Associação Cultural Videobrasil

There are no stones in the pathway. 
An insect moves on (legs and antennas) near some sidewalk curb. 
In the pathway there are no stones, 
and the insect does not reach its destination. It just moves on 
(combined(1) with images of Belo Horizonte) near the curb. 
It moves on and fades away amidst images of Minas Gerais’ capital city, images that 
(growingly opaque) fill up the screen. 
— Not even an insect this size can escape the grip of the city that paralyzes it with its sluggish concreteness?

The buildings fade away and reveal no stones in the pathway, as an insect moves on (legs and antennas) near some sidewalk curb. 
In the pathway there are no stones, and the insect does not reach its destination. 
It moves on (electric wires and posts in the background). 
Once again, it moves on and fades away, this time underneath electric wires and posts which (growingly opaque) fill up the screen. 
— How can it move freely along the urban network (graphic landscape facing this loquacious main character) that insists on taking it back to the starting point?

Wires and posts fade away and reveal no stones in the pathway. 
An insect moves on. Legs not cars (dislocations), antennas not TV (transmission).

The feitoamãos project, based in Minas Gerais, seeks to research, produce, and reflect upon language and the possibilities of electronic art, by means of work to be exhibited in VCRs, DVDs, or computers. The group also presents itself under the name *//FAQ, a project for live image and audio manipulation and execution. 

Close-up on the insect who moves on in a loop, as if it were upon a carpet that is pulled back before it reaches its destination; such was the theme of BHZ—a presentation that was featured at Casa do Conde (Belo Horizonte) during the Laboratório Eletronika 2004—as well as the theme for the first section of Trânsito [Traffic]—a presentation that was featured at the Centro Cultural Telemar (RJ) during prog:ME (http://www.progme.org/), Rio de Janeiro’s first international new media festival.

*//FAQ’s presentations travel through the realm of alternative pop music. Electric guitars, combined with electronic elements and subtle percussion, generate friction between old and new. By the way, this duality—Baroque once again—is part of the group’s name itself, a combination of craftsmanship [‘feitoamãos’ – handmade] with digital culture practices (‘FAQ’ is an acronym for ‘Frequently Asked Questions,’ a common page in big websites).(2)

The Italian stage, typical of this form of expression, yields artwork which seldom addresses the problem of space in all of its complexity, although the videos’ main theme is space, as they attempt to break up the unity of the screen (and of the cinematic perspective). 

Out of all the group’s projects, É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo[It Is [In]possible to Be in 2 Places at the Same Time] is the only one which adopts that same strategy with regard to the occupation of the space where it is exhibited, exploring the tension between the physical and mediated presence of musicians and video artists, through the use of presence and light sensors. 

In Trânsito, the use of two simultaneous screens, one in the back area of the stage and another in the front, generates a small delay from one screen to the other, dilating the inevitable temporality of the projection over a single surface.(3) The first screen is made of a dark, grainy fabric, creating a diffuse effect that turns musicians and video artists onstage into a kind of human chroma set against video sequences. Nevertheless, all of this only makes the situation more sophisticated, but does not dissolve the space as eloquently as in É (in)possível.

*//FAQ’s field of work gathers together various forms of expression—which are not always obvious, as is the case with performances and interactive installations. Pieces such as É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo are the ones that best articulate the diverse possibilities suggested by recent experiments with real-time image and video manipulation and execution, as they articulate all of those domains. This is a rare feature. Most live image and audio pieces restrict themselves to the format of contemplative presentation, be it in improvisations, by VJ’s in nightclubs, or the more elaborate exhibitions in museums and galleries.

*//FAQ makes heavy use of video, probably due to the fact that feitoamãos’ first projects were single-channel pieces, such as the widely acclaimed 5—a fragmentary  exploration of the five senses with an uneven end result—, or streaming pieces, such as 7 maravilhas [Seven Wonders]. 7 maravilhas is a collection of loops, featuring Dona Inês Maravilha[Mrs. Inês Wonder] and Canivete Suíço[Swiss Knife], which use heavily graphic images—a solution that is also used in the group’s live presentations—, and short, nonnarrative videos such as Fio Maravilha, Cidade Maravilhas [Wonders City], and Stevie Wonders.

When animated or flicked, fixed images yield a type of incrustation that is typical of contemporary videos. They do not require chroma key, since the same effect can be attained by inserting images containing transparent cuts, using software such as After Effects. Moreover, the technique is similar to the logic of so-called early cinema, using stationary images as a starting point for the creation of visual entertainment. Improvisation based on these small fragments gives rise to longer (thematic) courses.

Since some of this material is captured from the Internet, it is more reminiscent of specific imagery (situationism, tactical media, femmes fatales, graffiti, displacements) than of a concern with an established audiovisual aesthetic. Curiously enough, video, which was long considered as low-resolution image compared with cinema image, nowadays has a superior visual quality to that of computer- and cell-phone-produced images, which are increasingly common in the visual culture of our times. 
Presently, video image is no longer deemed sparse, since it has become denser (to the point of reaching movie screens) in a visual culture of not too many megabytes.

In the case of feitoamãos, the use of graphism and pixelized digital images contrasts with the saturated graininess of video sequences; a good example is the initial sequence of Matéria dos sonhos[Dream Matter]. Two hands are superimposed, one of them graphic and stationary, the other one, videographic and anxious in its accelerated motion. Discrete black tones over lots of red combine two different types of visual textures, obtained through conflicting images of different thicknesses. Is this still Baroque? 

shortcut #1: two Macintosh computers and one switcher produce layers of images organized according to distributed scores. 
The presentations of *//FAQ are visual flickings of a database that yield a kind of synesthetic jazzistic motion. The closeness with a database-like cinema is programmatic: one of *//FAQ’s first live presentations was Dziga Vertov reenquadrado [Dziga Vertov Reframed]. According to Lev Manovich, Vertov’sMan with a Movie Camera anticipated the possibility of a database-like, paradigm-oriented cinema that defies the temporal narrative flow of the love stories that Hollywood insists on delivering to the world. 

comeback: 
The repeated beauty of those prosaic insect gestures cannot hide the absence of a clearly-defined destination, as it leads from nothing to nowhere. Two doses of Kafka and one dose of energy drink. In Trânsito, the sequence acquires new meaning within the context of Deleuze’s intensities, altering the orientation of this unceasing motion. These images and their physical quality relate to each other, searching for their own “state of things.”

As in the myth of Sisyphus, where the hero is condemned to the absurd task of pushing a rock to the top of a hill, only to see it roll back down, which makes him push it up the hill again and so forth, ad infinitum. The cyclic punishment of the suicidal hero was the first loop in a history of thought that gains new meaning, as digital technologies modify contemporary forms of expression.

shortcut #2: the use of text is abundant in the work of feitoamãos/F.A.Q. Most texts are not supposed to be read, since the images do the narration, while the text simply illustrates. The work of *//FAQ features a kind of writing that formulates thoughts through complex strategies that combine text, image, and audio.

The eternal comeback: There are no stones in the pathway. 
An insect moves on...

(1) In Por uma estética da imagem vídeo [For an Aesthetic of Video Image], Philippe Dubois discusses some aesthetic parameters which “emerge with intensity in video practices,” remarking that “the first strong feature that arises is the mixing of images.” In Dubois’ opinion, there are three “major procedures with respect to that: superimposition (of multiple layers), games using windows (in different configurations), and, above all, incrustation (aka “chroma key”),” cf. Philippe Dubois, Godard. Cinema. Vídeo, São Paulo, CosacNaif, 2004, pp 77-8. Of the forms proposed by the French philosopher, the first and the third ones are more commonly featured in the artwork of feitoamãos/F.A.Q., Baroque in its abundance of layer upon layer, especially in some of their live presentations, in which they use two Macintosh computers to bombard images onto the switcher that controls the way those images are projected. 

(2) The concept of digital craftsmanship is widely used by Richard Brabook, as explained on NeMe: FAQ Digital Work 
(http://neme.org/main/103/faq-digital-work) and on The Digital Artisans Manifesto 
(http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-digitalartisansmanifesto1.html). 

(3) For Lev Manovich, “visual culture and modern art provide many ideas of how a space narrative can unfold in a computer,” be it by using simultaneous windows, by creating synchronized events, or by exploring the effects of superimposition. According to Manovich, spatial arrangement is one of the features that enable one to distinguish between digital language and its analogical predecessors. With respect to live image and audio presentations, this spatial arrangement takes place when the stage & audience format is abandoned. Cf. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2000, p. 321. A longer discussion on spatial arrangement can be found in 6 propostas para os próximos minutos [Six Proposals for the Following Minutes] (http://netart.incubadora.fapesp.br). In VJ em cena: o espaço como partitura audiovisual [VJ in Action: Space as an Audiovisual Score], Patrícia Moran addresses similar issues, approaching theoretical topics and analyzing examples of real-time image and audio manipulation.

1. What prompted you to start the feitoamãos [handmade] project? How did the project later unfold into F.A.Q.?

Claudio Santos: In 1998, we had a group work experience in a project by stylist Jotta Syballena and by Voltz Design. Voltz invited seven artists for each to do a contemporary reading of a capital sin. Both the process and the result were quite good. Claudio Santos, Rodrigo Minelli, André Amparo, and three other artists were involved. After a while, Minelli proposed another group piece, entitled 5 (5 senses) and invited me, André, Chico de Paula, and Marcelo Braga. He also invited Marília Rocha, who did the sixth sense. The working process featured interferences in each other’s creation. Afterwards, we were invited by Mônica Cerqueira to do the inauguration of a virtual space at Palácio das Artes, Minas Gerais. As of then, we created a website, a new webart project (7 maravilhas [The Seven Wonders]), and invited new artists. We dubbed it feitoamãos [handmade] project, and its goals were to research, produce, and reflect upon the language and possibilities of electronic art, highlighting the process of collective realization that characterizes our group. In addition to that, we have encouraged and trained new artists by means of partnerships, co-productions, endorsements, etc. We have garnered some national and international awards.

In 2001, we were invited to open the Belo Horizonte Short Film Festival. We proposed a performance (Dizga Vertov reenquadrado [Dizga Vertov Reframed]) and invited musicians Ronaldo Gino, André Melo, Barral, and DJ Roger Moore. We did everything live and, from then on, Ronaldo Gino and André Melo became members of our group. We invited Lucas Bambozzi for our presentation at the Red Bull Live Images (2002), and since then he too became an effective member of the project. Musician Vítor Garcia joined us from the performance É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo [It Is (In)possible to Be in 2 Places at the Same Time] (2003).

The inclusion of these new members led to the creation of a live-oriented, in-house multimedia team associated to the F.A.Q. name. Presently, that team consists of André Amparo, André Melo, Claudio Santos, Lucas Bambozzi, Marcelo Braga, Rodrigo Minelli, Ronaldo Gino, and Vítor Garcia. Featuring artists with vastly different backgrounds (music, video, design, etc.), the collective’s main goal is to build a language around the idea of live audio-images. F.A.Q. began performing at several spaces and events (in some cases, even as a VJ group), constantly adding something new to its conceptual foundation, often inviting new artists to take part in its performances. 

Lucas Bambozzi: I think it is important to stress that many of us have participated actively in the technological advances of video-related processes in the last fifteen years or more, and those advances are naturally incorporated as languages that tie technical and operational procedures together. We have worked with analog systems such as VHS A/B roll, then U-matic, Beta, and, finally, digital systems (Video Toaster, Video Machine, Première, Edit DV, and Final Cut). In the early 1980s, some of us did live show broadcasts (some of them for television, such as the live music shows I did with groups such as Ira!, Fellinni, Defala, Último Número, Gueto, and Sexo Explícito in 1989), corporate events, fashion shows, etc.–activities which presently are also a part of many a VJ’s repertoire. These experiences connect us to the universe of improvisation and real time, which are typical features of recent digital systems.

2. What is the group’s creative process like? How do you develop your work?

CS: Each project has its own unique features, but for every project we hold periodic meetings for discussing concepts, music, images, etc. In addition to that, we communicate daily via email, since not all members live in Belo Horizonte, and we also hold Skype conferences. Guest artists participate in the early stages of our proposals.  

LB: You could say that our group is an environment of research and experience-sharing regarding technologies, procedures, and languages. The fact that we have both musicians and image-related people enables a kind of exchange that usually does not happen within the VJ scene – in which sometimes there is no conversation whatsoever with the DJ’s. The working process varies. Sometimes a group member temporarily takes over production and conception, but everything is discussed with everyone. 

Another feature of our work is the fact that all presentations are a result of us sharing our concerns, many of which are different or nonconsensual. That is probably the biggest difference between individual and group work processes, because debates regarding certain issues (mainly political ones) are the starting point from which our “scripts” are developed. 

3. In Monstruário ilustrado [Illustrated Monstruary] (2002), presented at the Interatividades [Interactivities] project at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, you have worked in a near-scenic space. In Veja as instruções primeiro [See Instructions First] (2002), presented at the Red Bull Live Images, as well as in É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo (2003) you have worked with immersive spaces where the audience could walk, dance, and even interact with the images. How does the physical setting condition or determine your creations? Does the group have a preference for a specific type of setting? 

CS: Based on a collectively-defined narrative proposal, we then adapt our presentation to the specific setting. We define the mounting of image projectors and the placement of musicians and VJ’s when we receive the plan of the premises. We may also add new elements and explore what the place can offer in terms of audience immersion and motion. I particularly enjoy performing onstage, but the possibility of adapting to different premises makes everything real interesting. 

LB: We are increasingly interested in situations that involve senses other than sight. In certain situations, you can have more collective participation/immersion by using several screens, layers, and transparencies. In É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo, we have used interactive resources. The audience was able to activate/manipulate certain images by moving a lamp, the oscillation of which would generate analog motion in the images. Experimentation with various interfaces between the audience and the digital files we create and/or use is the path we are traveling on. We are always looking into the potential of each of the technical possibilities that are available to us. 

As far as physical settings are concerned, we have had an interesting experience recently, the Cubo [Cube] project, since three members of feitoamãos/F.A.Q. also belong in the Cobaia group (Cláudio, Rodrigo, and me.) In Cubo, the physical setting (downtown São Paulo) would define a real particular and specific situation, one which required much debate. Contents, image manipulation, projections, and the way we relate to the audience, everything had to be reworked in a completely different way from what we were used to.  

4. In the Imagem não imagem [Image Non-image] exhibition, you gave birth to a media object. What was it like to participate in an exhibition with an object, and how was the creative process for this piece? Is it possible to compare straight performance work to this object?

CS: The creation of Bicho Brasileiro [Brazilian Creature] was born out of a desire to depart a little from the live-image process. We attempted to insert the result of a group process into an individual sensorial experience. 

5. You promote workshops frequently. What is it like to do these workshops? Can they be considered a sequel to videos that were developed along with young artists, such as Os 4 pontos cardeais [The Four Cardinal Points] (2001) and Matéria dos sonhos [Dream Matter] (2001)?

CS: Workshops were going strong and were a big thing for the group when we were just feitoamãos. Now, we call ourselves feitoamãos/F.A.Q., because F.A.Q. has the makings of a “band,” a fixed multimedia group, in which the essence of feitoamãos appears when we invite and take in new artists (be it in music, editing, conception, or just manipulation). Something that happens most of the time.

In short, I think that the group creation experience (such as in the examples you have mentioned) remains, even though F.A.Q. is now a fixed group. But the workshops used to have different features, when they existed, and currently our presentations do not allow for many workshops. 

LB: It is worth remembering that the Fórum de Mídia Expandida [Expanded Media Forum] has been taking place for three years now within the Eletronika Festival, in Belo Horizonte–and that this year, the Festival will be especially dedicated to the Forum’s activities. This is another spin-off of feitoamãos/F.A.Q. (coordinated by Rodrigo Minelli and myself.) The format is that of a microsymposium, in which we seek to get closer to musical issues that relate directly to digital media in the audiovisual, design, and contemporary art fields. Through the Forum, we also promote parallel events which are not trend-oriented, but guided by creation in its latent state and in keeping with current issues–no matter what their place is within the contemporary artistic-musical scene. These events complement each other, including experiments such as performances, experimental audiovisuals, installations, and other emerging happenings in the digital art scene, which oscillate or produce thoughts that travel along different media.

6. You have performed at Videoformes (2005), the video and new media festival at Clermont Ferrand, France. What was that like?

CS: It was quite interesting to perform abroad in a traditional event such as Videoformes (20th edition). We saw artwork from many different countries, with quite different features from those of our presentations. It was also worth checking out the current state of electronic art, leaving the supports of exhibition and installation for a while, and digging deeper into live narratives.

LB: The Videoformes presentation was also worthwhile for us to realize that you can still have interesting experiments in a typical stage situation. At the festival, it dawned on us that we can still incorporate scenery or stage lighting elements to create visual layers and ambiences. We did a lot of work with black screens, which allow for the passing of light and enable us to switch visually between the front and the back of the stage situations, suggesting a greater exchange between inside and outside, and allowing for audience participation/involvement in the presentation. These considerations and resources will be put to use in our next presentation, Carro-Bomba [Car Bomb], at Videobrasil. 

feitoamãos/F.A.Q. [handmade/FAQ] is first and foremost a ‘project in progress.’ In tune with contemporary poetics, it changes, incorporates new elements, and becomes more dynamic with respect to artistic output. Comprised of experienced, restless members, feitoamãos/F.A.Q. is always in motion. In the beginning, the group was a means of giving support and creating group work. That was the case with their single-channel debut video 5 (2000), which resulted in the ‘feitoamãos’ project, spelled with no capital letters or the usual spaces. The video featured in the 13th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2001), received the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize – Year Two, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, for the Best Video category in February 2001, and was screened outside of Brazil in festivals and exhibitions. It investigates the senses and their perceptions, and was authored by members Francisco de Paula, André Amparo, Rodrigo Minelli, Claudio Santos, Marcelo Braga, and Marília Rocha.

The five initial core members of the project soon began new efforts, initially aimed at giving support to projects by young artists and producers. Thus was born Os 4 pontos cardeais [The Four Cardinal Points] (2001), produced by Mariana Pinheiro, Bruno, Marcos Catito Menezes, and Osmar, each of whom worked with one cardinal point. Released in Belo Horizonte in 2001, this piece gathered this group of young artists and producers and the feitoamãos project members together in a debate, featuring special guest Professor Júlio Pinto, Ph.D. in Communication and Semiotics.

Their follow-up project had to do with numbers and quantity as well, this time dealing with History; entitled 7 maravilhas [Seven Wonders] (2000) and designed for the Internet, the project was a collection of videos by core members of the collective. Their next project was even bolder, especially regarding the method for selecting the participants who would receive support. Hoping to attract media attention and, at the same time, to pay homage to Emílio Belleti–one of the main promoters and developers of audiovisual production in Belo Horizonte who was murdered by a middle-class youth–the group got together and conceived the ‘Emílio Belleti Prize’ for supporting young artists in the creation of collective video projects. The effort attracted attention to the discussion on Belleti’s death, and yielded a collectively-produced video. For Matéria dos sonhos [Dream Matter] (2001), projects were submitted by young artists and producers, some of whom were chosen to develop a video associating nature’s four elements with everyday feelings.

Soon thereafter, the group started working with live images, doing real-time image and audio manipulation in many different settings. Their first presentation took place during the opening of the Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival, with a piece entitled Dziga Vertov reenquadrado [Dziga Vertov reframed] (2001), featuring scenes from the movie Man with a Movie Camera. Later on, the collective did a series of performances in alternative spaces, electronic music festivals, video exhibitions and festivals in Brazil and abroad. 

In 2002, the collective produced Adamantos, based on a workshop they did at the Minas Gerais Federal University Winter Festival in Diamantina. In that same year, they presented the performance Veja as instruções primeiro [See the Instructions First] (2002) at the Red Bull Live Images, São Paulo. Afterwards, they exhibited Monstruário ilustrado [Illustrated Monstruary] at Itaú Cultural, a collection of pieces and collaborations with other artists that composed a contemporary version of middle-age bestiaries using scenic resources, image projections, samplers, and live music.

In the 3rd Eletronika - New Musical Trends Festival (2003), in Belo Horizonte, the group did a presentation dealing with revolution and anarchy.

The diversity in the history of feitoamãos/F.A.Q. is quite interesting, as proven by their object Bicho Brasileiro [Brazilian Creature] (2003), presented at the Imagem não imagem [Image Non-image] exhibition, curated by Christine Mello at Galeria Vermelho in São Paulo, reaffirming experimentation and risk as key features of the group.

According to an article by Francesca Azzi, published in the catalogue of Mostra Made in Brazil (Itaú Cultural, 2003), the collective “uses technical and conceptual experimentation in order to establish logical and ‘linguistic’ parameters for the happening. Their live editing and spatial arrangement play with temporality, improvisation, and content.”  

On the one hand, the object disrupted the group’s known patterns, but it also revealed a creative process that favors hybridism, experimentation, and restlessness. In the same year, the group presented É (in)possível estar em 2 lugares ao mesmo tempo [It Is (In)possible to Be in 2 Places at the Same Time] (2003) at the Ruído Digital [Digital Noise] event, promoted by Itaú Cultural in Belo Horizonte. This piece by feitoamãos/F.A.Q. applied geographer Milton Santos’ concepts of space and landscape. The collective created a space containing six projections and two interactive systems that displayed urban settings over time, using live image manipulation, audience interaction, and interference.

Trânsito [Traffic] (2005), the group’s most recent production, was featured at Videoformes, in Clermont Ferrand, France, and at the prog:ME, Rio de Janeiro’s first international new media festival.

The work of feitoamãos/F.A.Q. has been featured in articles and websites. We have selected a few links that relate to the group’s production.

feitoamãos/F.A.Q. presented Monstruário ilustrado [Illustrated Monstruary] (2002) at the Interatividades [Interactivities] event, promoted by Itaú Cultural. The site features information on the participants, as well as details on the feitoamãos/F.A.Q. presentation.

http://www.itaucultural.org.br/interatividades