Luiza Coimbra. Drawing based on conversations during the Contemporary Laboratory that was used as the poster and invitation for the spectacle conference: Look, Imagine, Listen, Feel on December 12th, 2014, Casa Daros.

Look, Imagine, Listen, Feel

Conference-spectacle, December 12, 2014, Casa Daros

On December 12, 2014, the last day of the Contemporary Laboratory: Proposals and Discovery of What Art Is (or Could Be), the participants presented the special encounter between artists and audience Look, Imagine, Listen, Feel as a form of celebrating the collective experimentations experienced throughout the course. The event was a free appropriation of the spectacle-conference, an experimental practice developed by set designer Hélio Eichbauer in his classes at the School of Visual Arts at Parque Lage in the 70s.¹ Look, Imagine, Listen, Feel was an “antispectacular de-conference” – a series of multidisciplinary performative happenings where the viewer-spectator could not see everything. It was rather a series of microconferences and experimentations including performances, installations, projections, and interventions in the galleries, on the external patio and in the surrounding area of Casa Daros.

Spectacle-Conference: Look, Imagine, Listen, Feel, December 12, 2014, Casa Daros. Photo: Jessica Gogan

As part of the conference the artists presented an exhibition featuring an affective cartography of the multiple processes and experimentations of the Contemporary Laboratory including images, photos, drawings, and comments on the process, artist books, videos and an large affective wall drawing. After the conference, Casa Daros continued to present this affective installation to the public in conjunction with the exhibition Rubens Gerchman: With a Resignation Letter in My Pocket until February 2015.

On the day of the conference, the documentarian Daniel Leão filmed the events and subsequently edited this video as a poetic (re) collection of the event’s happenings and impressions.

Artists:
Aline B, Antonio Amador, Beatriz Coelho, Bianca Lopes, Camila Mozzini, Henrique Castro, Felipe Nunes, Gabriel Cavalleiro, Jandir Jr., Julia F Staneck, Luan Machado, Lucas Bueno, Luiza Coimbra, Michel Schettert, Raphael Giammattey, Tathi Peixoto, and Tomaz Bevilaqua.

Invited Guests:
The Contemporary Laboratory engaged the participation of diverse artists and researchers active in Rio de Janeiro’s contemporary art and cultural context: Barbara Szaniecki, Fred Coelho, Geo Britto, Gustavo Ciríaco, Laura Lima, Rafucko, Ricardo Basbaum, and Vivian Caccuri.

Coordination:
Instituto MESA [Jessica Gogan | Luiz Guilherme Vergara]
Coletivo E [Diana Kolker | Rafa Éis]

Production:
Fernanda Castilhos/Casa Daros

Support:
Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage

Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to Bia Jabor, Eugenio Valdés Figueroa, Fernanda Castilhos, Felipe Moreno, Roberta Condeixa, João de Albuquerque, and all the staff at Casa Daros. Also, a special thank you to Hélio Eichbauer, Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, Clara Gerchman and the experimental legacy of Rubens Gerchman.

Made Possible by:
Casa Daros

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¹ The spectacle conference can be defined as a class-event, a mixture of lectures, discussion, performance, and creative actions that explore and develop thematic exercises and collaborations involving the integration of various forms of artistic expression.