Associação Cultural Videobrasil

18 – When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc., For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.[Blaise Pascal]  

In 1969, Neil Armstrong staged an unprecedented feat as he became the first man to step on the surface of the Moon. (“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” The rehearsed sentence,i a sample of the empire under the humanistic guise of meaning.) The astronaut was one of a few to visit such crater-ridden locale; in all, there were twelve of his fellow countrymen. All others were spectators who learned about the conquestii via radio or television broadcasts. From afar, one lurks into the provisional solutions of the men of science. Were we well familiar with the nature of the Moon? Did the experience at hand adequately match the predictions made? The United States military was an avant-garde agent who inaugurated the colonization of the seas of the Moon.ⁱⁱⁱ

This is a remote subject. As we all know, man has always sought to know the distant universe or the ancestral world of essences. From astrology to astronomy. From the daily and nightly coexistence with the orbital movement of the tiny star on the horizon, to the cult of miniature stars and planets, much has been speculated under the heavens on the influence of constellations in the realm of earthly jurisdiction. (Much has been speculated under the staggered sky of planetariums.) There surely is a vast reservoir of meaning. News from a time long past.

The transoceanic plowing brings about rumors of a New World. The stellar arrangement guided the European overseas expansion. Under the stare of the astrolabe, technique imposed the direction of a rich nautical venture. Myriad premonitory images comprised the horizon of uncharted waters. The movement across the distance of space authorized a similar movement across the distance of time, sailing a geographical interstice of metaphorical significance.iv If it were not for the clairvoyant powers of superstitious narratives, the mythological resources of travelers would amount to nothing! They could not adequately correspond to the perspective conception of traditional fables. The accounts of adventure seekers had a printed purpose. The print of nautical charts, adornments and engravings of colossal creatures of the sea, confirmed millenary expectations. But there was often more than this figurative meaning. An interval separated waiting from experience. The authoritarian magnetism of vagabonds, on returning to their home country, would multiply the power of attraction of the Atlantic breeze.v

Hevi who was willing to defy the unknown and travel the length of the myth was pleased to keep the unimagined imaginable, positioning the clumsy, myopic viewer in the center of a circular architecture, inside a renewed (imperial) panorama of the times. Such pedagogical projection would enable a mundane experience of the shapes of space and time, leftovers from an animated document, pedagogical like a film projector.vii No culture refrains from creating reserved spaces, of exclusion or reclusion, holy redoubts in which the solution of the enigma is entrusted only to the deserter (autochthonous).

The desert is not made of the reunion of grains. Without truce, wind, and whistle. The wind announces an impoverishment of experience. The mirage of a colonized future is akin to that described by the oracle: a topography of progress. Like the biology of the ground lion, the camouflage is skin deep. The great desert of a society contained, as it is tomorrow-oriented. 

i [2001, 25 min.] Choreographed Dialogue. The pacing of the text chases the images. On the written track, at times a man, at other times a woman. The accent belies the foreigner. (Outsider: The motor is larger than I am. They would never hear me. Forget it.). The woman, the way she behaves herself, bears the local color, the sunny weather, and the prevalence of faded automobiles. One notices a detective-like, calculated lag, so that the audio echoes, dispenses with the company of subtitling; at other times, the subtext takes the scene in silence. The reasons which command the alternating moods of the off-screen narrators are tautological. I hereby repeat, viewers find themselves in an artificial field. It is as though the characters are acting somewhat blindly, as storytellers in a studio room. Out of the use and choice of words, one cannot conjure rigid facial features, a fusion similar to that of a famous actor and the sound of his voice. Just like in countries where dubbing is standard practice.
ii [2004, 10 min.] Gunwale. Little is known of the origin of the images or the cinematography. A flexible device or prop gun recounts the street protests. In a nutshell, it is useful having a Y-shaped piece of wood handy, one grossly equipped with a pair of rubber bands attached to a leather strip, with which to cast stones. From the shards, the grey dust filters the fight scene.

iii In alphabetical order: Mare Cognitum, Mare Crisium, Mare Foecunditatis, Mare Frigoris, Mare Humorum, Mare Imbrium, Mare Insularum, Mare Nectaris, Mare Nubium, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Vaporum, Oceanus Procellarum.

iv [2001, 11 min.] Instead of making us remember the past, the new national monuments seem to lead us to forget the future. A shadow of a colonial past, the capsule now harbors an architecturally designed embarrassment. In the routine, the parachute bends to the will of the winds, a subordinate to an extinct company. A Batavian bridge appears in a scale model, reduced in the synthesized history of dioramas. 

v [2007, 11 min.] The brackish water keeps the attention submerged overseas. Many images reappear in this catalog of circular tours and amusements. The crank’s leisure is to move the camera: the solar eclipse, the tides, the (Mexican) hat, the acrobats, the motorized death number. It all ends as it starts. With oracle-like speed. From the overlook, the twin characters walk to and fro.

vi [2004, 39 min.] Landscape: rocky. The mill which no longer mills. Six tempestuous episodes. The comedian is one of a few to wander through such crater-filled place. One asks: Is there such a thing as a meaningless action? The energy of the mill disperses constantly. I shall never forget the stones scattered throughout the entire middle of the road.

vii [2002, 25 min.] The Athlete with Long Thin Legs. Through the tunnel, he does not flee taking long steps. (Should we thus wish, one of Arlt’s madmen?) He knows few secret entryways. At the same pace as the running steps, the recurring figure of the crank turns over without catching. An eschatological dynamo, it governs the oxidation of the whole acting. It lays the guidelines for the circular compass of a continuous projection of nondescriptive images. The motor of the curious sadness of “being through a crime.” The (fighter) cock is a marionette tailored for the rings. Its singing foreshadows a new round in the soliloquy of every day. The fool plays the fugue as he race-walks.