Keywords: Destabilising / Illusion / Haptic/ Palimpsest
Casa Alteradas is a two channel slide projection which features images taken by Andrade in the homes of two architects. One is Oscar Niemeyer's
Casa das Canoas (1951) in Rio, and the other is Flavio de Carvalho's
Hacienda Capoava (1929-36), located just outside San Paulo. The slides from the two houses include both interior and exterior shots. These buildings are both bold Modernist structures, there are no patterned/decorative surface qualities here, patterns are formed only by structural features, the repetition of windows or shutters, exterior gridded gantries. In the true modernist aesthetic function and form are fused. Fluid curves and geometrical frameworks are set in concrete, monumental in scale both homes take on the appearance of monolithic yet futuristic complexes.
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Installation View - 2006 |
Photographs have also been used from a dance hall in Rio and a hotel in Sao Paulo. These locations were chosen for their highly patterned interiors, featuring many geometric, mirrored surfaces. This has the effect of fragmenting/abstracting the interior spaces.
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
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| Armando Andrade Tudela - Casas Alteradas - Slide images |
The projected slides are shown in a sequence of overlaid images so that at any time four images can be seen. Four projectors are arranged so that it appears two slides are overlaid from separate projections together, these are arranged to meet along their inside edge so that both screens 'touch', creating a wider combined picture plain. In reality however only two projectors are used. Initially Andrade wanted each pair of projectors to overlay slides onto of each other, but this was found to make the images to bright. To solve this issue two slides were effectively 'sandwiched' into one slide casing. This means only two projectors are actually used in the work, yet the artist has kept the now redundant two projectors in the exhibition set up. This gives the appearance that the four projectors are being used to mix the images on the picture plain not within the slide casing which is the reality. Here the artist is deliberately setting out to deceive the viewer, I see a parallel with my own practice as I start to create work which questions the viewer as to how the work is made. The performative nature of the work is fully considered here, slide projection being deliberately employed over digital projection for its haptic qualities. The satisfying 'clunk' of the slide casing offering a rhythmic backing track to mark the consistent pace of slide transitions. Due to my use of video in my current work I have put the use of analogue slide projection on hold at present. However it is something to which I feel I will return at a later date, the haptic quality of this outmoded technology seem to soften the boundary between viewer and work. It also resonates a scene of the outdated, that which is becoming lost. Here Andrade has used the outmoded medium of slide projection to mirror the outmoded, 'historic' architectural spaces documented in the work.
The highly decorative slides of the hotel and dance hall are effectively used to disrupt, obscure even camouflage the strong lines and shapes from both architects homes. This palimpsest/layering abstracts the images, confuses the bold modernist structures, only glimpses of the buildings remain. Dystopian may be a to strong a term for the resultant images but they do present broken, confused spaces, indeed the viewer could question if these are architectural spaces or patterned surfaces? Here there is also a correlation with my own work as I experiment layering multiple images onto central screens in an attempt to destabilise the reading of images and video used.
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