Composer, researcher, and Associate Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, Paulo Ferreira-Lopes is In Focus on the MIC.PT in May, to mark his 60th anniversary.
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With a background in the fields of visual arts and music (Mendelsohm Hochschule fuer Musik, Atelier Livre, FBA-UL- Fine Arts University), Adriana Sá investigates the reciprocal contamination of creative means and sensibilities. She has been playing with sound and light in connection with architecture, movement, weather, geometry, philosophy and other fields more difficult to name. Trans-disciplinary artist, performer improviser/ composer, some of her project series also imply the conduction of collaborative work processes. She has been developing and presenting her work around in Europe, USA and Japan, frequently within the frame of artistic residencies. She uses amplified wires stretched in space, vocals and varied sorts of electronics, including self-built instruments for sound to be controlled by light; as the 'light percussion instrument' and the 'sounding light instrument', whose architectural features build up in organic performance-installations according to her site-specific programming.
Biography
Adriana Sá is a Fine Arts post-graduate currently working as intermedia artist, performer improviser/composer. Three-dimensional painting, site-specific installation, performance and sound were fluidly included in her painting concept, underlying now to a trans-disciplinary strategy. She has been developing and presenting work internationally, around in Europe, USA and Japan; frequently in the context of artistic residency programs.
Adriana Sá has been connecting sound and light with movement, architecture, weather, geometry, philosophy and other fields more difficult to name. Work remains in-between artistic areas, grounded on the living process and primarily faced with sound tools. Performance means to her a personal exposure within a game between the control over what is happening and the acceptance-integration of the unexpected. Her technical practice follows the natural esthetic of the making and implies the positive assimilation of 'mistake'. There is a continued investment in the 'human behind the machine'.
Working with sound provocatively, Adriana Sá is playful with the transitions between different psychic-physic states. Her graphical scores choreograph texture, density, dominance and sequence variations rather than clock-time or note arrangements. The physical presence of body and technological set-up are also assumed within their architectural significance. Sound materials and light gradients combine and chain into unfolding spaces, movements, happenings.
Her instrumentation comprehends amplified wires stretched in space, vocals, samplers and varied sorts of electronics, including self-built instruments for sound to be controlled by light. The 'light percussion instrument' includes stroboscope, analogue light sensor circuit, audio generator and delay-modeler; rhythm, timbre and dynamics are live-controlled parameters. The 'sounding light instrument' unfolds into a big range of performative possibilities. Its very BIGINT cables draw themselves suspended in space for redefining its local performativity. As it translates changeable light gradients into parametric sound variations, it establishes new relations between a site and its environmental context. Light-shadow movements control sound behavior in real-time, accordingly to the previous programming of relationships between light sensor circuits, i-cube and Lisa software. This instrument operates sample processing, frequency generation/ modulation/ mix and live-input processing.
In collaboration, Adriana Sá emphasizes the demand for openness and neural awareness of the whole. Technical and human particularities are raw material for experiments and discussions on further artistic hybridization possibilities. The work context tends to be extremely variable in collaborative project series. This is assumed as a stimulus for revitalizing artistic response capabilities and exploring artistic and personal tools in depth.
[... searching for something like an operational, common language? Some articulation of meanings: if we get to know what each of us means by X and by Y, we can relate to each other without the need of my adopting your X and your adopting my Y. Together we can also develop Z, which is the field of inter-action between X and Y plus between your tendency to X and mine to Y. Z will acquire its own materiality and range of meanings, it will be unique and reveal unexpected relationships between X and Y. This is a game made of layered (un)balances; our common work gets structured by the relationships between our beliefs.] In "To build meanings upon Differences", by Adriana Sá, “The Space of Extremes / do-group”, 2002, ed. Birger Sevaldson & Michael Hensel, AHO – Oslo School of Architecture
Significant to Adriana Sá's work process has also been the organization of platforms and events with the participation of international and local cultural interveners. Meetings offer a landscape of artistic performances, theoretical propositions and scientific investigations, providing material for further discussions and reflections.
"The immaterial space of desire: Threshold" workshop
- 2001
AA – Architectural Association
London
United Kingdom
Notes
Part of the post-graduation in "Emergent Technologies"
Part of the post-graduation in "Emergent Technologies"
Teaching
- 2000
ZDB - Zé dos Bois Gallery
Lisbon
Portugal
Notes
Grants, Residencies and Funding
Name of Grant/ Residency/Scholarship
Period
Awarding body
URL
Town
Country
Notes
2003/Oct/01 - 2003/Dec/31
Huddersfield Media Centre
Huddersfield
United Kingdom
Notes
- 2002
Metronom - Electronic Arts Studio
Barcelona
Spain
Notes
Creation of a light-sound instrument (with sensors, I-Cube and Lisa Software), assisted by Bert Bongers (studio director), supported by the Contemporary Art Institute
Creation of a light-sound instrument (with sensors, I-Cube and Lisa Software), assisted by Bert Bongers (studio director), supported by the Contemporary Art Institute
Aomori Contemporary Art Center Residency
- 2002
Aomori Contemporay Art Center, Aomori Municipality and Orient Foundatione
Japan
Notes
Extra grant by the Oriente Foundation (Portugal)
Extra grant by the Oriente Foundation (Portugal)
Artistic Collaboration Practics
- 2000
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Luso-American Foundation for Development, Camões Institute, Contemporary Art Institute and Organizing the Reallocation of Technology
United States of America
Notes
Residences taking place in both countries (4 weeks in Portugal, 12 weeks in USA)
Residences taking place in both countries (4 weeks in Portugal, 12 weeks in USA)
1999/Mar/01 - 1999/Apr/30
Luso-American Foundation for Development, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation (New York), in partnership with the Wesleyan University and Rensslayer Polytechnic Institute
United States of America
Notes
- 1999
STEIM
Netherlands
Notes
Residence for studying Lisa vs.2 software, supported by the Contemporary Art Institute
Residence for studying Lisa vs.2 software, supported by the Contemporary Art Institute
- 1999
CBK - Fine Arts Centre / Contemporary Art Institute
