Works of the artist

Text of the Catalogue of the exhibition Cartographies of Gaia held at the Nilton Zanotti gallery at the Palácio das Artes in Praia Grande and at the Cultural Center of Correios in São Paulo.

 

CARTOGRAPHIES OF GAIA by Walter Miranda

Since the 1980s, the ecological theme has been a constant in my artistic production, as well as the incorporation of computer boards and other accessories of our technological daily life. The series of works called “CARTOGRAFIAS DE GAIA” presents works that reproduce several cartographic projections to deal with the current situation of environmental degradation on the planet. Planetary degradation, caused by the actions of human beings eager for immediate enrichment, immeasurable material comfort and the assumption that, with technology, we can dominate nature.

The two and three-dimensional works were carried out using the traditional technique of oil painting and the incorporation of objects discarded by contemporary society. The joint use of these two apparently antagonistic factors (tradition and contemporaneity) generates the compositional challenge of obtaining a visual harmonization during the creative process of each work that, when completed, provokes in the observer philosophical reflections on the pollution of the environment and the consequent decline of the quality of life for man on the planet.

The support for the works are wood, plastic objects, aluminum sphere and the traditional canvas. Objects discarded by contemporary society were incorporated into the supports, such as: computer boards (sawn and ground or in pieces and shards), electronic components (processors, chips, speakers, diodes, capacitors and resistors), computer keyboards, credit cards, revolver bullets, meat grinders, scales, keys, padlocks, clocks and clock domes, PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic film, acupuncture needles and straws, jewelry, coins, burnt matchsticks , sharpened pencil peels, eraser sharps, shards of glass, etc. I also incorporated elements from nature, such as: seeds, shells, snails, earth, sand, stones, armadillo shell, etc.

All the components I used were placed according to an aesthetic order in order to create unique textures and visual effects that provoke the viewer's curiosity. In some frames, I painted realistically (as a detail) the map of the region presented in the entire frame in order to create a link that closes the frame in itself, that is: the frame is a detail of itself and a detail of it is the whole frame.

Cartografias de Gaia has a total of 44 works in which I used the artistic interpretation of cartographic projections as follows:

TWO-DIMENSIONAL WORKS

• 1 panel measuring 2.5m X 2.5m was made with printed circuit boards, computer keyboards and pc mouses;

o This work presents the planet Earth as an egg being fertilized by human technology. It represents the extreme importance that man gives to the use of technology today. The planet was painted on canvas and is on a flat world filled with electronic boards. Thus, the Earth is represented as an egg, whose protective layer is composed of computer keyboards and the sperm that try to penetrate the egg are represented by pc mouses. Ironically, the only mouse sperm that can penetrate the egg shell is branded “Clone”.

• 5 works in oval, semicircular or multiform cartographic formats show all regions of the planet.

o These works were filled with credit cards (symbol of rampant consumerism); keys (symbol of opening or closing of human paths), computer boards (symbol of current technology), several CDs (which represent the brilliant and apparent richness provided by current technology), acupuncture straws and clips, electronic mini buttons, diodes, electronic resistors and capacitors etc.

o One of the boards was made with 30,000 electronic diodes + 2,500 straws and 1,600 acupuncture needle clamps + 500 capacitors and 400 electronic resistors. It also presents the five islands of plastic waste that float in a concentrated way in some parts of the oceans.

• 3 oval works with the world map represent the evolution of continents during geological ages.

o They represent the progression of technological pollution generated by humans over time, as the works establish an evolutionary parallel since the dawn of civilizations (when man spread across the planet using natural materials to conquer the environment) to the present day, in which man is polluting the planet in an unimaginable way. The tables were filled with guava seeds, sharpened pencil shavings and residues from electronic boards, plastics, metals, etc;

• 2 works show the shapes of the first world maps, created in 1507, where the representation of the Americas appears for the first time.

o One of them was filled with electronic circuit boards, guava seeds, and acupuncture needle loops; and another was filled with sharpened pencil shavings, which represent European deforestation in the 16th century.

• 6 circular works represent regions of the planet filled with the remains of objects that relate to the characteristics of each region, in order to represent the pollution caused by the excessive consumption of materials processed by the current industry.

o In South America, I used matchsticks to represent forest fires;

o In Europe, I used small pieces of computer boards to assemble a visual mosaic representing the various mini-regions that make up the continent;

o In Africa, I used sand due to the marked influence of the Sahara, as well as the drought in several regions of that continent;

o In North America, I used various computer chips and processors to represent the characteristic of the local technological society;

o In Asia, I used sharpened pencil peels to represent the manual culture that still remains imperative in the region today;

o In Oceania, I used computer board debris to represent the dominant industrial production in the region and which has been supplying the world market for electronic goods.

In the background of some works, I painted hands and feet (which represent the human occupation of the planet). In others, I handwritten a text, which follows linear compositional patterns specific to each work. This text is known worldwide as theLetter from Chief Seattle and has a very curious history:

American Indian chief Seattle gave a speech in 1855 during a peace treaty in which Indian lands were sold in exchange for a reservation. This speech was witnessed by an admirer of his, Henry A. Smith, who published it in a local newspaper in 1887, based on his recollections of the speech.

In 1971, the speech was altered by screenwriter Ted Perry for a documentary on ecology. From then on, the text became known worldwide as Chief Seattle's reply letter to US President Franklin Pearce.

Although authorship is ambivalent, this communion of texts, in my view, presents a message, which is becoming increasingly current, for humanity. Therefore, I decided to include it in part of this series of works. Those interested in the full text can access it on my website: http://www.fwmartes.com.br/imprensa/114/carta-do-chefe-seattle

• 2 circular works show the terrestrial poles;

o In Antarctica I used electronic components debris to represent the marks of human and scientific occupation in the continent still little explored;

o In the Arctic I also used sharpened pencil shells, however smeared with ink and oil, to represent the marks of human pollution on the sparsely inhabited continent.

• 1 circular work represents all continents viewed simultaneously and filled with pieces of computer boards completely smeared with industrial oil (another symbol of technological pollution).

• 1 circular frame, painted in dark colors, represents the image of the planet without water;

o In the painting “Sem Água (without water)”, I used a mixture of the tailings that I used in the other paintings to represent the continents and that, incorporated into the oil painting, become a dramatic representation of an image captured by means of radar and published by the European Space Agency showing what Earth would be like without water. This image is superimposed on a circle filled with shards of glass showing the limits of the water, which generates the rounded shape of the planet, instilled in our collective unconscious.

• 3 works of whimsical cartographies feature a world map filled with mini electronic push buttons, guava seeds and acupuncture needle loops;

o Two of them are lozenge-shaped, with the oceans being made in high relief using sawdust from printed circuit boards and electronics debris, and the Arctic and Antarctic areas being filled with loops of acupuncture needles. One has continents filled with 5,000 mini electronic push buttons and acupuncture needle clips.

o The third frame has a shape analogous to a heart, reproducing one of the various cartographic projections that exist.

• 2 works show the world map upside down.

o It is a tribute to the Uruguayan painter Joaquim Torres Garcia who, in the first half of the last century, postulated a new way of seeing the world without the conventional point of view used by Western culture.

• 1 oval work shows the world map painted in reverse, as if the viewer of the work was inside the frame watching the viewers of the work;

• 1 oval work, showing the map of the world “lying down”;

• 1 bilateral circular work (front and back) represents the real nature and beauty of the planet;

• 1 rectangular work made of wooden scraps, small computer boards and cut-out acupuncture straws, represent the visual beauty of atmospheric pollution;

• 3 rectangular works present the Earth cut out vertically, diagonally and horizontally, alluding to the environmental imbalance and the mismatch between the use of technology and integration with the planet in a sustainable way.

• 2 oval works present Africa and South America in evidence and the other continents in a faceted way;

o Africa and America are centered and realistically painted and the other continents are geometrically faceted. Thus, the central part is seen naturally and the sides as if they were the faces of a diamond to represent the planet seen through a prism and as a small jewel immersed in the infinity of the universe.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL WORKS

• 1 modular object mounted in the form of a tower, made with computer keyboards;

o The base of the object is octagonal, the first module is hexagonal, the second module is pentagonal, the third module is quadratic, the fourth module is triangular, and the top is composed of a sphere.

• 3 “Books of Gaia”, whose pages are computer boards + objects, tell the process of human technological development and its relationship with the planet, Gaia.

• 2 objects, “The Last Judgment Machine” and “The Vital Balance”, were made from the reuse of a meat grinder and a scale.

o The first features the Earth being ground in a meat grinder, and the second features the Earth on a scale as a man weighs the Sun and Moon. Both represent the objectification of nature and universal philosophical values, transforming them into mere material values.

• 2 three-dimensional objects that present the Earth in the shape of an egg coupled on computer boards address the ecological issues that can affect the climate balance on the planet.

• 1 hexagon-shaped object represents e-waste dumped around the planet.

INSTALATION REQUIEM TO GAIA - FOUCAULT’S ICU

• 1 installation composed of 1 circular and bilateral work with an image of the planet painted on the front and back; scanned images; 38,000 electronic push buttons; contact acetate for keyboards; electronic time markers; plastic globe; monitor top and abdominal subcutaneous syringe.

o The installation represents mother Gaia (planet Earth) in a serious health situation and in urgent need of the services of an ICU-Intensive Care Unit.

o Two opposing walls are used to represent the reality of the world we live in and the distance that human beings live from this reality.

o On the first wall are presented several images showing the pollution of the air, seas, forests and cities, as well as the garbage left by human beings in all corners of the planet. In the sequence, other images are presented showing dead or sick animals, for suffering the consequences of the environmental pollution generated by the human species.

o On the other wall are presented the same images framed by a television screen, aiming to convey the idea that the human being is aware of these situations, but acts as if everything were just a movie far from the reality of our daily lives. Around the screen are placed several credit cards that represent the world's financial power that direct what and how to present the news in the media of communication.

o Connecting the two walls and supporting the monitor, there is a “road” of computer keyboard acetates that represents the technological evolution of the human being. It is filled with thousands of electronic push buttons that surround an image of planet Earth surrounded by electronic time markers.

o Between the two walls, in the center of the road, there is a Foucault pendulum that supports a circular double-sided painting hanging two and a half meters high. This painting has on the front and back the continents painted in a realistic way and represents the perception that the human being has that: when everything is mapped, everything is mastered!

o A little below the painting, and hanging from the pendulum, there is a small terrestrial globe that represents the finitude of the planet. Further down, there is a subcutaneous syringe pointing menacingly at the image of planet Earth surrounded by electronic time markers.

o In consonance with the paintings on display, the essential idea of the installation is to demonstrate the finitude of planet Earth and remember that the weight of our actions puts the planet itself and our lives at risk.

PERFORMANCE

• 1 performance in which the serious ecological situation in which the planet finds itself due to human actions is addressed. The play lasts twenty minutes and counts with the participation of the group “Suspiro na Arte”. It presents the fictitious sale of planet Earth by a super-powerful businessman who does not care about the social and economic injustices existing between countries.

o In consonance with the paintings on exhibition, the essential idea of the installation and the performance is to demonstrate the finitude of planet Earth and remember that the weight of our actions puts the planet and our lives at risk.

Finally, it should be said that this series of works, in which I use the world map to express my current concerns, emphasizes my “modus operandi”, since in all my artistic production, I always try to unite reason with emotion (base of my creative process) in order to create a work that makes use of traditional techniques incorporated into elements of today's society to establish different metonymic relationships that provoke questions in the viewer.

In this sense, the subjective language I use to express my feelings, anxieties, ideas and philosophical concepts allows the observers to draw their own conclusions about the topic addressed in each series of work. The result is complicity or denial, it doesn't matter. Both form a kind of involvement that refers to the essence of what I try to convey.

                                                                                                                                  Walter Miranda - August/2019

 

 

Cartographies of Gaia: poetic heterotopies in the art of Walter Miranda

 

Mirian de Carvalho / RJ  -  Critic of Arte  - Member of the Brazilian Association of Critics of Art - ABCA

  

  Walter Miranda's artistic production brings relevant issues to the field of contemporary artistic expressions, especially from the exhibition entitled Cartographies of Gaia, presented at Centro Cultural Correios, in São Paulo, and at Palácio das Artes, in Praia Grande, 2018. In Cartographies of Gaia, the motif in focus is the world map unfolded in various images, in which the artist performs spatial interference in countless planispheres and terrestrial globes, in order to deal with threats to the life of the Earth and to all the pulsating lives here, in face of the growing environmental aggressions, through the ages.

   

                     To highlight the thematic drama, Walter Miranda brings the works together in three interactive modules: Requiem to Gaia: two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces; Foucault's ICU: installation; and Little Blue Planet for Sale!: performance. In this mix that encompasses dramaturgy, the artist leads strangeness to the order of the spaces in each work and the entire show, and invites the visitor to get involved in the ambience through synesthesias and through the conceptual (https://youtu.be/DAEkMU6WrAk).

 

  In the module called Requiem to Gaia, which includes paintings and three-dimensional pieces, oil painting distinguishes continents, oceans, poles and interferences in maps. Various painted materials and small and medium-sized utensils are accreted to the painted areas, such as keys, matches, computer keyboards, electronic circuit boards, revolver bullets, pencil shavings, padlocks, coins, loudspeakers, credit cards, barrettes. acupuncture needles, watches, straws, ground glass, rubber shavings, seeds, sea shells, animal shells, glass domes and countless other things, featuring heterotopias.

 

 In the paintings, ranging from 36.8in x 22.8in to 96in x 96in, textures appear that, along with the painting, reveal and or suggest depths, grooves, grooves, overlaps, contiguities, porosities, roughness, forest fires, etc. Observing that the utensils added to the painting are sometimes painted. Concerning the contour of the pictures, there is also strangeness, since the planisphere is diversified in rectangular, circular, elliptical shapes, among others, as in the three pictures called In Totum 6, In Totum 7 and Romantic Cartography, in which the first two resemble lozenges and the third approaches the shape of a heart. Stands out in this snippet, the cartography configured by latitudinal sectors of the globe, in Universalis Cosmographia II.

 

 To the visitors are also given the opportunity to perceive maps at unusual angles, using cutouts, inversions and mirroring. Applied to these diversities, Mismatch I, Mismatch II, Mismatch III show visions of the Earth sectioned by horizontal, diagonal and vertical cuts, respectively. And, amid the cartographic inventions, South America is positioned in the North, in a happy tribute to Torres Garcia, in The North is Here I and The North is Here II, observing that, in the second frame, the map is shown in mirror, angulation also observed in Reverse of the Averse and in the painting entitled In Splendid Cradle, in which the map is positioned lying down.

 

In the same module, showing painted parts joined to multiple objects, three-dimensional pieces also highlight the problem of planet destruction, and are configured by unusual techniques and formats. Then, the Tower of Babel rises, in an electronic material architecture and topped by a painted aluminum globe. In the same segment, Book of Gaia I, Book of Gaia II and Book of the Harbor are pieces composed of computer boards, with writing symbolized by the grouping of diverse utensils. In this ambience characterized by the junction of differences, Walter Miranda inserted the Doomsday Machine, where the Earth is crushed by a meat grinder. And, in the midst of this mixture of the diverse, there are other works that present the hopeful movement of life overcoming destruction, such as Peace on Earth among Men of Good Will!.

 

In all arts, a poiesis is subscribed, which, to spaces and other poetic spheres, intersects instances related to spaces and other domains of the socio-cultural fabric. This dynamic is reflected in the ambiguities inherent in poetic images, deconstructing the linguistic sign and the syntax common to discourses. To this deconstruction, a new language emerges, which set up spaces that are opened to differences. At the literary level, strictly in poetry, such spaces are receptive to chaotic enumeration: serialization of different and even contradictory elements. This figure of speech is present in the essay by Jorge Luiz Borges who, in a chinese encyclopedia, classifies animals in the following order:

 

 

a) belonging to the emperor, b) embalmed, c) domesticated, d) piglets, e) mermaids, f) fabulous, g) dogs at liberty, h) included in this classification, i) who move like crazy, j) innumerable , k) drawn with a brush so fine of camel hair, l) et caetera; m) that have just broken the jar, n) that look like flies from a distance. (Apud Foucault, 1967: 3).

 

When highlighting this mixture in Borges's text, Foucault discusses the concept of heterotopy, as the positioning of diverse and close things, in a given space, which becomes unnameable and unthinkable, becoming unfeasible in the geographical and social planes, due to the differences that cause “contagion” (Foucault, 1967: 3) for the diverse. In the philosopher's studies, in the face of disciplinary power, which submits bodies and can determine withdrawal or seclusion, heterotopies will be focused on other works, which address the banning of differences, as has occurred throughout history.

 

 To this picture, the author adds the emergence of biopower, which, being somewhat disciplining, acts through training: “Therefore, we are in a power that is in charge of both the body and life, or that was, if you prefer, of life in general, with the pole of the body and the pole of the population ”(Foucault, 2005: 302). Biopower presupposes norms and models related to the workforce and production, and gains importance from the Industrial Revolution and, in the course of the 19th century, to a greater degree. The extension of these two powers confirms the impossibility of grouping by the diverse, in the same place, since everything must be standardized. Such a question, pertinent also to the field of language, had already been anticipated by Foucault in The words and the things: “Heterotopies undoubtedly disturb, because they undermine language, because they prevent naming this and that, because they break common names or they get tangled, because in advance they ruin the syntax” (Foucault, 1967: 6).

 

By conducting his analysis to the field of power, and not to the field of poiesis, the philosopher refers heterotopias to the domain of “no place of language” (Foucault, 1967: 7), which opens only to an “unthinkable space” (Foucault , 1967: 4), which confirms the segregation of the diverse, that is: the diverse, considered to be disorder, is excluded from speech and thought. However, defined in this text the poetic bias, I emphasize, this is exactly the desirable and effective scope of the chaotic enumeration: founding heterotopias that scramble the syntax of repeated and or ideological discourses. And, thus, they allow us to say and make thinkable materialize the unthinkable mixes in the socio-cultural hierarchies that position individuals in fixed and standardized places according to social stratification.

 

In this regard, if we consider the social function of artistic production, poiesis is open to ontogenesis and the inclusion of all kinds of differences. In the dynamics of poiesis, heterotopias found spaces open to the agglutination of diversities, such spaces are inscribed in the non-place of language, because poetry erupts in the non-place circumscribed to images, where the intertext and the unsaid speak. Like poetry, in Cartographies of Gaia, heterotopias take the place of the pictorial and the non-pictorial, just as they take the place of the conceptual and the non-conceptual. And, in the same perspective, in the installation and performance integrated to this exhibition, the scenery and scenes expose the staged and the unstaged. It is a dynamic that, in Photography, allows us to register the unclicked and the unfocused, as revealed by Antonioni in the film Blow up.

 

Walter Miranda sets up the entire exhibition through heterotopias, which conduct a dialectic. To the game of oppositions, the artist highlights the relevance of environmental sustainability as opposed to irrationality in the use of technological advances that produce electronic waste, deforestation, forest burning, oil spills in the waters, polluting gases, global warming, ozone layer destruction. In the context of dialectical confrontation, poetic heterotopias affect the syntax of speeches based on ideologies, which ignore policies and standards of environmental responsibility.

  

 

Persisting in the agglomeration of the diverse, Walter Miranda integrated the module called Foucault's ICU into the exhibition, This is a scenographic installation alluding to the illness of the Earth. And, in the interactive cycle that makes up the event, the artist included the performance A Little Blue Planet for sale!, exposing developments of the conceptual (https://youtu.be/n4J0vlpmjkk). By resorting to unusual technical procedures for painting, Walter Miranda, through poiesis, favored the agglutination of diverse tools in the organization of spaces. It should be noted that, in this writing, the notion of poiesis applies to the procedures implicit in human work, which, traversing thoughtful strata, creates transformative dynamics of matter, technique and technology, generating the poetic dimension in artistic work.

 

In Cartographies of Gaia, the shock in the syntax of such discourses begins when the artist removes things fixed in predictable places. Positioned outside the classroom, outside the atlas and the Geography book, and configured in different ways, the world maps expose contradictions that start from the technique to constitute a poetics of space. And all the modules of the show interact in a space that resignifies itself through antitheses. In this way, the contrast between dismal and light colors, between shadows and luminosity stands out, endorsing the symbolism of the opposition “death x life”.

 

In addition to the opposition involving the luminous and the gloomy, tensions arise from the various pieces of the show. Amid the tragic, there are lyrical movements that emerge in several pieces. Thus, to the picture called Technological Imbalance, which suggests the death of the Earth, the lyricism of life rises in the symbolism and the intense color of Columbus Egg: a terrestrial "globe" in the oval shape. In a subtle way, a primal scream reverberates in Fecundationis Artificiose, since, surrounded by keyboards and mice, the Earth is transformed into a blue egg, illuminated and alive. Although through the artificial, the auspicious sense of the luminosity of blue arises, with the expectation of the fertilization of a great world map welcoming life.

 

 

In this fertilization, all works interact in a transitive belonging. Each of them completes the other, in an ambience conceived as a scenographic space, leading the visitor to inhabit a large world map, where he can act without submission to the biopower’s control rules. Faced with the essential contrast, which opposes death and life in this great world map, the body, called upon to choose its destinies, has the option of supporting the pulsating life in poetic heterotopias to dismantle the syntax of the dismal speech of death.

 

Only life allows diversities. Only poetry makes it possible to name and say the unnameable precious. Once, Cecília Meireles said: “Life is only possible reinvented”.

 

 

Cartographies of Gaia: this is the reinvention of life in the poetic heterotopias created by Walter Miranda.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 

FOUCAULT, Michel. As palavras e as coisas: uma arqueologia das ciências humanas.  Trad. Antônio Ramos Rosa. Lisboa: Portugália, 1967.

 

------------------------. Em defesa da sociedade. Trad. Maria Ermantina Galvão. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2005.

 

MIRANDA, Walter. Cartografias de Gaia. São Paulo: FWM, 2020.

 

 

Since the 1980s, the ecological theme has been a constant in my artistic production, as well as the incorporation of computer boards and other accessories of our technological daily life. The series of works called “CARTOGRAPHIES OF GAIA” presents works that reproduce several cartographic projections to treat the current situation of environmental degradation on the planet. Planetary degradation, caused by the actions of human beings eager for immediate enrichment, immeasurable material comfort and the assumption that, with technology, we can dominate nature.

 

The two and three-dimensional works were carried out using the traditional technique of oil painting and the incorporation of objects discarded by contemporary society. The joint use of these two apparently antagonistic factors (tradition and contemporaneity) generates the compositional challenge of obtaining a visual harmonization during the creative process of each work that, when completed, provokes in the observer philosophical reflections on the pollution of the environment and the consequent decline of the quality of life for man on the planet.

 

The support for the works are wood, plastic objects, aluminum sphere and the traditional canvas. Objects discarded by contemporary society were incorporated into the supports, such as: computer boards (sawn and ground or in pieces and shards), electronic components (processors, chips, speakers, diodes, capacitors and resistors), computer keyboards, credit cards, revolver bullets, meat grinders, scales, keys, padlocks, clocks and clock domes, PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic film, acupuncture needles and straws, jewelry, coins, burnt matchsticks , sharpened pencil peels, eraser sharps, shards of glass, etc. I also incorporated elements from nature, such as: seeds, shells, snails, earth, sand, stones, armadillo shell, etc.

 

Todos os componentes que eu usei foram colocados de acordo com um planejamento de ordem estética a fim de criar texturas e efeitos visuais peculiares que provocam a curiosidade do espectador. Em alguns quadros, pintei de forma realista (como detalhe) o mapa da região apresentada no quadro inteiro a fim de criar um elo que fecha o quadro em si mesmo, ou seja: o quadro é um detalhe dele mesmo e um detalhe dele é o quadro todo.

 

Cartografias de Gaia tem um total de 44 obras em que utilizei a interpretação artística de projeções cartográficas da seguinte forma:

 

All the components I used were placed according to an aesthetic planning in order to create unique textures and visual effects that provoke the viewer's curiosity. In some works, I painted realistically (as a detail) the map of the region presented in the entire frame in order to create a link that closes the frame in itself, that is: the frame is a detail of itself and a detail of it is the whole frame.

 

Cartographies of Gaia has a total of 44 works in which I used the artistic interpretation of cartographic projections as follows:

 

TWO-DIMENSIONAL WORKS

 

• 1 panel measuring 2.5m X 2.5m was made with printed circuit boards, computer keyboards and mice;

 

o   It represents the extreme importance that man gives to the use of technology today. Therefore, the earth is represented as an egg, whose protective layer is composed of computer keyboards and the sperm that try to penetrate the egg are represented by mice;

 

• 5 works in oval, semicircular or multiform cartographic formats show all regions of the planet.

 

o   These jobs were filled with credit cards (symbol of unbridled consumerism); keys (symbol of opening or closing of human paths), computer boards (symbol of current technology), several CDs (which represent the brilliant and apparent richness provided by current technology), acupuncture straws and clips, electronic mini buttons switches, diodes, electronic resistors and capacitors etc.

 

o   One of the boards was made with 30,000 electronic diodes + 2,500 straws and 1,600 acupuncture needle clips + 500 capacitors and 400 electronic resistors. It also presents the five islands of plastic waste that float in a concentrated way in some parts of the oceans.

 

• 3 oval works with the world map represent the evolution of continents during geological ages.

 

o   They represent the progression of technological pollution generated by humans over time, as the works establish an evolutionary parallel from the dawn of civilizations, when man spread across the planet using natural materials to conquer the environment, to the present day , in which man is polluting the planet in an unimaginable way. The tables were filled with guava seeds, sharpened pencil shavings and residues from electronic boards, plastics, metals, etc.;

 

• 2 paintings show the shapes of the first world maps, created in 1507, where the representation of the Americas appears for the first time.

 

o   Um deles foi preenchido com placas de circuito eletrônico, sementes de goiaba e presilhas de agulhas de acupuntura e outro foi preenchido com lascas de lápis apontados, que representam o desmatamento europeu no século XVI.  One of them was filled with electronic circuit boards, guava seeds, and acupuncture needle clips; and another was filled with sharpened pencil shavings, representing European deforestation in the 16th century.

 

• 6 circular paintings represent regions of the planet filled with the remains of objects that relate to the characteristics of each region, in order to represent the pollution caused by the excessive consumption of materials processed by the current industry.

 

o   In South America, I used matchsticks to represent forest fires;

 

o   In Europe, I used small pieces of computer boards to assemble a visual mosaic representing the various mini-regions that make up the continent;

 

o   In Africa, I used sand due to the strong influence of the Sahara, as well as the drought in several regions of that continent;

 

o   In North America, I used various computer chips and processors to represent the characteristic of the local technological society;

 

o   In Asia, I used sharpened pencil shavings to represent the manual culture that still remains imperative in the region;

 

o   In Oceania, I used computer board debris to represent the dominant industrial production in the region and which has been supplying the world market for electronic goods;

 

In the background of some works, I painted hands and feet (which represent the human occupation of the planet). In others, I handwritten a text, which follows linear compositional patterns specific to each work. This text, Letter from Chief Seattle, is known worldwide and has a very curious history:

 

American Indian chief Seattle gave a speech in 1855 during a peace treaty in which Indian lands were sold in exchange for a reservation. This speech was witnessed by an admirer of his, Henry A. Smith, who published it in a local newspaper in 1887, based on his recollections of the speech. In 1971, the speech was altered by screenwriter Ted Perry for a documentary on ecology. From then on, the text became known worldwide as Chief Seattle's reply letter to US President Franklin Pearce.

 

Although authorship is ambivalent, this communion of texts, in my view, presents a message, which is becoming increasingly current, for humanity. Therefore, I decided to include it in part of this series of works. Those interested in the full text can access it on my website: http://www.fwmartes.com.br/imprensa/114/carta-do-chefe-seattle

 

• 2 circular paintings show the terrestrial poles;

 

o   In Antarctica I used electronic components debris to represent the marks of human and scientific occupation in the continent still little explored;

 

o   In the Arctic I also used sharpened pencil shavings, however smeared with ink and oil, to represent the marks of human pollution on the sparsely inhabited continent.

 

• 1 circular work represents all continents seen simultaneously and filled with pieces of computer boards completely dirty with industrial oil (another symbol of technological pollution).

 

• 1 circular work, painted in gloomy colors, represents the image of the planet without water;

 

o   In the painting “Without water”, I used a mixture of the tailings that I used in the other paintings to represent the continents and that, incorporated into the oil painting, become a dramatic representation Earth would be without water, based on an image captured by radar and released by the European Space Agency. This image is superimposed on a circle filled with shards of glass showing the limits of the water, which generates the rounded shape of the planet, instilled in our collective unconscious.

 

• 3 paintings with extravagant cartographies presente the world map filled with mini electronic push buttons, guava seeds and acupuncture needle clips;

 

o   Two of them have a diamond shape, and the oceans were made in high relief using sawdust from printed circuit boards and electronics debris and the Arctic and Antarctic areas were filled with acupuncture needle clips. One of the works has the continents filled with 5,000 mini electronic push buttons and acupuncture needle clips.

 

o   The third frame has a shape analogous to a heart, reproducing one of the various cartographic projections that exist.

 

• 2 works show the world map upside down.

 

o   This is a tribute to the Uruguayan painter Joaquim Torres Garcia who, in the first half of the last century, postulated a new way of seeing the world without the conventional point of view used by Western culture.

 

• 1 oval painting shows the world map painted in reverse, as if the viewer of the work was inside the frame watching the viewers of the work;

 

• 1 oval painting, showing the map of the world “lying down”;

 

 • 1 bilateral and circular painting (front and back) represents the real nature and beauty of the planet;

 

• 1 rectangular work made of wooden scraps, small computer boards and cut-out acupuncture straws, represent the visual beauty of smog;

 

• 3 rectangular works show the Earth cut out vertically, diagonally and horizontally, alluding to the environmental imbalance and the mismatch between the use of technology and integration with the planet in a sustainable way.

 

• 2 oval paintings present Africa and South America in evidence and the other continents in a faceted way;

 

o   Africa and America are centered and realistically painted and the other continents are geometrically faceted. Thus, the central part is seen naturally and the sides are seen as if they were the faces of a diamond to represent the planet seen through a prism and as a small jewel immersed in the infinity of the universe.

 

THREE-DIMENSIONAL WORKSTHREE-DIMENSIONAL WORKS

 

• 1 modular object assembled in the form of a tower, made with computer keyboards;

 

o   The base of the object is octagonal, the first module is hexagonal, the second module is pentagonal, the third module is quadratic, the fourth module is triangular, and the top is composed of a sphere .

 

• 3 “Books of Gaia”, whose pages are computer boards + objects, tell the process of human technological development and its relationship with the planet, Gaia.

 

• 2 objects, “The Doomsday Machine” and “The Vital Balance”, were made from the reuse of a meat grinder and a scale.

 

o   The first features the Earth being ground in a meat grinder, and the second features the Earth on a scale while a man weighs the Sun and Moon. Both represent the objectification of nature and of universal philosophical values, transforming them into mere material values.

 

• 2 three-dimensional objects that present the Earth in the shape of an egg coupled to computer boards address the ecological issues that can affect the climate balance on the planet.

 

• 1 hexagon-shaped object represents e-waste dumped around the planet.

 

INSTALAÇÃO

 

• 1 installation composed by 1 circular and bilateral frame with the image of the planet painted on the front and back; scanned images; 38,000 electronic push buttons; contact acetate for keyboards; electronic time markers; plastic globe; abdominal subcutaneous syringe and a monitor case.

 

 PERFORMANCE

 

• 1 performance in which the serious ecological situation of the planet due to human actions is addressed. The play lasts twenty minutes and counts with the participation of the group “Suspiro na Arte”. It presents the fictitious sale of the planet Earth by a super-powerful businessman who does not care about the social and economic injustices existing between countries.

 

In consonance with the paintings on the exhibition, the essential idea of the installation and the performance is to demonstrate the finitude of planet Earth and to remember that the weight of our actions puts the planet and our lives at risk.

Finally, it should be said that this series of works, in which I use the world map to express my current concerns emphasizes my "modus operandi", since in all my artistic production, I always try to unite the reason to emotion (base of my creative process) in order to create a work that makes use of traditional techniques incorporated into the elements of the current society to establish several metonymic relations that cause questions in the viewer. In this sense, the subjective language I use to express my feelings, yearnings, ideas and philosophical concepts enables the observer to draw their own conclusions on the subject covered in each series of work. The result is complicity or denial, it does not matter. Both form a type of involvement that refer to the essence of what I try to convey.                                                                                                                                          Walter Miranda - August/2019