miguel soares

O Império Contra Ataca
curated by Pedro Cabral Santo & Carlos Roque

May 23 > June 27, 1998
Galeria Zé dos Bois (ZDB)
Lisbon, Portugal

exhibited works: untitled (desktop)

untitled (desktop), 1998, 65×50x50cm
aquarium, air pump, water, laptop computer, video camera, cell phone, remote control.
made for O Império Contra Ataca, Galeria ZDB, Lisbon and La Capela, Barcelona

Desktop was made for the O Império comtra ataca exhibition, Galeria ZDB, Lisbon
(curated by Pedro Cabral Santo and Carlos Roque).
The exhibition was a reaction / comment on the Expo’98 World Fair, opening in Lisbon the next month, under the theme The Oceans: A Patrimony for the Future. The biggest Oceanarium in Europe was being built. At the same, time a big exhibition was taking place in one of our 4 main art institutions: “The Eighties”, curated by Maria de Corral, at Culturgest, where one could see the famous vacuum cleaners inside plexyglas boxes by Jeff Koons.
Desktop is an aquarium with electronic equipment from the early 90’s. Inside the aquarium are:
An Hewlett Packard portable computer
A Panasonic video camera
A Nokia mobile phone
A remote control
and a 3.1/2 floppy disk.
This work shows concerns on the technology race and what to do with outdated equipment.
As if we should put the junk and polution inside a big oceanarium, leting the fish loose and healthy in the ocean, and not the inverse.