BIO
Hugo Fortes is a Visual Artist and Associated Professor at the University of São Paulo. PhD in Visual Arts (University of São Paulo), with a two-years research stay at the University of Berlin with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). As an artist, he has presented his work in more than 15 countries. He was invited scholar at the Universität der Künste Berlin, at the Münster University in Germany and at the Columbus State University in USA.
TITLE
“Amazonian Perspectives Beyond the Human”
ABSTRACT
According to Viveiros de Castro, the definition of the human for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon is not based on the traditional western dichotomy between nature and culture. The human is not the one who separates himself from the natural world by its capacity to produce culture, nor is the human the only being privileged to have a soul. Things, plants, animals and humans have their own perspective and agencies, which might be interchangeable. This spirits transit can be achieved through the rituals of ayahuasca consumption and through art.
In my video "Amazonia Insomnia", created during an artists' residency in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest I address these subjects, working with images of water reflections which are mirrored and duplicated and look like a kind of mandala. The artwork evokes the spirits of the forest in a contemplative atmosphere of dream and visual delirium. The electronic capture of images of the forest and its subsequent edition does not represent, in my view, a detachment from nature, but rather a possibility to access the invisible, the immeasurable and the inapprehensible. By using technology and art, I advocate respect for environmental issues and for the native Amazonian cultures.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
Hugo Fortes is a Visual Artist and Associated Professor at the University of São Paulo. PhD in Visual Arts (University of São Paulo), with a two-years research stay at the University of Berlin with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). As an artist, he has presented his work in more than 15 countries. He was invited scholar at the Universität der Künste Berlin, at the Münster University in Germany and at the Columbus State University in USA.
TITLE
“Amazonian Perspectives Beyond the Human”
ABSTRACT
According to Viveiros de Castro, the definition of the human for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon is not based on the traditional western dichotomy between nature and culture. The human is not the one who separates himself from the natural world by its capacity to produce culture, nor is the human the only being privileged to have a soul. Things, plants, animals and humans have their own perspective and agencies, which might be interchangeable. This spirits transit can be achieved through the rituals of ayahuasca consumption and through art.
In my video "Amazonia Insomnia", created during an artists' residency in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest I address these subjects, working with images of water reflections which are mirrored and duplicated and look like a kind of mandala. The artwork evokes the spirits of the forest in a contemplative atmosphere of dream and visual delirium. The electronic capture of images of the forest and its subsequent edition does not represent, in my view, a detachment from nature, but rather a possibility to access the invisible, the immeasurable and the inapprehensible. By using technology and art, I advocate respect for environmental issues and for the native Amazonian cultures.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
