Chico Machado

(Porto Alegre 1964)

Chico Machado (João Carlos Machado) is an artist and teacher. With a BA in Painting and Drawing at the Instituto de Artes in the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (1991), Specialization in Contemporary Theatre Theory (2000), Master (2005) and PhD in Visual Poetics (2012), at the same university, presents solo and group visual art exhibitions since 1991, having obtained several prizes in this and other areas. He is currently a professor in the Department of Dramatic Art IA / UFRGS. In addition to its activities in the visual arts with the production with objects, performances and videos, it is also active in the fields of music and theater

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My artistic practice began in the 80’s in the visual arts, starting from drawing and painting (before that, drawing comics). It was through a process of three-dimensional painting thought I started working with objects. Gradually, in the 90’s, I began to incorporate motion and sound to work, using mechanisms and electrical devices. At the same time, I played electric bass in pop / rock groups (I was composing music and lyrics as well) and did work in the theater area, with set design and the costumes, but also as a performer.

The work I do today is the result of all these experiences and, if I position myself as a “sound artist”, do it leaving most of the field (professional and theoretical) of the visual arts than the field of music.

I understand that the notion of sound art has different nuances and approaches depending on the field where you look or practice. I understand that the notion of sound art has different nuances and approaches depending on the field where you look or where you practice (I realize that many musicians turn to the term “sound art” to escape the dictates and standardization of what culturally call music, but “visual” artists seeking expressive means beyond visuality since the time of Dadaism and, more systematically, from the conceptual art). For me, the point this is not to find a new field, but a natural extension of the unfolding of my work.

Among other things, I create and build sound devices (sound sculpture?), audio visual compositions and performances with video and devices. Technologically speaking, a low-tech character is present in all my production.
In 2012 I developed a technique that makes electrical apparatus react to the video through photo-electric sensors, and use it for performances.
The video made in high-contrast is prepared to make work the devices, and the devices produce sound.

What interests me today is thinking about a work (or, think through work) in which the categories, sound, visual, action and movement (my work is not only sound) are interconnected in a structural level (technical?), so that a language fire or generate an event in the other. Thus, for example, an action or motion is transformed into a sound or a visual data. So the relationship between sound and other elements ceases to occur by a bias of illustration or representation, or sensory correspondences (possibilities with which I have worked and with which I still eventually work), and happens to be factual, tautological.

I understand that the notion of sound art has different nuances and approaches depending on the field where you look or where you practice (I realize that many musicians turn to the term “sound art” to escape the dictates and standardization of what culturally call music but “visual” artists seeking expressive means beyond visuality since the time of Dadaism and, more systematically, from the conceptual art).

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