As interfaces become an ever-present feature of our daily lives, there is an urgent need to rediscover ways of relating to the world that are more attentive, empathetic and permeable. The ubiquity of digital mediation, by condensing gestures into a single touch and presence into a stream of data, tends to reduce life to an operational version, stripping it of friction, of waiting, of listening. Against this alienation, which dissociates the body from its environment, it is important to reactivate the senses as pathways to knowledge and connection.

Above all, it is important to conceive of the world not as a set of data to be processed, but as a tangible place. Drawing on the image of the membrane, the works on display evoke the processes of sensory adaptation that bodies develop in their relationship with the world. Membranes regulate the exchange of substances and energy between the interior and exterior. They are permeable; they do not ensure distance, but rather allow infiltration and contamination. For this very reason, they contrast with the mode of operation of the interface, which tends to preserve the separation between bodies, functioning as a surface for visualisation and translation.

On display, there is a proliferation of image-printing media that deviate from conventional photographic printing, giving way to materials which, by their very nature, suggest the idea of a membrane. The importance of the material is all the greater as the titles of the works are omitted from the exhibition catalogue, allowing the material itself to stand out: dichroic film, latex, polyester fabric, acetate… among other transparencies and films.

Taken together, they form a device that engages the senses. Although we are faced with images — many of them photographic, almost always associated with an external, past, ‘real’ reference — it is not the idea of representation that is imposed here, but rather that of presence.

Exemplary in this sense is the piece on dichroic film, which functions almost as a summary of intentions because its property of changing colour depending on the observer’s position immediately activates an awareness of oneself in space — seeing becomes, here, also a way of perceiving oneself as a situated body. The body, moreover, appears exposed: sometimes through simple nudity; sometimes through the extreme magnification of the lens, which reveals textures, secretions, moist surfaces — elements often relegated to the realm of revulsion or shame. The sensory membranes that regulate contact with the world become visible: the cornea, the nasal mucosa, the surface of the tongue. Living, fragile tissues. Points of contagion, but also of anchorage: signs of a life inscribed in Cartesian space and far removed from remote simulation.

The visitor is invited to recognise, in these materials, the body as a surface of contact: a place of exchange, exposure and risk. Against the lightness of the virtual, Membrana suggests a repositioning: restoring the body’s gravity and re-situating it in the thickness of the present, where the relationship with the other and with the environment involves sharing a common vulnerability.

Vera Carmo

CREDITS

MIRA Galerias | Espaço MIRA

Directed by Manuela Matos Monteiro and João Lafuente

Artistic Director José Maia

Communications Manuela Matos Monteiro and Beatriz Vital

Curated and Produced by

coletivo barda

Organised by

coletivo barda

MIRA Galerias

Acknowledgements

ACERT

João Garcia

José Maia

Túnel

Vera Carmo

Zé Tavares

Artists

Ana Rego

Carlos Trancoso

Diana Sá

Hêrnani Vidal

Guida Marques

Inês Fernandes

Ivan da Silva

Juliana Maar

Marco Duarte

Guest artist

Boris das Beiras

Barda is an expression of collaborative intent that has taken the form of a collective. It emphasises the visual arts as a means of transformation and an instrument of empowerment for peripheral communities, and uses the image as a tool for intervention and questioning, promoting the creation of synergies between community and territory through experimental dialogues.

instagram.com/bardacoletivo