Associação Cultural Videobrasil

What nobody needs

In 1980, Arnaldo Antunes made a decision: he would leave his parents living in Rio de Janeiro and return to São Paulo, one year after having left the city. His personal reasons do not matter. Symbolically speaking, this piece of biographical information indicates something important about the artist and his work, and allows us to take a wild guess: he could not live away from the city where he had been born because he is its synthesis; Arnaldo is São Paulo in its entirety, and the city nurtures his work with its multifaceted identity.

Singer and songwriter is only a limited—and time-honored—way of referring to singer-poets such as himself. Coupled with the notoriety that he gained while in the band Titãs, however, it partly explains the fact that a large portion of his listeners is unaware of the countless ramifications of his musical output. For some time now, such common description has said next to nothing about the extent of his body of work. We may consider his oeuvre from at least three perspectives: the album, the book, and the screen. It is not by accident that we have refrained from adopting the usual designation of styles: music, poetry, and the visual arts; it is because within these media, Arnaldo develops all of his interests, standard formats and their usual attributes notwithstanding.

When we learn that his academic background is a course in letters, much of his creations’ later direction becomes clearer. If the word was his primary source, it did not suffice in itself, meaning that written word, when restricted to the book format, has always been limited. As time passed, the word was extracted from its classical cocoon and dynamited to the point of near-crushing, projected onto other surfaces, the paper, the CD, and the screen (both the painting screen and the virtual one). Even though Arnaldo would venture into geometrical and experimental representations, the foundation for his work is the word.

In the Caligrafias (Calligraphies) series, loose terms (‘instinto’ [instinct], ‘instanto 4’ [instanto 4], ‘transparente transpirante’ [transparent transpirant], ‘olho bolha 2’ [eye bubble 2]) are distilled to the eyes, repeated, deformed, as if a difficult rereading were required in order to “reunderstand them.” Of course, the source of his representations of the word is even more specific than his course in letters, and it is well-known: the concretism of the Campos brothers and Décio Pignatari. However, the appropriation effected by Arnaldo extended beyond the preexisting tie established by tropicalism. As a result, it seems that it was difficult to assimilate an artist whose sources came from a cultured domain, and even more so when these references have been crossed by the pop rock universe and by Brazilian popular music in a much more radical way than that of his predecessors. It suffices to note the distance between the reviews of his albums and books. They are surely believed to be distinct and unconnected.

Arnaldo’s books, however, are not the whims of a famous artist; his first book, OU E (artist’s edition), was released in 1983, virtually the same period in which he first became involved with the members of Titãs, with whom he formed the first bands of his career. Ever since, he has released books concurrently with his musical production, fifteen in all. They complement his music career and are complemented by it. Even that in which he ventured into prose, 40 escritos (Forty writings, Iluminuras, 2000), featured the restlessness of one who manipulates words out of vital necessity. The diversity of his visual arts and poetry production includes visual poems, installations, performances, digital art, among others.

However, the weight of literature and all of the transgressions imposed on it by Arnaldo must not hide another feature: his music is not easily apprehended. This means that his dexterity with the word coupled with the intellectual content in which it is used integrate themselves into his songs as a strong subversion of tradition; however, his knowledge and musicality may easily lead to the notion of passive, peaceful integration with the past; a reverence that does not exist.

If we are to take a heavily scatological song such as O pulso (The pulse, Marcelo Fromer, Tony Bellotto, Arnaldo Antunes, Õ Blésq Blom, 1989), we will find in it the same symbolism as in another song, from 2003, which is part of the artist’s solo output and supposedly a “lullaby,” Saiba (Know, Arnaldo Antunes, Saiba, 2004); let us view both in their entirety:

O pulso ainda pulsa 
O pulso ainda pulsa 
Peste bubônica câncer pneumonia 
Raiva rubéola tuberculose anemia 
Rancor cisticercose caxumba difteria 
Encefalite faringite gripe leucemia 
O pulso ainda pulsa 
O pulso ainda pulsa 
Hepatite escarlatina estupidez paralisia 
Toxoplasmose sarampo esquizofrenia 
Úlcera trombose coqueluche hipocondria 
Sífilis ciúmes asma cleptomania 
O corpo ainda é pouco 
O corpo ainda é pouco 
Reumatismo raquitismo cistite disritmia 
Hérnia pediculose tétano hipocrisia 
Brucelose febre tifoide arteriosclerose miopia catapora culpa cárie cãibra lepra afasia 
O pulso ainda pulsa 
O corpo ainda é pouco*

>

Saiba: todo mundo foi neném
Einstein, Freud e Platão também
Hitler, Bush e Saddam Hussein
Quem tem grana e quem não tem

Saiba: todo mundo teve infância
Maomé já foi criança
Arquimedes, Buda, Galileu
e também você e eu

Saiba: todo mundo teve medo
Mesmo que seja segredo
Nietzsche e Simone de Beauvoir
Fernandinho Beira-Mar

Saiba: todo mundo vai morrer
Presidente, general ou rei
Anglo-saxão ou muçulmano
Todo e qualquer ser humano

Saiba: todo mundo teve pai
Quem já foi e quem ainda vai
Lao-tsé, Moisés, Ramsés, Pelé
Gandhi, Mike Tyson, Salomé

Saiba: todo mundo teve mãe
Índios, africanos e alemães
Nero, Che Guevara, Pinochet
e também eu e você**

The songs are somewhat opposite to each other, the former warning that there is a breath of life amidst the true illnesses of civilization (resentment, stupidity, jealousy, hypocrisy, guilt): the artistic pulse (impulse?) is the only resource against human faults, slyly diluted amidst physiological and degenerative diseases, which are the poem’s deceiving majority, as there are cures for them.

The latter lists famous men who were children once. Too simple an idea? It would be, if it were not to dilute some of the sickest synonyms of the decadence of the poem from 1989 (Hitler, Bush, Saddam). Using the same poetic device, the hope remains, now with other possibilities of redemption: Gandhi, Che, Nietzsche.

His musicality expresses itself in multiple ways. It flirts with seminal movements such as bossa nova and tropicalism, as in Alta noite (High night, Arnaldo Antunes, Nome, 1993) and Passe em casa (Stop by, A. Antunes, M. Monte, C. Brown, Tribalistas, 2002); fuses the poetry of Alice Ruiz and the potent rhythm of his pop verve in Atenção (Attention, Arnaldo Antunes, A. Ruiz, J. Bandeira, Paradeiro, 2001); he writes for the Corpo dance group (O corpo, 2000), transcreates the rock and roll of Roberto & Erasmo Carlos, and multiplies himself in all directions.

He has produced only two DVDs. But they are unparalleled, outstanding. Nome was made in 2006, and is enough to convey a precise idea of the crossings between his lyrical poetry and concretism as an experience with the form of the word in its countless possibilities. In the following year, Arnaldo recorded the DVD Ao vivo no estúdio (Live at the studio) for the Biscoito Fino label. Set in a near-dark room, with Kafkian shades—to abuse the cliché—, surrounded by acoustic guitars, a keyboard, an accordion, and minimal details. To those unable to grasp the meaning of subverting tradition—and taking into consideration that Arnaldo does not make it any easier—, the DVD is a masterpiece of clarification. Arnaldo sings the songs as if he were speaking them out, the melody all but hidden under the impactful, even scary lows—to those accustomed with the frugality of commercial singing. But it is there, in the reduction to the bare minimum, that he is able to demonstrate what is lacking to all popular music that presumes to renew tradition by repeating it: the inversion of the chant’s sound, the inadequacy to the form, the superb treatment of the sung word.

The myriad transgressions of commercial popular music in his body of work are sustained in something that imposes itself further and further as the leading boundary between tradition and his avant-gardism: his singing. When he expressed in lyrics the multiple extent of his oeuvre, he did it in a seemingly conciliating fashion in Música para ouvir (Music to listen to, Arnaldo Antunes, Edgard Scandurra, Um som, 1998):

música para ouvir no trabalho
música para jogar baralho

música para arrastar corrente
música para subir serpente

música para girar bambolê
música para querer morrer

música para escutar no canto
música para baixar o santo

música para ouvir música para ouvir música para ouvir

música para compor o ambiente
música para escovar o dente

música para fazer chover
música para ninar nenê

música para tocar na novela
música de passarela

música para vestir veludo
música pra surdo-mudo

música para ouvir música para ouvir música para ouvir

música para estar distante
música para estourar o falante

música para tocar no estádio
música para escutar no rádio***

In fact, his different faces are present in the open possibilities of the lyrics, or better yet the possible commercial uses of his music appear clearly. However, if on the one hand we might believe that Arnaldo is accepting the current relativism regarding the various spheres of popular music, that is, if we assume that he is giving in to the lowly critique of ‘all is music’ because it expresses social layers void of educated perception and wallowing in extreme poverty, it seems a mistake to not see, in his lyrics, their very open-wide multiplicity. Even though Arnaldo flirts with corny music tradition by singing Americana (by Dogival Dantas), this is a tropicalist procedure, and therefore a different case than that of so-called “ghetto music.”

Música para ouvir is also music for those who can hear, or for those who, even in the distraction of the soap opera, of the card table, of a ball at some club in the state of Pará, or above all because of all the above, experience music as a part of life. It is seemingly a contradiction to think of Arnaldo as didactic (and misleading), since the current relativism reaches (and aims to protect) precisely those who do not need music, who were not brought up to need it—we are unfortunately in the field of concept. Quite the opposite, they do without the explanation that we insist on giving; and this is the mask that Arnaldo Antunes wears in front of his bizarre face: he gives away what nobody needs.

*The pulse yet pulses
The pulse yet pulses
Bubonic plague cancer pneumonia 
Rabies rubella tuberculosis anaemia 
Resentment cysticercosis mumps diphtheria
Encephalitis pharyngitis influenza leukaemia 
The pulse yet pulses 
The pulse yet pulses 
Hepatitis scarlet fever stupidity paralysis
Toxoplasmosis measles schizophrenia 
Ulcer thrombosis whooping cough hypochondria
Syphilis jealousy asthma kleptomania
The body is yet not much
The body is yet not much
Rheumatism rickets cystitis dysrhythmia 
Hernia pediculosis tetanus hypocrisy 
Brucellosis typhoid fever arteriosclerosis myopia chickenpox guilt caries cramps leprosy aphasia 
The pulse yet pulses 
The body is still not much

**Know this: everyone was once a baby
Einstein, Freud, and Plato, too 
Hitler, Bush, and Saddam Hussein
Those who’ve money and those ain’t

Know this: everyone had a childhood
Mohammed was once a child
Archimedes, Buddha, Galileo
And you and I too

Know this: everyone has felt fear
Even if it is a secret
Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoir
Fernandinho Beira-Mar

Know this: everyone is going to die
President, general, or king
Anglo-Saxon or Muslim 
Each and every human being

Know this: everyone had a father
Those who’ve gone and those who’ve not
Lao Tse, Moses, Ramses, Pelé
Gandhi, Mike Tyson, Salome

Know this: everyone had a mother
Indians, Africans, and Germans
Nero, Che Guevara, Pinochet
And you and I too

***music to listen to at work
music to play cards to

music for dragging chains
music to make serpents rise

music for spinning hula hoops
music for wanting to die

music to listen to in a corner
music to be possessed by spirits by

music to listen to music to listen to music to listen to

music to set the mood 
music to brush the teeth

music to make it rain
music to soothe babies

music to play on the soap opera
catwalk music

music for wearing velvet
music for the deaf and dumb

music to listen to music to listen to music to listen to

music for being distant 
music to blow the speaker

music to play at the stadium 
music to hear on the radio

Is there any form of strategy in your use of different languages to arrive at a sort of materialization of the word?

I have never felt like an artist, a visual artist. As a matter of fact, my starting point is the word, the poetics, which is a safe haven from where I set out on adventures into other languages, be it music, poetry, or the visual arts. What is always at playis the toying with poetic significance. But this search for other languages led me towards a physical presence of the word. This process is in my poetry as well, it already features this same material treatment of language, this bodily relation. I am not the type of author who writes a verse or poem without drafting, all at once. I meddle, I change, I subtract, I invert the order. I need to externalize my memory so as to be able tomaterially see all of the possibilities before I am satisfied. I have a desire for thematerial. The same holds true in music, I change it, record it, listen to it, and alter it. I do not solve it internally. There is a quest for the essential in this bodily combat with language.

So the creation lies in this very process.

Absolutely. In these language switches there has always been a quest for materiality, a greater presence of materiality. In music, in spoken-word poetry, in performance, for instance, the use of voice is very important, the physical execution of the word, the bringing of the word to the body. The same applies to gesture, which is present in music and in spoken-word poetry. There is also the aspect of exploring variations in timbre. In the case of the visual arts, at first I went for calligraphy, which involves gesture, the line that chants the word, the act of the arm and the tremor of the hand. I then started making large calligraphies, monotypes that are quasi-cathartic to make. Themaking of calligraphy ends up bringing other things, a word emerges during the process, the text changes as you deliver yourself to the lines.

Does the entire process take place without an established rational plan?

Yes, but it changes as you go along. It might begin with a sentence, a melody, but the process is one of change, and the point of arrival is far removed from the initial idea, it happens, and ends up being more interesting. This was how I started with calligraphies and arrived at objects that involve words, metal plaques, installations that are also very tactile environments. Then I arrived at objects that may go without words, as is the case with a piece in which I displace a door out of its habitual, it is a 360-degree door that becomes void of practical use, it only has poetic use, because it is no longer used for going from one place to another, it only spins around its axis.

This process of detouring from the context, from an original use, does it also take place with words?

Yes, making use of the context, detouring from the context.

Don’t you feel satisfied with the meaning of words?

There is always a desire for more, for embracing the world, for seeking an absolute significance, and it leads me in all of these directions in my work. In creation, for creative use, the word is always material to me, it may be viewed from various angles, be removed from one purpose and ascribed another, it may be broken in half. In creative use it is always like that, the word is a matter that applies to various situations. However, it has a day-to-day use, in which it is more transparent, and in artistic work Iseek to make it more opaque.

Doesn’t being an ‘artist of the word’ limit your field of research?

I have a desire to research the boundaries of language. Why does this mean this instead of that? This is the philosophy of language. But in addition to using language, I am interested in learning what is the limit of language itself, of naming. This has to do with the use of formats, with realizing how far the word can go by mixing it with image, with sound. Can word and sound result in anything other than a song? What are the limits of a song, when it works with simultaneous voices?

An interesting point in your career is that you developed these researches in mass production as well, such as in CDs, TV appearances, and concerts. Even before your solo career, when you were with the Titãs, you placed mass consumers in touch with certain specific poetic procedures, such as concretism, with which they had had little or no contact at all.

This is to test the limits as well, to test the limits of common taste. The song is a language that enables you to move a bit farther than people are used to towards something stranger. I believe that people are much thirstier for new things than informationvehicles want to lead us to believe. Popular music does not need to be trite, and throughout its history there has always been a quest for sophistication. A person who is familiar with my music might become interested in my poetry, or go to an exhibition of my work at a gallery. Ties may be established, in a way. However, it ends up being an experience with very distinct audiences. The difference between the penetration of popular music and poetry is an abyss. I am privileged, because music gives my poetry visibility. The transit between the two is still very sparse.

All of these processes involve new information technologies. Are they able to change the sensibilities of the creator and the public?

Absolutely. Today, a large share of my work is developed based on resources that thecomputer offers. My way of recording a CD has changed, it is all put together like a puzzle. You come to personally incorporate these new processes into your creative process. The collage, the tradition of collage, however, is a mode of thinking that is part ofmodernity, reconstructing and rebuilding, and in essence it applies to high technology and contemporary existence. The editing-oriented thinking becomes more current.

Can you imagine all avenues of your production coming together at a given moment and project?

It might happen. There are moments in which all actions walk together. Production ismade in a parallel fashion; as I record a CD I might be thinking of performance, and anintersection might take place, although on a very small scale, such as using the song in a performance, or using the performance in a concert, or in the Nome video. Maybe oneday it all might happen on a larger scale.

And what is your expectation regarding the audience, what is your relation with them as you propose a performance, rather than a concert?

Unfamiliarity, a relation of unfamiliarity. But I do not have a precise expectation regarding the audience, as a matter of fact. I have done performances in many other countries, because they have a more intense international transit than my music concert. There are performance, poetry, literature festivals with more experimental proposals. The people react in very different ways. In this case, the reaction is similar to the oneelicited by songs, because performances are capable of reaching audiences no matter what language they speak, just as we used to love the Beatles without speaking English.

I have never considered myself a visual artist. I actually find this name strange (in Portuguese, artista plástico literally translates into ‘plastic artist’), as it seems to point at once to the remodelling of the outlines of our body (plastic surgery) and to this by-product of oil that packages and/or constitutes most of the things we consume.

I see myself first and foremost as a poet, who eventually borrows processes and materials from the so-called visual arts to add other layers of significance to the words.

However, I am not too fond of the term poet either, because it is at times used witha strictly emotional meaning, very different from that of a verbal language worker.

I guess I would like it best to be regarded as a doer of things who does not restrict himself to any specific language.

My relation with visual arts takes place through the word. I believe that dealing with verbal expression is the territory with which I am the most intimate, my safe haven.From it, testing its limits, I venture toward other languages, as if moved by a need tochant.

Thus I started writing songs, changing the words by means of melodic inflection, of splitting the syllables into the musical cadence, of the instrumental context that involves them. On the other hand, I have always felt attracted to another form of intonation, expressed by their placement on the page. By the types, sizes, lines, colors, the spatial arrangement of words and their contaminations in drawing, collage, and photography.

My first book (OU E, 1983) was entirely calligraphic, exploring the expressive possibilities of handwritten words. The traces, lines, scribbles, and stains attempted to magnetize them with sensitive possibilities that they would be unable to attain by themselves. It was a folder containing loose poems in various formats, foldings, colors, and types of paper.

These attritions between the word (which already carries with it sound, image, and idea) and other languages offered me new expressive possibilities, which accentuated itsmaterial aspect. The challenge was always in conquering an adequate modulation, one that would integrate different languages into an indissoluble amalgam.

Dealing with the materiality of verbal language was to me one of the important lessons taught by concrete poets, who pioneered the exploration of interfaces between poetry and other codes.

And the presence of the body gradually imposed itself. The throat includes singing, just like the line includes the arm. Then came concerts, performances, installations.

The computer brought a new repertoire of graphic resources, and of editing and sound-processing possibilities. The ‘copy/paste’ function seemed very appropriate to the collage work that I was already developing, in other ways, in text, music, and the visual arts.

In the Nome video, my first work as soon as I quit the Titãs, in 1992, I was able tojoin together what I had been doing in the fields of song and visual poetry. These languages conjugated themselves on the video screen, by inserting motion into written word (leading it to tend to music, as it takes place not only in space, but also in time), thanks to animation software programs (and to teamwork, with Kiko Mistrorigo, Celia Catunda, and Zaba Moreau). At the same time, I was able to explore the simultaneous occurrence of what is heard and what is seen/read.

And then came new media for the poetry—posters, the stage, the Web site, clothing, music, dancing, laser projections on buildings, murals of typographic posters glued ontowalls and torn into various layers (such as the ones I exhibited in the Arte Cidade project, São Paulo, 1994, and at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo, 1998), the calligraphic monotypes using stamp ink on engraving paper (Escrita à mão exhibition, at the Centro Maria Antonia, in São Paulo, and at the Laura Marsiaj gallery, in Rio de Janeiro), installations featuring painted metal letters (Mercosul Biennial, 1997), and object-poems, madefrom many different materials (Ler Vendo Movendo exhibition, at Paço da Liberdade, in Curitiba, 2009), some of which were to be moved by the viewer.

And also the book, why not?

And also the song.

As a matter of fact, I am not very pleased with a name that has become commonplace when referring to what I do—multimedia artist. I believe that moving from one language to another is a common aspect of the times that we live in. Digital media have already disrupted the boundaries of specialization. Any artist nowadays ends up being somewhat multimedia.

Perhaps this is the resumption of a tribal aspect; of a time in which there were no separate modalities of art, nor was there art separate from life. This may be one of the meanings that we may apprehend from the expression “global village,” coined by Marshall McLuhan—the village-like spirit that is present in the current technological world.

I believe that we are getting closer to Oswald de Andrade’s utopia, as expressed in his dialectic equation: “1st term: thesis—the natural man; 2nd term: antithesis—the civilized man; 3rd term: synthesis—the natural technicized man.”

www.arnaldoantunes.com.br

Brings together texts, poems, interviews, a bibliography, a discography, images of installation work, videos, and a schedule of concerts and performances in Brazil and abroad.