During the twenty-plus years of their collaboration as @c, Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais’s work has spanned composition and performance but also, and prominently, several installations, often site-specific and ephemeral works that have at most been documented with short videos. Crónica's latest series of releases is dedicated to systematic documentation and revisitation of these installation works. Its goal is not only to record in situ registrations of the works — although in some cases that may be the selected approach — but rather to revisit recordings, the computational systems developed for the works, archival materials, and other assets, and to present new compositions that unfold from each of the installations. The first release in this series is Seis Elementos (six elements), after the installation of the same title that was shown at the Rectory of the University of Porto in 2016.
Seis Elementos was created from found materials, with physical elements recovered from the deposits of the University of Porto, and sonic elements found in databases and in the artists’ archives. These elements were the starting point for a creative process that involved the occupation of the room and the development of an open work of construction during which the piece was shaped by the context, by random events, coincidences, and articulations. The outcome of this was a physical body constructed out of valchromat, glass, LED lamps, steel cables, loudspeakers, sound and electric cables, audio DVDs, and multichannel sound that expanded through the room and from where sound radiated, resonating with space. This structure was the foundation for a network of matter, events, and rhythms that was open to the visitors’ exploration and interpretation.
The installation was shown from October to November 2016 and was documented in a video by Patrícia Viana Almeida. This work was commissioned for the event Space, Body, and Well-Being, head curator João Paulo Vilas-Boas, curated by José Carlos de Paiva and Luís Pinto Nunes.
This release is part of the Installations series.