Based on individually recorded encounters with a magician, an archivist, a priest and a mathematician, around the notions of appearance and disappearance, "Cartola de Fumo" is a sound piece that articulates ways of dealing with the "inexplicable", between the trick and the miracle.

Through a hallucinatory state that speaks of an external landscape, but also of a psychological landscape, the sound work pays attention both to the content of a given utterance and to the way it is uttered. This approach is carried out through three points of view: from the believer, the scientist and the non-believer.

The piece was curated by Anozero – Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Coimbra and inaugurated in the Convent of Santa Clara-a-Nova, on the altar of a vacant chapel, curated by Filipa Oliveira and Elfi Turpin, in April 2022.

Special thanks to Ana Margarida Silva, Carlos Antunes, Elfi Turpin, Filipa Oliveira, Helena Freitas, Jorge Vilas, José Miguel Pereira, José Miguel Urbano, Luís de Matos, Fr. Nuno Santos, Nuno Grande, Estúdio 33 and Relvinha Residents' Association.

Cartola de Fumo [Smoke Hat], 2022
Stereo sound transferred to vinyl record, 5'56”
Turntable and loudspeakers on altar

Language: PT

The idea is:
Based on this prior agreement, I will show you impossible things and you will get emotional responses from it.

Imagine an ice cube melting in a glass of water.
Ice cube, glass of water.

There is a boundary that separates the ice from the water, which evolves over time.
Border, time.

What is happening on this border? How does it behave? What properties does it have?

Appears… that's it, disappears… that's it.

[laughs]

Who does not distinguish, confuses. To distinguish is not to separate.

What is deep is highly complex. And tendentially incomprehensible.

Distinguish, separate.
Deep, complex.
Incomprehensible.

OK. We've been doing that for a hundred years.
It is literally a teleportation.
Instantaneous. Untraceable. Impossible to find out!

History is not in black and white.
Everyone is right.

[laughs]

He wants to show a reality, precisely so as not to hide it.

[laughs]

How do you hide something that is perennial?

[laughs]

This is from another world. This is like “getting up there”...

What we really like is abstract things.
Things are there and we're just trying to figure out the truth.

The most intense moment is the place where God descends.

When the person feels that it fits, there is nothing to do. Is that.

For example, if you have a pile of sand, it is very stable in relation to an angle above 45 degrees, but when that angle goes below 45 degrees, everything precipitates.

[laughs]

We cannot demonstrate “the denial”.
It was nine o'clock, he walked in at 10, snapped his fingers and said:
— “Look at your watches!”
And it turns out that everyone's clocks were on nine...

How do you hide something that is perennial?

I accept to be eaten by you.
I may not eat, but I know there is food.

Imagine two eyeballs:
We take them out and expect them to communicate any kind of emotion. Zero!

There are several rooms,
There are several ports.
There are several selves,
In “the mistake”!