There among us something invisible and obliterating
IAGOR PERES
Conception and editing: Iagor Peres
Sound: Thelmo Cavalcanti
Here at the limit of the gap we are
I have been reflecting on the densities that inhabit and compose our relationships in space. Starting from artistic practices, I have sought to comprehend the role of these invisible layers that exist in what is understood as the void, in these gaps between us and the world. A movement that looks critically at space attending to the above-mentioned densities. As they act on the dynamics of the relationship with the environment, I see also that, in their different (im)materialities, they conform between the inhabitation of the imaginary and the structuring of space.
As density, the skinmaterial has the ability to demarcate and expose the ro(u/m)bos ([roubos - robberies], [rombos - leak], [robos - robots]) of the composed structures (by whom?), turning up any and all ditch on the ground. A dense specifically designed to cover and de-personify. This thick and amorphous layer that tells about the process of racialization is one of the examples of other existing densities with immeasurable types and variations.
There are denses that; blur; coughed particles from plaster factories; denses that like the skinmaterial are engendered from the imaginary; the ones that exist but we don't imagine; that come from the order of feeling; that pass like quivers. Layers, then, that consist in a vastness of force that are not necessarily controllable but that are also movers. Thick materialities, of particles, of things beyond our understanding, components, soot, excreta and ideals that formulate worlds. Bodies that live there (here) in the inbetween-space of us and the worlds.
From the invisible to the unspeakable, the moments when attention to what is not seen blossoms the perception of other densities that permeate us. That is, looking at the invisible helps critical reflection on how other layers also act in our everyday. Densities that reformulate and emphasize the environmental spheres in which we are (or were displace?). Relations with the invisible much more complex that any logical organization of the order of the word. An exercise that forces comprehension of these bodies as also life agent and modifiers of our relations.
Image 1. Structure for dense fields: topography for a terrain of ditches. Railroads organized in gaps. gaps to contain bodies. superposed skin. habitat in the open sky.
Attending to the existence of what directly puts in check the sovereignty that humanity has always thought to exercise over these other bodies. That is, to counterpose our power relations with other materialities, regardless of whether we understand these materialities as life or not. Because, in the end, it matters little whether or not humanity will understand these denses as agent life, as present and important. Since regardless of the order that names in which these densities continue to act, and being part of a total space where no form of life is displaced from the other.
The inanimate matters (?) that western humanity did not comprehend as life, in fact are part of a large total ensemble that follows a balancing of the very forces it manages. And when I talk about a balancing of forces, I don't mean a simple compensatory mathematics, there are many mysteries in the formulas with which the world manages its own forces. Incomprehensible sustenances and collapses, inexplicable movements and resumptions. Apart from all the dust that returns to roam in the air and the untouchable sensations that also run traversing everything through this almost closed system that is the globe. All this saying that two or more bodies occupy the same space.
There between us an invisible obliterating.
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Once the message is understood, after seeing oneself obliged to establish a relationship of attention to the invisible and these existing denses, humanity develops a mode of aversion to what it does not see. It looks for ways to neutralize these encounters with the invisible, when it encounters the traumatic experience of not controlling what escapes its monitoring system.
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The innate despair for remaining in this humanity managed by the capital exploring global resources, leads the human to develop a device that acts directly on the void. Imagine that after the hangover of the pandemic, more or less 40 years later, as a demand for the high hygienist development of the wealthier classes, whiteness gathers its technological and capital accumulation to develop a way to control the entry and exit of any particles in a certain field around the body. A device that makes it possible to recreate the experience of isolation and “security” for the human body in an expanded field.
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Able to create a dome x meters of radius from the body, a kind of translucent layer that moves like a bubble in front of a blast of wind, that is activated by this simple device that is coupled to the body. This layer is responsible not only for repelling, but for disintegrating unknown particles, or those not listed in the device. The production of the apparatus is in the hands of large industries with a monopoly patent and global distribution.
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The bourgeoisie now, calmer, returns to walking on the street with admittedly invisible bubbles that separate it from the rest of the world and eradicates whatever the breeze of the wind brings. Once understood as a personal security policy. Versions of this object, which are capable of reproducing that same field on a larger scale are elaborated. Now on the verge of protecting, not only an individual, but also a group of individuals. A family size device. It does not take long for this device to be enforced as walls without fences. They replace wood and wire in latifundios, in Alphaville[1] condominiums they are already the dividers of backyards. The very rich no longer live in places where you could see walls. The points where it was possible to see barriers between the street and other properties remain in peripheral territories[2], where one can still observe the continuity of contagion.
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In parallel, the industry is increasingly improving the device to cover a greater variety of body eradication. At this point, security institutions already obtain versions of this device to disintegrate human bodies. And they use it as they wish. Some problems arise. How to distinguish one individual from another? Up to then, the device was prepared to distinguish different compositions of particles and DNA. But how to distinguish humans among humans? With the demand to complement the performance of the device and ensure the couple state+corporations, once again, the total civilian control, the private sectors develop a chip that as a chassis contains specific numbering to identify and distinguish itself among others. Implementation is mandatory.
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The UPP[3] replacement project, with the engendering of public security policies, implements the limitation of areas of the periferia[4]. The new modern apparatus manages not only to isolate large areas, but to annihilate any unauthorized individual who crosses the barrier. The device now covers large areas; installed for the applicability of curfews and isolation of these groups from other groups in society.
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The popular pressure comes when the first deaths due to “device failures” were reported - deaths only repeated at/in the limits of the periferias. Jump. After a series of lawsuits, it is verified that the device has a ‘random’ list of numbers that would be authorized by the state to be executed. Shortly afterwards the investigations were archived. The “failure” remains, but occislating in frequency.
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Half a generation later, open-air planting is scarce. The vegetation undergoes a drastic movement of scenery . Seeds understood by the device as a foreign body, are eliminated while in the air. Primary food production is now located within these thick layers. The wind doesn’t bring anything else. The wealthy classes now follow and are faced with the apex of yet another crisis, a food crisis.
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[1] Alphaville is the name of the Brazilian urbanistic prototype for real estate gated neighborhoods and communities, wealthy condominiums that are most of the time located on the fringes of State capitals. The project, which sells security and luxury, was launched in 1973, in the city of Barueri, State of São Paulo, and since then, has literally spread to the whole country.
[2] In this usage, território (territory in English) refers to politically (raciality, real estate, and extractive industry) disputed urban or rural areas.
[3] The Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora or UPP (Pacifying Police Unity) is a model of law enforcement that started to be imposed in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro by the government of Sergio Cabral in the State of Rio de Janeiro in 2008. The first UPP was installed on November 19th, 2008, at the Favela de Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro. The model intended to implement a community-oriented policing (COP) but it has been severely criticized for spreading police violence among the communities and for not being effective to reduce crime. As an example, in 2013, the case of 47 year-old Amarildo Dias de Souza that was abducted and killed by members of the UPP of the Favela da Rocinha. It is worth reminding that “pacifying” is the colonial term used for the historical violent processes and attempt of integration and assimilation of indigenous people within Brazil.
[4] The Portuguese term periferia refers to the geographical fringes, the outskirts of the city as an urban and legal space. These areas, with mostly black, mestiço, and (in some cases) indigenous populations, generally lack infrastructure, have extremely high population density as well as high levels of economic dispossession. What is known as favelas (the Brazilian type of shanty towns) are found in the periferia of mid-size and larger cities.
Iagor Peres (1995, Rio de Janeiro). I have lived and worked in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, for the last 4 years. I work in the visual arts languages. Member of the collective CARNE - Black Art Collective. Artist awarded at the 6th Edition of the EDP Nas Artes Award at the Tomie Ohtake Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 2018. Artist resident at Villa Waldberta, Munich, GER at PlusAfroT residence, 2019. In the same year, resident at Lugar a Dudas, Calí, Colombia. First solo exhibition at Galeria Maumau - 2018, Recife from the call for launch Artist Launch at Galeria Maumau in addition to other group exhibitions such as: “The best of the trip is the delay”, Valongo Festival, Santos (SP), Brazil and “What is not forest is political prison”, Reocupa Gallery, São Paulo (SP). I am interested in the densities and visible and invisible substances that make up relations in space, using synthetic and organic materials and starting from perspective as a racialized body. I also pay attention to the relationships between the processes of formation of the imaginary and architecture, seeking hybrid practices to compose processes of creation.