miguel soares

02′00”
composed: 2002
Track 01 of 002, audio CD,  ed. Variz.org, 2002

migso – trio (192kbps, 2.76MB)
(click to hear or right-click to download)

02′14”
2002
audio:  Sparky, track 08 of 002, audio CD,  ed. Variz.org, 2002

Sparky is a 3d animation made for Sparky, the music included in the audio cd migso002.
It tells the story of mr. A, that was going on the street one day and is mistakenly identified as someone called Sparky by Mr. B.
Mr.B shouts: -Sparky?
Mr. A replies: No sir.
The pursuit begins. Mr. A takes a taxi to an airport, then a plane to a desert island. Followed by Mr B.
Mr. B spots Mr.A in the island: -Sparky?!
-No sir.
Mr. A takes a plane to another continent, then a taxi to the Space Agency, then takes a rocket to the moon.
Followed by Mr.B that lands on the moon seconds after Mr.A.
Mr.B: -Sparky?
Mr. A: No sir.
Zoom out. two lunar modules on the surface of the moon, facing each other. lunar mountains and behind, the earth. end.
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animation stills

03′40”
1999-2001
video projection, stereo sound
Music: “Expecting to Fly” Buffalo Springfield
footage: 1999, edit: 2001

Da janela de sua casa, segurando a câmara de vídeo na mão, Miguel Soares registou situações violentas que vieram
sobressaltar noites passadas frente ao computador: a agressão entre um casal; um carro capotado na avenida
deserta, que surpreende uma pessoa durante o seu jogging matinal; e um homem que tenta desesperadamente,
e em vão, apagar um incêndio.
Com base nestes registos, em tudo semelhantes aos vídeos amadores que as televisões exibem para dar conta de
acontecimentos chocantes, o artista realiza três obras em que a crueza da realidade se abre à ficção e ao delírio poético.
Miguel Wandschneider, SlowMotion, 2001

04′00”
2001
music: “Rackrailway to…” Roberto Musci & Giovanni Venosta, 1987
voice: poems from Interstate ‘76 computer game, 1997.

See also GT (prints)

Para este trabalho, Miguel Soares inspirou-se no jogo de computador Interstate 76, relacionado com corridas
de automóveis entre bandos rivais, no qual a voz de um personagem, chamado Stampede, declama poemas sobre a estrada.
Recorrendo, como nas peças anteriores, a programas de animação em três dimensões para a construção dos
ambientes e das figuras, o artista conta a história muito simples de três carros que dialogam entre si durante
o percurso que os leva ao encontro de uma rapariga. Cada vez que Stampede debita um dos seus poemas, é
simulada a passagem da imagem em três dimensões a imagem em película de cinema.
Miguel Wandschneider

2000
07′12”
audio: “Ebb”, Sack & Blumm, TomLab, 1999

Archibunk3r Associates is a video portfolio of an architecture and design bureau based on Mars, in a distant future.
AA are the authors of teleport centers, stadiums, satelites, the Channel of Light, the SofaGuard ™, Hard Disc, the
Multi Purpose Vehicle used in Time for Space, and Tower city, among others.
.
“In Archibunk3r Associates, a kind of prototype catalogue from an architecture and design studio from the future,
we find once again Miguel Soares obsession with the artificial environment in which life in technologically developed
societies or in imagined future societies takes place.
A sense of melancholy, to a great extent given by the music, inhabits this images of idealized architecture and objects.
We do not know for sure to what the sense of loss is due to – if to a world extinct, the city as a space of sociability and
the experience of nature as a tangible reality, if to an utopian society based on technological advances as an instrument
of progress and well-being. ”
Miguel Wandschneider in SlowMotion – Miguel Soares, ESTGAD, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal

05′00”
text: João Simões. voice: Lula Pena and João Simões. sound design: Ari de Carvalho
music: “Mortícia”, “The chequered flag”, Combustile Edison, 1996. “I’m such a small thing”, Funki Porcini, 1996

“(…) Miguel Soares is a science fiction artist, someone who makes futuristic works that comment on aspects of contemporary human life.
His Time for Space (2000) is perfect editorial on Portugal’s present moment. Like some futuristic tourism commercial, Soares’ frolicking UFOs call upon us to journey with them to fantastic places where we can finally gain an all-encompassing sense of belonging.
However, we are never made to feel sure what the purpose of belonging is. While the upbeat tone of the work indicates positive possibilities, there is a subtle undercurrent that suggests that we are being invited to some darker cultish or militaristic venture.
Soares’ delicious ambiguity relates back to the reason I felt the title Situation Zero was such an apropriate description of the state of portuguese contemporary artmaking: the possibilities of its future are promising yet unknown.”
René de Guzman, in Situation Zero: Recent Art from Portugal. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. San Francisco. USA, August 2001
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In a society located in a distant future, the promises of happiness are packed with images and sounds of publicity: images of flying saucers flying over seas and crossing the universe are underlined by alienating music and the reading of a text promoting wonderful journeys into unknown worlds.
As one understands at the end of the video, the shift from a feminine voice to a masculine one signals the shift from an travel agency campaign into a military enrolment one.
The illusion of adventure and freedom co-exists with the nightmare of a dictatorial society aimed towards the control of individuals.
Miguel Wandschneider, in SlowMotion – Miguel Soares. exhibition depliant. ESTGAD+Art Attack. Caldas da Rainha. Portugal.

03′25”
audio: “James Whale”, Tuxedomoon, 1980

Y2k 1999 One of the works that came out of the X-city project. Y2k is based on the fear of the millenium bug, and was made for the Festival Atlântico 99, in December 1999, at Galeria ZDB – Novo Figurino, Lisbon This is a preview of the effects caused by Y2k, the computer bug of the millenium everyone was talking about during that year. Despite the daylight, the church bells are chiming the Y2k hour.
A jet plane is trying to escape the millenium bug by moving from city to city (time-zone to time-zone). Each time it passes the heart of the city – the administrative center- it becomes distorted, regaining its original shape as it gets further away from the city center, escaping the bug, and moving onto the next city. This routine goes on for about 3 minutes. In the end you see an office building being desintegrated by the Y2k bug.

06′50”
1999
video projection, stereo sound,
music: “I can’t see you” and “song slowly song”, Tim Buckley

One night at home, my quiet was disturbed by these four people having a discussion that ended up in a fight. I grabbed my Hi8 camera and started shooting the scene from the balcony of my apartment, trying to pass unnoticed. My heart was beating fast. Months later I was looking at the Hi8 footage with sound turned off, and listening to one of my favourite cds: Tim Buckley’s first album,”Tim Buckley”, 1968, ed. Electa. I noticed how two diferent songs would give two different ways of percepting the same images. untitled (two) shows the footage shot from the balcony two times, with two different songs from the Tim Buckley album: “I can’t see you” and “Song slowly song”.
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“From the window of his apartment, holding the video camera, Miguel Soares recorded violent events that have disturbed his long nights spent working in his computer. This video is the most distressing example of a series of three done in the same amateur video style, that contrast with his 3D animation work for which he is known. By commenting the image of a couple involved in a violent discussion that ends in a fight, with two different songs by Tim Buckley, one in a melancholic tone, the other in a passionate tone, the artist opens reality to a fictional construction and to poetic imagination.”
Miguel Wandschneider, in SlowMotion – Miguel Soares. exhibition depliant. ESTGAD+Art Attack. Caldas da Rainha. Portugal