Re: [-empyre-] Viewing Axalotls

"arteonline" <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br> · Sat, 20 Mar 2004 09:48:22 -0300

Chère Isabel,

First of all many thanks for your kind attention to my work.

Brazil is a mix of several cultures. The European influence was great here,
and not only Portuguese culture have been present in the formation of our
nation. For example, my formal education was all based in French Culture.
The Brazilian / Polish Jewish professor who oriented me in my post
graduation was formed by Sorbonne. So that, the majority of my scientific
quotations are based on French authors: Merleau-Ponty, Foucault,
Lévi-Strauss, Mauss, Durkheim, Deleuze, Beauvoir,  Sartre... It is only my
history, but the fact is that people of my age, here in Brazil  read the
French authors.

It is interesting to talk about the architecture of Rio de Janeiro. If you
walk downtown you will feel yourself walking by old Lisbon. If you come to
Copacabana, you will feel the French influence... Now the new districts of
Barra da Tijuca and Recreio dos Bandeirantes are pure Miami. The
architecture shows which culture was influencing our culture through the
time.

However it is most more complex, because you must add to all of this our
African heritage, which is so strong too and also never forget indigenous
heritage. We have lots of habits that came from indigenous. To make things
more complex you must join Italian, Japanese, Arabs, Jewishes (ask Jorge
about the force of Italian and Japanese culture in São Paulo), German
(Brazil south have cities that looks like German cities, ask ALe about
this.) and many others. Here in Rio de Janeiro we have a very colorful
comercial and popular region (SAARA), there, Arabs and Jewishes have
excellent relationship.

I do not know if you know, by French people were in Rio de Janeiro in 1555
and try to found a colony here. As you can see I  do not speak French for
pure chance... ;-)

Caetano Veloso said, some time ago, that we are a country with continental
dimensions, with a half-breed population talking an unique language: the
Portuguese and that it never happened in the History of the world before.

I believe that our Contemporary Art is the result of all of this.

It is interesting you speak about dictatorship. We have dictatorship here
from 1964 to 1984, twenty years! However I believe that during this period
Fine Arts and Music/Poetry, for example,  really increased here. If you can
remember, Tropicália and Tropicalism were born in 1968 (another French
Culture influence?...), one of the hardest years of  the dictatorship in
Brazil. Criticism is different. Nowadays we do not have great critics as
Mario Pedrosa, for example, but now we have post-graduations in Art
Criticism so that I imagine that things will change.

I agree with you. I would like to know about all of this in US culture and
Canada (hello Jim!) culture too.

I can not speak  about Argentine Culture. However I do recomend the Magic
Realism (It is the correct name in English / in Portuguese, the expression
is Realismo Fantástico, so that my mistake) of the Argentine writers,
specially Jorge Luiz Borges and Julio Cortazar. They are terrific and
intuited lots of things that  are happening nowadays. I love Bioy Casares
too, specially : "The Morel Invention" (Borges called Bioy Casares one of
the great writers of the 20th century. The Invention of Morel (1940) is
considered Casares' masterpiece and one of the great works of Latin American
fiction. Both Borges and Octavio Paz described this work as "perfect." ).

About web.art I do recomend Ana Maria Uribe's poetry:
http://www.vispo.com/uribe/index.html

Her work is one of the best works I have seen in digital multimedia poetry.
Ana Maria Uribe, transforms letters of the alphabet into poetic characters,
which are always surprising and enchanting us. It is fascinating the way
letters create life and suggest scenes and happenings. It is an extremely
sophisticated creation; sophistication which is paradoxically suggested by
the enormous simplicity of the work with letters. Each new poem reveals a
very creative author who realizes her work completely.

I also like the work of Juan Manuel Patiño ( http://www.c2mi.com/led/  ) and
Muriel Frega (www.geocities.com/murielfrega/dco.htm  ) .

Muito carinhosamente,

Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: "info.saij-netart" <info@saij-netart.net>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Viewing Axalotls

Dear Regina, Hi Jim, Hi everybody,

First I'm very happy to discuss the new work of Regina
on [empyre].

I saw your new creation, regina, and I appreciate it.
There is the touch of humour and poetical nonsense I like.
In your answer to Jim's question about Cortazar and Kafka
you give explanations how the texts of the 2 authors are
different.
Your creation underlines another difference : your work
is not oppressive, I find it rather optimistic.
You feel uneasy with Kafka's works. Everything is blurred.
The same appears in the romans of Leo Perutz (was born in rag).

The discussion about art and poets in Brazil
(thank you for the information, it is very interesting to
learn about it) and the Kafka-Coortazar comparison
let appear a number of contacts with Europe and France.
For instance :
"Burrocracia" would be a pleasant idea to writers like
Franz Kafka or Karl Kraus, polemist (he wrote he never sleeps the
afternoon except when he had visited an administration
in the morning)
Regina mentioned Merleau-Ponty and Lévi-Strauss in relation
with neoconcrete.
Jim makes a parallel between "viewing axalots" and "the
metamorphosis"
The story of Julio Cortazar : "le jardin des plantes" à Paris
Regina said that :
"Viewing Axolotls" is based on the Fantastic Realism of Argentine author
Julio Cortazar.
"Fantastic realism" is the name given to works of austrian
painters like Fuchs, Brauer, Hausner, Lehmden,...
Is that a coincidence or is there an explanation for the
relations between south-america and europe (like history
and dictatorship, studies in Europe for south-american
writers, artists,...?)
What about the US culture ?

Best
Bien amicalement

Isabel

am 19.03.2004 13:41 Uhr schrieb Jim Andrews unter jim@vispo.com:

> Hi Regina,
>
> Reading the "Axalotls" story by Cortazar in your piece "Viewing Axalotls"
at
> http://arteonline.arq.br/viewing_axolotls , I am reminded somewhat of
Franz
> Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis," where the speaker turns into a giant
> cockroach (the Kafka text is at
> http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm , for those who might
> like to check it out). But the transformation of Gregor Samsa in Kafka's
> story seems quite different from the transformation in Cortazar's story.
In
> Kafka's story, the transformation is an absurdly terrible thing, a life
> wasted to the point where it is somehow only natural that he has turned
into
> a big disgusting bug. Whereas the transformation in Cortazar to Axalotls
> does not seem to have those overtones. I wonder if you would care to
comment
> on that aspect of the story and your use of the Cortazar story?
>
> Also, I note that Cortazar's "Axalotls" is from his collection "The End of
> the Game" and your piece has a kind of a game in it. Is this coincidence?
>
> jaxalotls
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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