Interview with the creative lab — Openfield
Ivo Teixeira and Francisca Rocha Gonçalves, the two members of the creative lab Openfield, are coming from Porto, Portugal, to perform with their drawing machine Drippigment for Artificial Retirement’s closing reception on September 11th. I met them in 2015 at a Supercollider workshop at the University of Porto and saw the very beginning of Openfield and their creation Drippigment at their studio in Porto.
Teixeira is a visual and new media artist who has background in traditional form of painting. His works explore interactive systems in audiovisual installations and live performance between the private and public space. Gonçalves has a background in biological sciences and she combines her interests in music and nature. I interviewed Teixeira to get to know more about Openfield and their activities.
Can you tell us more about Openfield — Creative Lab?
We started with the idea of collaboration and openness. We all came from different but yet convergent fields, so it made sense to not limit what we are by defining it by what we do. Hence, Openfield.
The five members of founders are Francisca Rocha Gonçalves, the soul behind sound design, Ivo Teixeira, the plastic artist mediating the dialogue between concept and art work, Nuno Carvalho, the architect responsible for keeping it real, Rodrigo Carvalho, the wizard taking care of the interaction design, and Tiago Gama Rocha, the bridge that allows for the interaction between different fields.
It was the academic paths of Francisca, Ivo, Rodrigo and Tiago that ignited the bond that later would become OpenField. Francisca just finished her master’s in Interactive Music and Sound Design, while the rest of us are all finishing our doctoral programs in Digital Media. We are privileged to be apart of a hybrid collaboration between the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin. This International Co-Lab for Emergence Technologies has given us the opportunity to do research in both institutions and have our work critiqued by different schools of thought.
After so many years investing in our personal careers it made sense to find the right group of people and build something from scratch. The five of us firmly believe that we can develop and produce more complex and holistic work when we are together. At this point Nuno and his background in curating art exhibition became critical for our development as a collective and since then has been the steady beacon that has steered us to less tumultuous water.
What kind of works and activities do you do?
We are really proud of our teamwork so far and look ahead for newer challenges down the line. Apart from our in-house education program (we continuously have conferences, workshops and student presentation in our space) we all shared the drive for producing artwork that allows us to exhibit both in galleries and outdoor public spaces.
Any selected works from Openfields are such as Drippigment, our first work as collectives, and Open Lazers, a site-specific public space performance. Within last months Drippigment has already been exhibited in Hong Kong, Bergamo, Brighton and now New York for Artificial Retirement. OpenField also has been evolving ever-since its birth. Our site-specific synchronised haze, laser and sound installation performed for 15 days in Porto’s main avenue during the most relevant folk city celebrations.
What was the inspiration to create Drippigment?
It is inevitable to reference Jackson Pollock’s painting technique ‘Dripping’, which is broadly characterized by the non-contact between the brush and the canvas. The gesture and the movement of body in relation to the canvas are the most important features of this abstract expressionist technique.
In the beginning we tried to find a visual path which would merge each field and individual expectation of us. Then it makes sense to say that Drippigment made of our daily interaction in our studio. We decided to avoid being exclusively digital and set a goal of having physical output. This high-tech as well as low-tech approach was critical to the advent of Drippigment. Also, we see that the world is evermore dependent on use of screens with mediated reality. Drippigment presents itself as a nostalgic approach with an aim to bringing back the usage of human body for an artistic experience.
Have you found any interesting patterns from the drawings by Drippigment ?
The force behind the output of the machine is unpredictability. Sure, as time goes by, we learn to control the machine in the same way a painter learns to control his brush. Nevertheless, with each series of painting, the experience of Drippigment is itself the outlier, inevitably forcing us to question our very own preconceived notion of what our creation really is. Composition and aesthetics are in this scenario; an expression of human nature and a tool for recontextualizing concepts.
Artificial Retirement is one of Flux Factory’s 2016 major exhibitions curated by Jung In Jung and Joelle Fleurantin.
Closing Event: September 11th 6pm with performances by Amelia Marzec and Robert Mayson, Openfield, Kat Sullivan, Sergio Mora-Diaz and Caitlin Sikora. AR is a Flux Factory major exhibition.
Gallery Hours: August 19 until September 11, 2016, Thursday through Sunday 1pm — 6pm or by appointment.
Contact: artificialretirement@fluxfactory.org
