. CADU

Magnifying glass and paper

graphite on paper Within the countless forums of discussion that drawing gives rise to, the work is based on investigating visual systems and their capacity to generate images. It questions the traditional training methods for landscape drawing and the role of the artist as the generator. It entrusts to a mechanical process, able to perpetuate itself almost preceding the handling by third parties, the production of a series of pencil drawings on paper, carried out inside boxes, shipped from the artist’s home to the exhibition venue. Landscape drawing is usually linked to a renaissance and retinal perspective. it is a static cut-out of nature and dependent on the hand of a contemplative artist and interpreter of reality in order to exist. It is not an autonomous process and cannot occur without his control. It perhaps grasps his view of the landscape, but hardly the physical experience of having been in it, of having traveled through it. It is to record this aspect, from the start of the movement, which the work is seeking to suggest. The resulting drawings will be the graphic testimony of journeys that really occurred. They will be the “seismographic” compression on the same surface of drawings of observations of different landscapes, but which will highlight the procedural aspect of achieving them, and not the landscapes themselves. Means of conveyance, on foot or by plane, visit landscapes not only different but intimately liked to their potentialities. Consequently they generate particular graphic patterns, as they are not subject to the actions of the same natural agents on a certain route, and to confront them is the focus of interest of this presentation. The project migrations has already generated during its lifetime the clash between patterns produced in means of transport that range from trains to boats, taking in delivery tricycles and interstate buses on the way, in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Paris and London. The drawings obey arbitrary criteria from start to finish based on the considerable mileage covered on the way to the exhibition venue on the same support. Four springs, approximately 12cm in length, connected vertically to a 33cm square metal plate, were fixed by the tops to a wooden base fixed horizontally to the floor of the trunk of a car. Over them, fixed to the trunk lid, hangs a device consisting of a small wooden base and a single spring, 23cm long, extended at one end with a hollow aluminum tube, which houses a soft lead pencil inside it this pencil touches the center of a sheet of paper resting on the first structure. They are responsible for graphically recording all the irregularities of the terrain that the vehicle is subject to during any journey.

A structure for graphic measurement was created making use of an electric motor connected to a photosensitive presence sensor. An aluminum rod was fastened to the rotary mechanism of this motor with a brass pointer at the end, perpendicular to the wall, able to trace the arc formed by the trajectory of the cycle of the motor. In the presence of an observer, the motor is activated by the sensor; on moving away the movement is interrupted. The position of the pointer is altered daily, generating a new design each day. The size of the rod and the intervals between the positions of the pointer is a ratio between the number of days of the exhibition and the dimensions of the support where it is installed. the project was exhibited for the first time in the halls of Palácio Gustavo Capanema – MEC, Rio de Janeiro, during the exhibition Projéteis de Arte Contemporânea 2003 – (Projectiles of Contemporary Art)

Colored pencil on paper 50 X 50 CM each The drawings are the accumulation of layers of the coloring of an only color pencil on the same surface, generating a depth illusion for the observer. Twelve are one of the numbers where boxes of pencil are commercialized. a brand new color pencil has 17,5cm and consumes 0,5cm of its length to cover a surface of 50cm x 50cm. the lost length is deducted of the coloring that will cover the paper again, in the opposite direction, in a following layer. This second layer will have 49,5cm x 49,5cm of filled paper. This procedure is repeated successively until the complete consumption of the pencil.

Twelve months Manipulating my electricity consumption to draw on the bill’s energy consumption chart the monthly electricity bill provided by the energy company in Rio de Janeiro displays a one-year consumption chart. It shows the amount of energy in kw/h (kilowatts per hour) expended by the client through the previous 12 months. I explored this structure by manipulating my power consumption, consuming more or less electric energy during twelve months, within the intention of consciously creating an arch that generated a sense of perspective. The process began in April, 2004 and ended up in April, 2005. the ironic and delicate final result of this work is the prosaic representation of an enormous effort that lasted a whole year.

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