RODRIGO GOMES

Description

How is a self-driving car trained to see the world? The blurred, pixelated, and almost ghostly images produced by machine vision evoke a sense of mystery. This raises the question of which contemporary material could capture these invisible digital data in a tangible and timeless manner.

The lithophane technique with synthetic materials offers a way to transform two-dimensional digital images into physical objects with depth, shadows, and textures. This process brings the synthetic image into the physical realm, creating a dichotomy between the visible and the invisible. A recurring theme when discussing machine vision or computational photography, where the recognition of real-world objects can resemble scenes from a horror movie, with machines perceiving ghostly representations of reality.

These machine vision images give us a new way of seeing the world, even on a molecular level. However, these databases of information and types of images do not belong to us, as they are machine interpretations of the world, reflecting a form of symmetry with human vision but at different levels, suggesting a kind of technological colonialism. This also raises concerns about whether models, datasets, and algorithms dominate our reality, potentially obscuring certain real events.

This series of panels presents blurred images that can be seen as an attempt to imagine ourselves through the lens of a machine, considering how technology observes us and how it might identify what we are today. It's a reflection on the complexity between humans and machines, questioning what and who is in control.

Material

PLA, UV Resin, Acrylic Paint, Varnish

Dimensions

Panel 1 (15 x 21 x 0.5 cm)
Panel 2 (31 x 50 x 1.5 cm)
Panel 3 (60 x 40 x 1.3 cm)

Description

Images of a seemingly aseptic landscape form a dance that, by the nature of its representation, suggest latency and action, presence and absence, reverberation and resonance, ephemerality and persistence, suspension and continuity of time.

Format

4K, Color, Stereo

Duration

08'26"

Description

The latent space is an abstract space, inherent to the formation of virtual images. It is a binary plane of encounters and disencounters of different images that are constantly fed by a neural network and formed by different digital files. It's like a desert composed of small noisy grains that constantly collide with each other and pulsate. During these interactions, these artificial and abstract particles acquire the abilities/competencies of recognition and the constitution of a collective "memory" of these reciprocal influences. We can designate them as small impulses of artificial memories that end up generating and encompassing different latent features such as shapes, colors, textures, contrasts, and other sets.

To form or translate a photograph into the binary field means that we are feeding the latent space. We are collecting, depositing, and storing memories, data, and other characteristics in virtual and neural structures that simulate, interact, and behave like complex organisms. In the possibility of translating everything into 0 and 1, all possible digital productions can be translated and originated at the same time.

In my work "Close but not too close" (2023), I wanted to put these thoughts into practice. I started with a photograph of a horizon with a nebulous mass, which served as a reference for the algorithm to generate new similar horizons. During the process, various similar horizons were generated, with different nuances and the production of new forms that ended up being characteristics of that specific time and space of the image. Thus, a file of image-archives formed in the latent space, with the machine learning to recognize, create a collective memory in its network, and consequently, merge the temporal record of the initial image into a new type of time marked by a constant fall, submersion, and fluid continuity. There is no longer a past, present, and future, but rather a latent time where the image is always pre-existing.

This transformation process implies a time for the initial image that cannot be considered equal to the initial photograph, as they involve completely different formation processes. For Barthes, "what the photograph reproduces to infinity only occurred once: it mechanically repeats what can never be repeated existentially" (Roland Barthes, 1980, p.13). The creation through the latent space generates results opposite to those Barthes speaks of in "Camera Lucida." What Barthes tells us is antagonistic to these new horizons or computational photographic processes, which now represent an infinite reproduction occurring on multiple planes, where temporal distinctions dissolve into a single virtual space.

Computational photography is also a response to the miniaturization of the machine and its ability to produce images faithful to what we consider real. However, how true is this image? The production of these images occurs in the binary plane through processes generated by noises and references to other images. During the capture, the algorithm engages with the latent space, where references similar to the captured image and different types of digital files generated by other people, other perspectives, and similar forms help create a new image. But is this a true image? That group photograph or recorded memory of our mother is also other mothers, as it is generated by different hands, different skins, different noses that the algorithm feeds on. Archives of other bodies, other perspectives, helping the desert of latent particles to make a recognition of life, transforming itself into a new type of life? What is the real distance between vision, the lens, and the object we photograph through computation? How far is far?

Format

4K, Loop, Color, Stereo

Duration

02'33"

Collection

Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection

Description

An apparent aseptic and industrial atmosphere acts as the backdrop for a delirium generated by algorithms attempting to dissolve boundaries between the tangible and the ephemeral, the concrete and the ethereal.

Artistic Residency

Residency "Animais", organized by CADA, Vila Velha de Ródão, PT

Exhibition

Former Prision of Trafaria, Almada, PT

Format

4K, Loop, Color, Stereo

Duration

04'29"

Material

Glass Lens

Note

This video originated from a collection of location data and images from the cellulose factory located in Vila Velha de Ródão, PT.

Description

In a world poorly structured to receive them, new possibilities burst forth, bringing with them an inflation of discourse and counter-discourse. In this scenario, artificial intelligence emerges as a frontier that allows us to contemplate our own history, explore possible futures, and reflect on unrealized pasts. Does the incessant pursuit of perfection bring us closer to or further away from our essence?

In Technosphere, Rodrigo Gomes involves us in an enigmatic dance between power, facts, and counter-facts, in the pursuit of an inexorable perfection.

Exhibition

Magalhães Project, organized by Museu Zer0, Tavira, PT

Format

Full HD, Color, Stereo

Duration

12'01"

Voice

Hugh by Murf AI

Script

Rodrigo Gomes, ChatGPT, Chapter III from Moby Dick

Images

Rodrigo Gomes, “The Incredible Machine” - Murphy Productions Internet Archive, “Operation Cue” - Office of Civil Defense Internet Archive, “Castle Bravo Operation” - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “V-2 Rocket Pictures of Earth” - National Archives Catalog, “Bertillon's Synoptic Table of Physiognomic Traits” - The Public Domain Review, Dall-E, Midjourney, Runway ML, Topaz AI

3D Modelling

Rodrigo Gomes

Camera

Fábio de Carvalho

Sound

ML.Markov, Rodrigo Gomes, Adobe Podcast AI

Grading

Fábio de Carvalho

With Participation of

David Luís, Dida Ramos, Fábio Carvalho, Isabel Tojo, João Malato, Margarida Silva, Mariana Gomes, Miguel Braz, Susana Vieira, Tiago Rodrigues

Description

A plane simulates the Boolean operation used in 3D software to create intersections and complex forms between visible and invisible shapes. By intersecting these shapes, new volumes emerge from the overlapping regions, adding depth and intrigue. The difference operation, or subtraction, carves out spaces within the structure, creating negative spaces and a sense of contrast.

Exhibition

Igrexa da Compania - USC, Santiago de Compostela, ES (2023)

Material

Wood, Silicone, Acrylic Paint, PVC Tubes, Plaster, Iron Chromatic Tubes, Resin, Sikalastic-1k

Dimensions

Variable

Description

The story of a non-binary person who is unable to love and struggles to comprehend solitude. JUDE ORA has the inner strength to change everything, but she cannot overcome her inability to love. She generates so much energy to create, yet she cannot accept loneliness. The reality around Jude is vast and obscure, like the Universe.

If obscurity can resemble the end, its ambiguity and uncertainty might elevate the notion that it could be the origin of everything, because without darkness there is no reason for light to exist.

Exhibition

Lisboa Incomum, Lisbon, PT (2022)

Artistic Residency and Organization

EMERGE - Associação Cultural

Duration

30'00"

Photography

Marisa Bernardes

Supported by

DGArtes, Torres Vedras Municipal Council, Teatro-Cine de Torres Vedras, Torres Vedras Center of Arts and Creativity, Performact, Cerveira Biennal Foundation and Lisboa Incomum

Description

Whispering Mirrors equates about the apparent linearity and predictability of time and physical space through its objective mediations and subjective correlates, exploring material devices and atmospheres of specular flows in which sculptures, technical objects, images, and sounds are constituted as animated realities, by developing their own modes of existence and specific spatiotemporal configurations.

The exhibition space is given here as a certain spatiotemporal capsule, where contingent dynamics of worldmaking and inhabiting processes are explored.

We access a large cocoon, a place of transformation, material, and speculative otherness, where a heterogeneous and immersive technological apparatus completes and totalizes itself as a kind of artificial, but living organism, which, in the movement of its breathing, self-references and self-reproduces.

A dynamic thought between materials, images, and sounds is revealed: the objects looking for the images of which they are referents or reflections; the images, endowed with thickness, looking for the bodies of which they are the skin.

Upon entering, Ariane welcomes us. The only humanoid presence in the entire exhibition — as a witness of a distant time and of another place that was once inhabited — whispers to us a little story, the short story by Jorge Luís Borges, “Animals of the mirrors”. It tells us of an immemorial time in which mirror beings and human beings did not coincide, living in a communicating but independent harmony, which would be broken by a battle between these two worlds, the first being imprisoned by the second and doomed to perpetually replicate their movements. One day, however, all mimetics would be destroyed again.

Collecting these fabled echoes, Whispering Mirrors is situated in a gesture of ambivalent productivity. On the one hand, rehearsing a possible return to a mythical memory, or primitive imaginary background, where matter and images share the same ontological status, and where the human does not assume a hierarchical and mobilizing position. On the other hand, proposing to draw itself as a potential space for a future eco-logy where this condition of horizontal presence is allowed and operable by the creative action of technological devices, in a poetic and sensitive effort, where the world, the technique, and their shaping forces take place in a dimension of infinite openness, difference, and fertility.

Exhibition

Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Lisbon, PT (2021); Igrexa da Compañia - USC, Santiago de Compostela, ES (2023)

Curatorship and Text

David Revés

Supported by

DGArtes, Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Ocupart, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, USC - Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Deputación da Coruña, Fablab

Exhibition Teaser

https://vimeo.com/626831632

Exhbiition Talk

https://youtu.be/_lMEtJAmkC4

Description

Ariane is a deepfake video of Ariwasabi, the world's most famous unknown model from the stock image website Shutterstock. Billions of people see her face on a regular basis but no one knows who she is. An image ghost. In a world where image broadcast is dictated by its usage, reality proves out to be schizophrenic. Machine learning is leading us to a future where new words can be put into speeches. Social media profile images and celebrities are transformed in to porn stars and video footage can be altered to put people in places where they never been. Leading us to believe that an event occurred in order to influence the opinion and feed one new type of invisible and unknown violence. For our pupils to get in touch with reality, which at the slightest miscalculation reveals itself to be pre-designed, eye drops are necessary.

Exhibition

Festival Reclaim The Tech, Bologna, IT (2024); Forever Young - The Dorian Gray Syndrome, MEET Digital Culture Center, Milan, IT (2024); Le Miroir d'un Moment, Le Cube Garges, Paris, FR (2023); True Colour/Real World?, Watermans Art Center, London, EN (2022); Reboot Fest, Casa Comum, OPorto, PT (2021); Ibrida Festival, Florí, IT (2021); 19th Media Art Biennale WRO, Wroclaw, PL (2021); Alternative Film/Video, Belgrade, SR (2021), Black Raven Award - The New Art Fest, Lisbon, PT (2020)

Format

Full HD, Loop, Color, Stereo

Duration

03'01"

Award

Black Raven Award - The New Art Fest 2020

Direction and Production

Rodrigo Gomes

Voice

Rita Isabel

Images by

Carolina Caramujo, CNN, Google, Rodrigo Gomes, Shutterstock, The Overexposed Model, The Overexposed Stock Image Model

Translation and Subtitles

Ricardo Alexandre Batista

Acknowledgments

Ana Rita Romão, Alice Albergaria Borges, Fábio de Carvalho, Fernando Fadigas, Joana Leão, Papoila, Ricardo Alexandre Batista

Description

Static is an interactive performance developed through images and sounds interaction/ manipulation on a photoluminescent and modular sculpture created with recycled plastic. The construction of an audiovisual dialog arises from visible and audible statics derived from the explosion that gave origin to the Universe. One small percentage of the white noise comes from the Big Bang, as result the static contains information that help us to understand and analyze stars born, planet and comets. The performance begins with sounds and frequencies from space recorded by NASA, that helps to analyze planets and, as consequence, our position as Humans in the Universe. Static represents a process of transformation, recreation and exploration. It's the beginning and the ending of the creating act.

Exhibition

Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon, PT (2019); Bairro das Artes, Ocupart, Lisbon, PT (2019)

Duration

30'00"

Material

Recycle Acrylic, Aluminium, Iron, Photoluminescent Ink, Proximity Sensor, Arduino, Computer, Pad Mini Controller

Dimensions

167 x 103 x 73 cm

Description

This sculpture represents the visualization of a white noise signal, capturing the essence of the concept of random variation in time or space. The work features elements arranged sequentially or distributed across multiple spatial dimensions. In the sculpture, each component reflects the idea of digital pixels of a white noise signal, with independent variations and a uniform distribution over a specific range. The result is a piece that alludes to the randomness and diversity inherent in the nature of white noise, evident in its form, the transparency of the material, and its overall arrangement.

Exhibition

Entre as Pedras há Verde, Ocupart, Lisbon, PT (2019)

Collection

Private Collection

Material

Acrylic Waste

Dimensions

56 x 47.5 x 13 cm

Description

QR code is a video sculpture built by a group of pixels which are strategically placed and replaced as chess pieces. The artwork was raised from a relation between image and code, limited by a QR code and a small percentage of visible and audible static (White Noise), inspired by the creation of Universe - the Big Bang.

Exhibition

Entre as Pedras há Verde, Ocupart, Lisbon, PT (2019)

Format

Full HD, Loop, B&W, Mute

Duration

02'50"

Dimensions

23 x 27 x 9 cm

Description

The act of creation involves taking responsibility for another body. The reality we live in is filled with images, which flow through screens and materialize in various forms and bodies. They become extensions of ourselves, allowing us to reflect on reality. Our consumption of these images begins through media, which presents reality as a thin veneer of makeup. Society acts as a stage, and the world reciprocates with similar behavior.

A false world exists within reality.
Reality consists of a collection of false images, virtualities, and fictions that, when consumed, transform, evoke misunderstandings, and create meta-narratives. There are various types of multidimensional bodies. To understand what fills these bodies, we need to examine photography, sculpture, painting, cinema, and other forms of imagery that constitute reality. The world is embedded in manipulated film editing; reality is post-produced and reconstructed into the image of tomorrow. We live in a state of post-imaging. In the contemporary world, the infinite number of audio and video tracks has enabled the creation of a new type of image. New editing technologies are like Pandora's box: multiple images, titles, hypertexts, multi-perspectives, high definition, graphics, and complex sounds aim to capture the viewer's attention. Behind the visible surface of these images is an infinite number of hidden layers, serving as a 'make-up.' This allows for the creation of different ways to collect and write history through audiovisual means, bringing us closer to a mechanical memory in a world increasingly governed by automation.

However, what content do these images carry? They represent shared memories, not only reflecting what we see but also concealing aspects of the construction process. What are the narratives that shape our lives? Are we a storehouse of images that do not belong to us? These questions go beyond the notion of spectacle; the images we consume also become a glorious metaphysics. We bow to symbols and new forms of expression, adopting an attitude of intervention towards the images that seem true to us.

The power of images depends on the significance we attribute to them. Images help us define, remember, and sometimes perceive, but on the battlefields, they become controlled information.

Exhibition

Appleton [Box], Lisbon, PT (2018)

Format

Full HD, Color, Loop, Stereo

Duration

04'50"

Material

Wood, Mirror, PVC Tubes, 2 Speakers, Metal

Dimensions

Variable

Video Link

https://vimeo.com/338364044

Description

The "Collateral Murder" video is a military recording made public by WikiLeaks in April 2010, documenting an event in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 12, 2007. The video, recorded from a U.S. Apache helicopter, captures the crew firing on a group of people in a Baghdad suburb, resulting in several casualties, including two Reuters journalists, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.

In this sculpture, scenes from the shooting are projected, forming a bridge between audiovisual elements and physical forms.

Format

Full HD, Loop, Color, Stereo

Duration

03'31"

Material

Acrylic Tube, Acrylic Sheet, Tripod

Dimensions

Variable

Collection

Figueiredo Ribeiro Collection

Description

I start with a statement. The mirror is a mirror. It reflects, simulates reality, and creates new spaces. It is a juxtaposition of a non-place, a refraction of different times. It inverts the image it holds to offer a complacent virtuality. We observe it as an object and use it in our language.

For better or for worse, it is unclear where an image comes from. It seems to belong to many places at once. Luigi Pirandello wisely noted the imperfect nose in his work "One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand." Not long ago, we were one person, and now, at this very moment, and in the moment that just passed, we are someone else.

The mirror... The mirror is mediation. When we surround our mind with its reflection, there is no escape.

To observe oneself is to reflect, to pass through, and to remain stuck in the present. Let's first consider the example of the 'Mirror Stage' (1936), a concept developed by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan that explores the recognition of the 'I'. According to Lacan, it is between the ages of 6 and 18 months that a child begins to create an identity, even though they do not yet have the capacity to express themselves. During this period, there emerges a separation between the Ego and the world around it, leading to an awareness of what is external and internal. In this process, the imaginary and the real feed off each other. The mirroring, responsible for the fusion of these two realms, gives the illusion of an individual who holds onto hope. However, reality always reveals itself at another moment.

This is another moment; these words act as a means of communication. I mirror my neural network, and you, on the other side, create connections with the map you have. Layer by layer, we build a concept.

Let's view these reflections differently. The first contact we have when reading this text is two-dimensional; each word is flat. As we continue reading, we begin to articulate the ideas. At this point, we start to activate a series of brain correspondences that create a 'three-dimensional' cloud—imagination. However, the starting point is always a blank page. I try to put myself in the shoes of Edwin A. Abbott when writing "Flatland." An imaginative mathematical and scientific fiction that laid the foundation for many of the theories we hear about today concerning the fourth dimension. The story explores the curiosity of a square, an inhabitant of a two-dimensional geometric world, in discovering other dimensions. Initially, the square only knows about the second dimension and the zero dimension, inhabited by a point. When it encounters Spaceland (the third dimension), it discovers completely different forms that it cannot explain in its dimension. Its confusion arose from encountering forms it couldn't identify, yet they communicated with it. In Flatland, sound is the only element present in all dimensions, even in the fourth dimension—a place where everything can be seen and all knowledge is attainable.

Similarly to the geometric shapes in Flatland, many of the communication technologies in our world have added a new dimension to how we communicate.

The perception of distance from an aircraft in the air is physically conveyed through the vibrations of air mass entering our ears. Through this propagation, we can define the origin of the sound source over a specific space. This creates a mirroring of something we haven't seen yet, but we already sense in our auditory channel. At the moment of auditory and visual crossover, a person occupies a 'dual position' in space—they see and become aware.

Listening to a sound requires a different attention span than just hearing. Before the invention of radar, the military was limited to information obtained through seeing and hearing. During World War I and the early stages of World War II, Britain invested in constructing an anti-aircraft warning system on its southern and northeastern coasts. Known as Acoustic Mirrors, these concrete structures operated as large sound amplifiers to detect enemy air raids. Their concave and spherical shapes concentrated, conducted, and reflected sound wave propagation to the operator. This allowed them to detect enemy attacks through sound, even when they were out of visual range.

The mirror adds new forms. It is simultaneity and juxtaposition, allowing the near and the far to be placed side by side.

Today, the clouds are dispersed and the wind blows slowly—I know this because I have a mirrored bowl in front of me. As I write, side by side, I become aware of what is happening on the street. I hear the echo of the words I type in the space that the screen steals from me. Several days have passed between these pages and a thousand others. Often, I lost my train of thought, but during breaks, I kept listening to the writing.

The role of the mirror in space, whether real or virtual, has a presence similar to magnetism—it attracts energy and releases other forms of thought, image, sound, matter, etc.

However, it is possible that a mirror can be almost anything, but within that 'almost,' the mirror is primarily the accumulation of time in an immobile space.

Exhibition

Mostra Nacional Jovens Criadores, Lisbon, PT (2018)

Material

Acrylic Mirror, Glass Ball, LED

Dimensions

50 x 50 x 15 cm

Description

Terçolho refers to the multiple images, interfaces, hypertexts, multiverses, updates, operating systems, and CGI graphics that seek to offer a new reality to the viewer. Behind every visible surface of the image lies an infinite number of layers of operations and algorithms.

The power of images depends on the power we attribute to them. Images help us define, remember, and sometimes understand, but what content do they truly convey? Are they shared memories that represent not only what we observe but also what maps conceal through their construction process? Is the world a repository of images that do not belong to us? What are the narratives that structure our lives?

These questions are not limited to a relationship of visual spectacle; stye aims to be like the symbols we bow to; the icons that guide us, emojis that convey feelings, and avatars that mask our identity. An attitude of intervention towards images that appear to be true to us.

Terçolho is a metaphor for the very process of constructing audiovisual works. It is an extended map of a non-place. A digitally fictionalized image through editing software that, when projected onto a sculptural body, gains a physical dimension. The image shapes the sculpture, giving it a topographical dimension.

Behind the visible surface of the image lies numerous processes; there is an entire process of constructing objects such as lenses or cameras, which over time have influenced our reading of images. It is not about an image as a physical object but as a repository of information.

Format

Full HD, Loop, Color, Mute

Duration

02'43"

Material

Acrylic Mirror, Glass Paperweight, Projection Screen

Dimensions

50 x 30 x 40 cm

Collection

Private Collection

Video Link

https://vimeo.com/281707415

Description

In Ultraviolet Garden, objects are positioned on chessboard as pieces of a strategy game where lenses, video cameras and magnifying glasses are components which reflect foundfootage images of a murder occurred in 12th July 2007. This date remarks a situation where two Reuters journalists died because the telephoto lenses from their cameras were mistaken as two RPG guns during the North American Army air strike against the New Baghdad district. Over three years, Reuters tried to access the video attack through the Freedom of Information Act Law without success. On 5th April 2010 during the leakage of information, the video became public under the name of “Collateral Murder” on account of Wikileaks.

Exhibition

Frontpage Project, Melina Museum, Athens, GR (2023); D-Normal/V-Essay - Floating Projects, Hong Kong, CH (2021); Miami New Media Festival, Miami, USA (2020); Video Art Miden Festival, Kalamatas, GR (2020); Satellite Art Show NYC, New York, USA (2019); 18th Media Art Biennale WRO, Wroclaw, PL (2019); Cosmix III: Incatation, Paris, FR (2019); Aspekt! Aspekt!, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, PL (2019); Fuso - Festival International de Video Arte de Lisboa, MAAT, Lisbon, PT (2018)

Award

D-Normal / V-Essay - Floating Projects, Hong Kong, CH (2021)

Format

Full HD, Loop, Color, Stereo

Duration

02'31"

Subtitles

Margarida Silva

Found Footage

"Collateral Murder" by Wikileaks

Video Link

https://youtu.be/z1YDmtUgDSY