that De Appel is not a traditional collecting institution and no one explicitly set out to build this collection. The objects gathered over the course of many years, through chance and the cumulative subjective decisions of a combination of individual agents, bureaucratic structures and forces of self-organisation, are unified only by the fact that they do not fit into the existing categories of the archive. This lack of criteria is reflected in the eccentricity and eclectic nature of the collection. The objects existed as a group but were not publicly named as a Collection (Unintended) until 2017. The Collection (Unintended) is largely uncatalogued and therefore lacks the taxonomies, hierarchies and art historical narratives typical of traditional museological collections. The project sought to explore whether this idiosyncrasy might offer alternative modes of access to, or ways of producing knowledge from, a collection. From a collection that is fragmentary, uncertain and unstable, there is potential to create a consonant kind of knowledge: one that constantly reinvents its alliances. This collection called for different outlooks, expertise, knowledge and diverse perspectives beyond an art historical approach.

ESPACIO RELATIVO, 2019

The essay ponders upon the reciprocity between social order and spatial order and the interrelati... more The essay ponders upon the reciprocity between social order and spatial order and the interrelation between socio-cultural constructs with material structures through the work of Spanish artist Rafa Munárriz. Written on the occasion of Rafa Munárriz's solo show ESPACIO RELATIVO, 2019, and book published by Caniche Editorial with text in English and Spanish.

Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018

1:1 (one to one) is a project conceived and curated by Bruno Alves de Almeida and developed by Ga... more 1:1 (one to one) is a project conceived and curated by Bruno Alves de Almeida and developed by Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo, Brazil.

1:1 explores the relationship between the gallery and its urban context through the connection among the exhibition space and other pre-existing places in its vicinity. In each of the project's editions, an artist is invited to conceive a bipartite work, which occupies an exhibition room in the gallery and, simultaneously, a second space within the neighborhood. This other location, which already hosts its own uses and functions, is chosen by the artist and situated at a walkable distance from the gallery. Thus, to understand the totality of the works, the public will have to go from the exhibition room to a certain place in the neighborhood or vice versa.

These routes will take place in the region of Vila Buarque and surroundings, downtown São Paulo, an area where a great variety of local establishments, services, institutions and others, intersect with a diversity of classes and social dynamics. By creating a correspondence between the art gallery and a series of other locations within its surroundings, the project not only intends to potentiate an intersection between the artistic proposals and the socio-spatial dynamics of the place, but also to speculate about this correlation. If proposing a succession of works to the exterior of the exhibition space could enable a more effective performance beyond the codified structures of the art system, on the other hand, being outside the "white cube" has never been more within the artistic structure. If art is increasingly dissolving into social praxis, on the other hand, it is reaching unprecedented degrees of institutionalization and commercialization. Therefore, the reciprocity between the gallery and another space of the "real" will serve both as a precondition for the artists' operation and as a basis for a critical reflection on the specificities, potentialities and paradoxes of a state of art that, in its discourse and/or performance, is at 1:1 with "reality".

Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018

SITU, founded and curated by Bruno de Almeida and developed by Galeria Leme, is a platform of pro... more SITU, founded and curated by Bruno de Almeida and developed by Galeria Leme, is a platform of production and research that promotes the dialogue between art, architecture and the city, as a tool to broaden the analysis and questioning of contemporary urbanity as a socio-spatial matrix.

This project invites a series of Latin American artists to, one after the other, take hold of the external spaces of Galeria Leme's building with temporary and site-specific works, which relate both to the building and to the adjoining public space. The choice of this gallery (a project commissioned to the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha in collaboration with Metro Architects) relates not only to its double bond with the art and architecture world, but primarily to its strong architectural features and also to its complex history of construction, demolition, replication and expansion, which can be taken as a representation, on a small scale, of the evolutionary processes of São Paulo and of many other contemporary metropolises.

The curatorial focus falls upon artists whose researches gravitate around architectural and urban space issues, as well as other tangential topics. In addition, there is an emphasis on Latin American artists, as they have another bodily and intellectual spatial understanding that comes from an intense familiarity with the complexity of the public sphere and of the urban and social processes that are specific to Latin America.

By chaining a disparate series of artistic proposals that dialogue directly with the public space, SITU intends to continuously engage and incite a broader and more heterogeneous audience, inviting them to think critically about the city and the processes that shape it. The main purpose is to conceive works that are not innocuous representations of reality and through which pressing issues can be formulated, discussed and propagated.

PRŌTOCOLLUM: Global Perspectives On Visual Vocabulary, 2017/2018, Dickersbach Kunstverlag, Berlin, Germany, p.73-77, 2017

A reflection on the work of Chilean artist Pilar Quinteros through its relation to the socio-spat... more A reflection on the work of Chilean artist Pilar Quinteros through its relation to the socio-spatial specificities of the context she works in.

um trabalho um texto, 2017

A text developed in collaboration with Brazilian artist Rubens Mano in occasion of the work commi... more A text developed in collaboration with Brazilian artist Rubens Mano in occasion of the work commissioned for the exhibition platform "um trabalho um texto" (1 work, 1 text), São Paulo, Brazil.

Versions in English and Portuguese.

aU - Arquitetura e Urbanismo, anno 31, n.271, Outubro, 2016

"Curadores da mostra Cartas ao Prefeito, em que arquitetos foram convidados a escrever suas expec... more "Curadores da mostra Cartas ao Prefeito, em que arquitetos foram convidados a escrever suas expectativas e opiniões sobre a cidade, Bruno de Almeida e Fernando Falcon falam dos limites e efeitos da profissão na dinâmica urbana."

Storefront for Art and Architecture + Pivô Art and Research, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016

Pivô Art and Research and Storefront for Art and Architecture present the exhibition Letters to t... more Pivô Art and Research and Storefront for Art and Architecture present the exhibition Letters to the Mayor: São Paulo, curated by Bruno de Almeida and Fernando Falcon.

The exhibition is part of a larger project conceived by Storefront for Art and Architecture, consisting of an itinerant show that already took place in cities such as New York (USA), Athens (Greece), Bogota (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Panama City (Panama), Mexico City (Mexico), Taipei (Taiwan), among others. In each of these cities the exhibition featured a set of letters written by fifty local architects to their Mayor, expressing their ideas opinions and desires for the city.

São Paulo’s edition strategically took place during the electoral campaigns for the Municipality of São Paulo. The letters were exhibited at Pivô Art and Research, in the Copan building at the heart of the city, in a free exhibition accompanied by an intense program of conversations, round-tables and lectures.

By bringing a set of relevant voices to the public awareness and to the agendas and desks of the potential mayors, the exhibition intends to intensify the discussion about the city at a crucial time for its future and for its citizens, amidst a complex political and economic moment for the country.

The group of invited architects and institutions offered a varied outline of the nuances that the architectural discipline can contain, including both consecrated and emerging names from fields such as the projectual, academic, theoretical, critical, artistic and curatorial.

T+U Architectural Publications. (Telling), 2016

The paper explores the socio-political relevance of Critical Spatial Practices (architecture and ... more The paper explores the socio-political relevance of Critical Spatial Practices (architecture and art) in relation to Carl Bogg’s notion of “prefigurative politics” and Antonio Gramsci’s “passive revolution”.

Publish online at: http://t-plus-u.com/portfolio/brunodealmeida/?id=55

Associação Cultural Videobrasil, 2015

Analysis of the exhibition "Unerasable Memories - A Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection".... more Analysis of the exhibition "Unerasable Memories - A Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection". Curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio on view from 31.08.2014 to 30.11.2014 at Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil.

Text in English and Portuguese.

Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Jan 26, 2014

John Cage, Merce Cunnigham and Allan Kaprow’s works, theories and methods are used as a motto to ... more John Cage, Merce Cunnigham and Allan Kaprow’s works, theories and methods are used as a motto to understand how a newfound status of the artwork was instigated by their shared interests and researches, which ran transversally trough different types of artistic practices. These artists, have not only broadened our understanding of what an “artwork” can be, but also questioned its existence as physical objects, that we can recognize as materializing the conceptual immediacy of the work.

"Chance", was a fundamental method to them, as a way of generating compositions and pieces independent of the author’s will. Even if it might not be evident, this attitude towards art-making had a concern for objectivity and acted as a producer of order inside their creative process. No urge for expression of the self. It is indifferent in motive and originated in no psychology or dramatic intentions. The final purpose was indeed, to be freed from any kind of artistry or taste.
Nevertheless, the use of chance-operations was widely considered as a negation of the artist’s responsibility. If technical ability and artistic virtuosity were not at stake anymore, spectators started questioning what distinguished a common person from an artist. This distinction became even more tenuous when a shift from a traditionally “object-based-art” started to dilute itself into the “artistic-project”, which emphasized process rather than product.
In order to elaborate a personal interpretation of the work, the spectator is obliged to focus on the continuum of narrative that makes the artwork into something other than a fixed object. The audience is no longer confronted with an artwork but with the documentation of life in the "art-project."
But how can “Chance” be accurately documented? The context and the specificity of circumstances are also fundamental to the uniqueness of each performance. Plus, very often, the works cannot be equally recreated twice, and therefore, no documentation will ever be able to convey the precise qualities of that unrepeatable moment. One can also say that the documentation of something is not the thing itself. Ultimately, this disparity cannot be erased, and it is a divergence that separates the viewer from the reality of the work.
Undeniably, Cage, Cunningham and Kaprow’s practice and pieces (intentionally) raise several questions of value and authenticity. But the essence of any experimental work is hard to perceive because the absence of the familiar is more palpable than the odd presence of what is actually there. New forms in fact not only seem disturbingly wrenched out of contexts that have given old forms their meaning, but can appear to be abstracted from “content” itself.
But transgression and discomfort are soon absorbed and digested by the ever-enlarging cultural boundaries. Today, contemporary art has an interesting, if sometimes ambiguous, relation to its broader culture. Even though it is still hard to grasp and understand it, art has never had a less controversial social reception than the one we can witness in our times. Art was never so strongly a part of the mass culture that it has sought to observe and analyze from a distance.
So, can we assume that the blurring between Art and Life, which Cage, Cunningham, Kaprow and many others, desired, finally happening, (even if in a distorted way)?

Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Feb 14, 2014

Monuments and memorials attempt to create a shared memorial experience unifying plural segments o... more Monuments and memorials attempt to create a shared memorial experience unifying plural segments of population, even if it is only during a brief “memorial moment”. But, although past history is shared, the ways to remember cannot be unified.
By creating common shared spaces for memory, monuments spread the illusion of collective remembrance. But memory is always personal and disparate. Everyone memorializes something different. Context and circumstances change, politics and culture as well. So, without people’s intention to remember, these landmarks of remembrance are just inert fragments on the landscape.

Placing the weight of remembrance and regret on art’s unbearable lightness of being, a public redemption is advertised and performed under high-art’s tutelage. But, where genuine art is produced as self reflexive, public monuments are produced to be historically referential, to lead viewers beyond themselves to an understanding or evocation of events. Where art invites viewers to contemplate its own materiality, or its relationship to other works before and after itself, the aim of memorials is to draw attention to past events. Preserving and cultivating the memory of an historical moment through a nation’s idealized self-presentation. Instead of placing memory at the disposal of public awareness, traditional memorials and monuments close memory from the consciousness of its viewers. Transforming what should be an exercise in self-determination and non-conformity, into a servile response to a dissimulated standardization of memory.

Acknowledging such misconceptions and the impossibility of embodying memory-work. Some contemporary artists would question the status and representativeness of monuments, inquiring and breaking-down their purpose. As a result, the concepts of “vanishing monument” and “counter-monuments” emblematized Germany’s conflicted struggle with Holocaust memory. These “anti-monuments” formalize their impermanence and mutation of form in time and in space. In their conceptual self-destruction and self-negation, referring not only to physical impermanence, but also to the emergency of all meaning and memory, especially that embodied in a form that insists on its eternal fixity.
If from one side, an important shift from conventional monuments was nevertheless achieved, trying to get rid of a posture of pious obeisance. On the other hand, counter-monuments were still subject to appropriation into the meta-narrative of redemptive memorialization. Thus, becoming no more than an attenuation of the monument as representation.

By leaning specifically on the Holocaust and the German’s obligation to tangibly represent and atone their guilt. This work attempts to study the relation between landmarks of remembrance and collective memory versus collected memory. Baring the ambiguities and contradictions of this tantalizing altercation through a carefully selected body of works which show us how thinkers, artists and architects tackled with this daunting and stimulating task. Not only responding to a specific set of requests but also subverting and questioning the need for a catalyst of remembrance such as memorials and monuments.

Conference Presentations by Bruno Alves de Almeida

IPACC - Intergovernmental Panel on Art and Climate Change, 2021

The Intergovernmental Panel on Art and Climate Change (IPACC) is a fictional institution which re... more The Intergovernmental Panel on Art and Climate Change (IPACC) is a fictional institution which refers to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations’ body assessing the science related to climate. Acknowledging that both the impacts of and solutions to climate change are deeply mediated by culture, the IPACC explored a stronger integration of the arts, social sciences and humanities within the interface between science and global policymaking. The project spanned two discursive events in consecutive years, happening in parallel to the unfolding IPCC’s 6th Assessment Cycle, a comprehensive review of the latest climate science instrumental to inform climate protocols.

In the first three-day event in 2021, the prospects and challenges of the IPACC were discussed in a speculative role-play between professionals enacting the Present and the Future, seven generations ahead. The group of the Present departed from the fictional scenario that the IPCC wished to include arts and culture in their workings and thought prospectively on how such a collaboration could come about. The Future, 140 years ahead, gave a retrospective evaluation on the IPACC’s importance, shortcomings, and impact on future societies. After separate round-tables, both groups joined forces in speculating how arts and culture could gain further traction in the discussion and action on the climate crisis.

The second event gave continuity to these reflections and departed from the IPCC’s structure of 3 Working Groups (WG), imagining a 4th group within the IPACC. The IPACC WG IV occurred after the publishing of the reports by the IPCC’s three Working Groups, which constituted the 6th Assessment Report (AR6). The event opened spaces for discussion to react, reflect and add to this on-going process which culminates with the publishing of the AR6 Synthesis Report, completing the IPCC’s 6th assessment cycle and bringing key information to global policymakers.