Night Art School
130×200x70 cm
lamps, plexyglas, psychadelic sensors, speakers, wheels, etc.
made for Wallmate, Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade de Lisboa, 1995
During my years in the school of fine arts in Lisbon, the teaching methods were not in total contact with the contemporary reality happening outside. So it was as if we had to live double lives, me and my friends – Pedro Cabral Santo and Alexandre Estrela, among many others – working at school during the day, and planning exhibitions and discussing art the rest of the time, sometimes through the night.
Night Art School is a yellow Formica Box with 24 white lights, my age at the time. Psychadelic sensors make the lights react – through a red plexyglas – in 3 basic patterns to the ambient noise made by people inside the cistern of the school. This was alternated with 30 second spots of electronic music (mainly Kraftwerk and Negativland) to simulate the circadian cycle. The formica box/school building is shown as a maquete on top of two sculpture tripods – used for clay sculpting inside the school- over green grass.
The set reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. As if this was a scale model for a new experimental art school.
Wallmate was an exhibition I organized with Alexandre Estrela in the 5th and final year in the fine art school as a reaction to the academicist concepts prevailing inside the school.
image for the Wallmate catalogue.