Complementary technical description
Presentation text 1998
Bestiário masculino-feminino
A many-sided performance combining video Ianguage and live poetry
This work presented at Videobrasil brings together a poet's performance - Waly Salomão’s Bestiário masculino-feminino - and a videoartist's installatíon - Carlos Nader’s CineSegredo. A warning sign hangs on the door through which one enters into the installation, within a large indoor basketball court: “Dear spectator, CineSegredo proudly presents the biggest secret of my life, exhibited in its original untitled version, in morse code. Do not miss it. Your secret is the ticket. Sum up in one or two phrases your most inner secret and place it in this ballot box. We do not ask you to reveal your identíty. Keep it to yourself”.
Once inside CineSegredo, the spectator will notice a huge empty space with lights that go on and off in sincrony with the amplified sound of a bouncing basketball which transmits, in morse code, the secret alluded to in the sign by the door. The spectator will also notice a large screen (6 x 12 meters) towards back of the arena generating a white fluorescence when lights are turned off, and turning totally black when lights go on. Within a space and time frame devastated by an overdose of images and spectacular stories broadcast by all types of media, the spectator will find in CineSegredo an oasis of visual and narrative silence. It is the anticinema, an uncommunicative space.
There is absolutely nothing projected on the screen. No images, no stories. These are inside each spectator, in communion with their minds, concentrated in their secrets, to the undecipherable sound of the morse code.
As one advances further into the basketball court, it becomes clearer that the screen is really one of four sides of a huge black box, inside whích the performance takes place during approximately thirty minutes, according to pre-established schedules.
During the performance in which Waly Salomão recites some of his poems, the spectator has to wear an animal shaped mask supplied by Videobrasil. Inside the black box, created by Carlos Nader, hundreds of videos are projected, showing wild animals "eating", in both its sexual and nouríshment senses. Live electronic music will be played during the performance with mulatto female dancers wearing masks and over one hundred cackling chickens. lt is a diametrically opposíte experience to that proposed by CineSegredo. What was formal and severe becomes chaotic uncontrolled. A space of absence turns into a world full of positiveness, a space for extravagance, insanity. In Waly Salomão’s words: "The point where communication barriers break up is close to madness... People indulge further when wearing a mask... Utopia does not reside in me anymore / endangered species / I want to practice poetry / the least guilty of all trades".
Bestiário masculino-feminino is the result of cooperative work by two consistent and ambidextrous authors, each with a collection of notable experiences. Carlos Naders talent in the production of video works and installations has been known by the Brazilían public since 1989. Since then he has been accumulating an extensive videography permeated by quality work and critical recognition, paving the way for many of his videos to be broadcast on TV throughout Europe, Japan and the United States. His productions have also been exhibited in some of the most important cultural centers in the world, having received many ínternational videoart awards.
Waly Salomão, on the other hand, is a widely known personality in Brazil. Born in Jequié, Bahia, Salomão has written many music lyrics, produced together with some of the best Brazilian musicians such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and is an acclaimed writer, poet and cultural producer, known for his boldness and creative talent.
ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "XII Videobrasil - Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica" [XII Videobrasil - International Electronic Art Festival]: from September 22 to October 11, 1998, pp. 83, São Paulo, SP, 1998.