• the emergence of collective states of invention in Hélio Oiticica’s propositions from Cães de Caça to Cosmococa

    (PhD thesis, 2025)

    Abstract:

     This thesis examines the emergence of notions of participation, collaboration and collectivity culminating in Hélio Oiticica and Neville D'Almeida's Block Experiments in Cosmococa - program in progress (1973-74). It traces a genealogy of Oiticica's Environmental Program leading up to Cosmococa, including an analysis of Cães de Caça (1961), Tropicália (1967), Apocalipopótese (1968), Eden (1969), Barracão (1969), Ninhos (1970), Babylonests (1970-74) and Hendrixts (1974-78), the Subterranean Tropicália projects (1971), and the Quasi-cinemas (1969-75). Most importantly, this thesis retrieves primary accounts from a group of Oiticica's interlocutors and collaborators arguing that the dialogic and collaborative nature of his practice allows the retrieval of original insights into the work even when the artist himself is no longer alive. By bringing collaborators' voices to the fore, this collective exercise establishes a relationship with the genesis of the Cosmococa series and proposes a new framework for the study of this field.

    The thesis is structured around three axes - Rio de Janeiro, London and New York - and examines how each context has influenced Oiticica's production in different ways leading to distinct types of collaboration.

    The first chapter focuses on Oiticica's production in Rio between 1955 and 1968. The period covers the social-political shifts from the modernist utopian context of the construction of Brasilia, which was then eclipsed by the military coup of 1964, to the hardening of the regime through the Institutional Act Number 5, the infamous AI5, in 1968. It examines how Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and Henri Bergson's notion of Duration influenced Oiticica's proposals Cães de Caça, Tropicália and Apocalipopótese over the course of the 1960s while considering Oiticica's dialogical exchanges with prominent intellectuals Mário Pedrosa, Ferreira Gullar and Frederico de Morais amongst others. It investigates the exhibitions Opinião 65, Opinião 66, Proposta 65, Proposta 66, Nova Objetividade Brasileira (1967) and Apocalipopótese (1968) arguing how these approached new artistic languages that sought to resist hegemonic cultural models.

    The second chapter examines Oiticica's time in London and other locations during the course of 1969. It highlights the importance of Signals Gallery in connecting Brazilian artists to the London art scene and examines Eden, Oiticica's environmental proposition for his solo show at the Whitechapel Gallery. The chapter considers that the collective living experiences associated with the Exploding Galaxy group, the Symposium on Tactile Sculpture and Barracão Experiment 1 had substantially influenced Oiticica's subsequent investigations. It further argues that Barracão's original concept, which the artist revisited upon his return to Rio, would bridge the Rio and New York productions. Following the enactment of AI-5, the problematic relationship between politics and culture is explored by analysing two key exhibitions: Salão da Bússola (1969) and Do Corpo à Terra (1970). The chapter considers how new creative partnerships as well as Marshall McLuhan's theories of communication led Oiticica to incorporate new media, such as photography and film, which converged in the formulation of Quasi-Cinemas.

    The third and final chapter focuses on Oiticica's production in New York between 1970 and 1978. Reflecting on the displacements in Oiticica's investigations, it discusses how he connected with Brazilian filmmakers, Manhattan's queer scene, social liberation movements, rock'n'roll and cocaine. It was during this period that he also embraced McLuhan and Marcuse theories of information and leisure. The thesis finally argues that the Babylonests forged a community that explored dialogic and collective modes of working, leading to a series of collaborative proposals such as the Subterranean Tropicalia Projects and the Quasi-cinema, from which the Cosmococas series emerged. ‘Appendix 1’ presents an artistic practice informed by Oiticica's production and theory, and ‘Appendix 2’ presents a series of conversations with Oiticica's collaborators.

  • (Publication, 2016)

    Article for the architecture magazine Vitruvius

    http://www.vitruvius.com.br/revistas/read/arquitextos/17.196/6223

    Abstract:

    This essay reflects on the migration of the cinematic device into art spaces, with the aim of observing the modifications that occurred within it. The focus is on the relationship between the projector, the projected image, the architecture of the exhibition space, and the spectator's body. It is assumed here that expanded cinema anticipates many of the issues that guided American art production in the 1960s and 1970s. This period marks the transition from modern to contemporary sculpture, which, under the influence of minimalism, abstractionism, and conceptual art, broke the canons on which modern sculpture was based and established new spatial relationships.

    This investigation is conducted through the reading of Between the black box and the white cube by Andrew V. Uroskie; Modern Sculpture Reader, organized by John Wood, David Hulks, and Alex Potts (1); The Art-Architecture Complex by Hal Foster; Sculpture in the Expanded Field (2) and Passages by Rosalind Krauss (3); Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space by Brian O’Doherty (4); The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie Drome and the Expanded Cinema by Gloria Sutton; and Between the black box and the white cube by Andrew V. Uroskie. To demonstrate this hypothesis, I present the works Line Describing a Cone by Anthony McCall, Shutter Interface by Paul Sharits, and Movie Drome by Stan VanDerBeek. All works were studied based on texts written by the artists themselves.

  • (Publication, 2016)

    Article for International Interdisciplinary Journal of Visual Arts Art & Sensorium

    http://periodicos.unespar.edu.br/index.php/sensorium/article/view/780

  • (MFA dissertation, 2016)

    Abstract:

    Other Cinemas is an investigation into how the cinematic apparatus was re-envisioned across Modernism, Postmodernism, and Contemporaneity. This analysis highlights shifts in cinema's artistic application, particularly the expanded possibilities for spectator participation with the displacement of cinema from conventional theaters to art spaces.

    This study connects precinematic strategies and experimental cinema in international art of the 1960s and 70s to Rosalind Krauss's "Sculpture in the Expanded Field." Krauss's framework theorizes art's expanded engagement with space, site, and audience participation, explaining the shift toward installation art and spatially engaged practices. By applying her ideas to the spatialization of projected images, the study illuminates how these moving image works—including those by U.S. artists such as Anthony McCall, Paul Sharits, and Stan VanDerBeek—also transcended traditional medium boundaries. This aligns with Guy Debord's critique of traditional cinema in Society of the Spectacle, where he condemned film as a quintessential representation of the spectacle's passive consumption. Debord saw traditional cinema's one-way flow of images as a tool for social alienation, turning spectators into isolated observers. He sought to create a more active and critical cinematic experience, which these experimental practices achieved by breaking down the conventional screen-audience barrier and engaging the spectator in a physical space.

    Within the Brazilian context, Hélio Oiticica and Neville D'Almeida's Cosmococa series emerges as a key reference for the use of precinematic strategies to disassemble the cinematic apparatus. What distinguishes it, however, is its unique relationship between spectator and environment. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and Bergson's notion of duration, I argue for a unique Brazilian model of participatory openness. This model, linked to Neoconcretism, differentiated Cosmococa’s participation from other moving image installations analyzed in the study.

  • (Publication, 2014)

    Review for the 31st São Paulo Bienal blog

    http://www.31bienal.org.br/en/post/1032

    Abstract:

    Where Are We Now? Art, Society, and Transformation: Questions for the 31st Bienal de São Paulo

    What is the role of art in society? What can—and must—art do today? How do we discuss art, education, and transformation? What kind of transformation are we talking about, and how can we make that experience more accessible to people? Within our interpersonal relationships, how do we transform society? How can we speak of things that don't yet exist?

    These were some of the guiding questions for the Open Meeting at SESC Sorocaba this past April. The event was part of a fact-finding and brainstorming mission by the 31st Bienal de São Paulo, connecting with institutions and professionals from across Brazil. The Bienal will be held at its pavilion in São Paulo from September 6 to December 7 of this year.

  • (BFA dissertation, 2012)

    Abstract:

    Palimpsest investigates the city as a visual and experiential palimpsest, a landscape where layers of history and memory are inscribed upon its physical form. Drawing on the concept of the palimpsest—the practice of rewriting over erased text on ancient manuscripts—I explore its potential as an artistic device to examine the relationship between individual memory, film archives, and urban environments.

    To explore this connection, I created a moving-image installation, also titled "Palimpsest." The installation contrasts archival footage from 1950s São Paulo and Campinas with new documentary material I filmed by retracing the original routes of the historical filmmakers. This juxtaposition formed the basis for a series of installations that use multiple projectors to cast images onto semi-reflective glass screens. The deliberate superimposition of images, reflections, and shadows directly engages the viewer's body as a site of perception and rewriting. This method aims to construct immersive environments that reflect the subjective, fluid nature of memory and its intersection with urban space and time.

  • (Undergraduate Research, 2011)

    Abstract:

    Reminiscences is a critical examination of my own creative process and the exhibition of my moving-image installation. I analyze the work's conceptual framework, production, and presentation through the lens of expanded cinema theories. The installation features looped documentary footage, three photographs, and disassembled structural elements. These components depict a precarious, unstable structure built from materials found at a recently imploded bus station in Campinas, a site now slated for real estate development. The work explores the themes of memory, forgetting, and return by focusing on the reenactment of the structure's collapse.

    Drawing inspiration from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, the installation suggests that return is never a simple re-tracing of steps. Similar to how Marco Polo’s descriptions of cities shift with his perspective, the work challenges linear notions of time and urban transformation, arguing that the past, even when physically erased, continually reshapes a site’s present and future. By engaging viewers in a complex process of remembering and loss, Reminiscences invites reflection on the layered histories and ongoing transformations of urban landscapes.

  • (Undergraduate Research, 2011)

    Abstract:

    This investigation analyses Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 (2002) as a work of expanded cinema that engages with modern art legacies and the shift to postmodernism. The film's non-narrative, symbolic structure blurs the lines between film, sculpture, performance, and architecture.

    By applying the theories of Rosalind Krauss’s 1979 essay "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," the analysis positions Cremaster 3 within a lineage of 1970s art that re-evaluated modernism. The inclusion of artist Richard Serra, whose performance in the film evokes the passage of time, further underscores this connection.

    Moreover, the film's interactive DVD interface encourages a new form of viewer participation. This moves beyond a passive viewing experience, shifting the audience's role from a mere spectator to an active participant in constructing the film's meaning.