Labirinto sintrópico: Janaina Mello Landini

13 August - 10 September 2016

... First, that we recognize space as the product of interrelations (…) Second, that we understand space as the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity (…) Third, that we recognize space as always under construction. Precisely because space on this regarding is a product of relations-between, relations which are necessarily embedded material practices which have to carried out, it is always in the process of being made. It is never finished; never closed. Perhaps we could imagine space as a simultaneity of stories-so-far." (1)

 

*Some info before starting:

1. In creating a maze, manufacturers use a number of algorithms and mathematical combinations in defining the paths traced within it. In the more complex examples, such as the so-called branching multicursal mazes with multiple connections, there is no single option and it may be possible to never find the center or the exit.

 

2. Syntropy was defined in the field of statistics in 1988 as the measure of the degree of "internal organization" in the interaction of the components that make up a system. Syntropy is the complement to entropy, understood as the degree of "uncertainty". Thus, the higher the degree of syntropy of internal organization, the lower the possibility of the system collapsing.

 

Vilém Flusser: tapestry, abstraction and architecture or representation, calculation and philosophy 

The book Flusseriana - An Intellectual Toolbox presents the thoughts of philosopher Vilém Flusser on the concept of "tapestry" as a gesture upon a structure. The one in which the texture hides the warp and woof, the structure of which it is part. Thus, "a tapestry woven with the design of a landscape constitutes a representation of an external world and creates on the wall the feel of a window, which reminds us of Arthur Schopenhauer with his idea of 'the world as representation'. Although it has an abstract design, tapestry is a representation constituted as a sort of denial of its most immediate reality - which is the threading upon which it is based. In this sense, we could read it as counter-representation". (2) 

 

Through the concept of abstraction and, above all, through the ability to abstract, Flusser examines man's clash with the world. Learning is done through encoded models with which we try to structure the environment, as well as ourselves. Upon these constructions, these calculations and the reconfiguration of data as is done in algebra, a logical frame is organized to access reality. In this sense, the calculation would not only be a mathematical abstraction, but the basis for contemplation of external forms. The challenge would then be the use of the ability to calculate towards the freeing from the categories imposed since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this abstraction there is the possibility of new projects, of denial of the abyss, and of acceptance of the linearity crisis, with the creation of new relationships. This peculiarity of the multiplicity - nomadic and migrant - of categories is the same that Flusser identifies in architecture, viewed as a modular structure, being itself a metaphor of thought in the search for a new form of philosophy.

 

The Three times 

... It changes its nature and adds its connections: In it there are no positions, only lines. (3)

 

Janaina Mello Landini reconfigures in her art the conceptions of time frame in the game set of space. Each of her works carries three temporal aspects that cannot be forgotten, and which, together, put forth a continuous questioning of seized structures. 

 

The empirical time, first and foremost. There is an awareness of time as experience. The source for representations is contemplation, the empirical action of the artist's eye on the landscape inhabited. At first it was the path she saw on her route to work in Minas Gerais. The reflections and lights slowly formed another panorama - a heritage still seen in the vibration created by the color treatment of the ribbons and in the elastic tension composing the installation - a structure abstracted in pixels which are the origin of the series "Labyrinths", by transferring her experience to the city. A metropolis that is not defined or unique, but is constituted as a random and rhizomatous maze, where planes and views multiply and fuse outside of the Cartesian arrangement. 

 

Abstract time. Janaina's architecture academic background leads her to plan each of her installations and pieces as a project. An abstraction which, through structural and mathematical calculations, formalizes the ideas risen in observation. In this case, the proportions of each element making up the design of the labyrinth follow the Fibonacci sequence (0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, tending to infinity). But there is another logic in the composition, which deceives our first perception of being in front of a classic study of perspective. The lines of these labyrinths do not have a single vanishing point, nor do they have a single point of view. They all form the vision of what the artist defines as "poly-eye", resulting in a large branching where all possible points of view come together. An attempt to "see all" or to "unite all, present and past," which ends in an annulment of perspective. The space would then eventually be a trap, just as the maze might be. 

 

And lastly, the historical time. Not the time of the grand history, but the one running during the manual work, the weaving of the warp and woof, the one originated from the tradition of seamstresses who taught her to embroider. It would be the time of opposing points of views to the historical perspective, as would put Maria Thereza Alves (4) ; ; or the time described by Elizabeth Grosz in the named female architectures which, based on excess, could destabilize the patriarchal notions of space and time. It is this same time that relates Janaina's work to other women artists who have previously woven alternatives in their artistic production: Annie Albers, Louise Bourgeois, Teresa Lanceta, Gego, Claire Zeisler, Etel Adnan and Sheila Hicks. They all plead for another perspective for learning the world, outside of the hegemonic thinking. 

 

Thus, the three approaches in the syntropic labyrinths of Janaina Mello Landini deny the previous concepts of perspective and their construction, so as to delve into the various internal relations systems and seek new knowledge in the fusion of perspectives and in working with space and time.

 

*One last info to finish:

3. Theseus came out of the labyrinth of Knossos after defeating the Minotaur, by following the thread that Ariadne had given him.

 

Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo

 

1. Doreen Massey, For Space, Sage Publications, London, 2005.

2. Siegfried Zielinski e Peter Weibel ed., Flusseriana - Uma Caixa de Ferramentas Intelectual, ZKM I Center for Arts and Media, Karslruhe, Vilém Flusser Archive at Berlin University of Arts, e Univocal Publishing, Minneapolis, 2015. 

3. Mónica Amor sobre a obra relação da obra de Gego e Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari, Mil Platôs. Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia. "Another Geometry: Gego's reticulárea, 1969- 1982." October Magazine USA, Summer 2005.

4. Maria Thereza Alves, Canibalismo no Brasil desde 1500, Periódico Permanente, n.4, 2013. http://www.forumpermanente.org/revista/numero-4/textos/canibalismo-no-brasil-desde-1500