1. What aspects does this artwork integrate (formally, plastically, or conceptually)?

A clump of soil from the Estrada Real, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

2. Where is it embedded? (what was the genesis of the making? - the milieu, the context).

This image is part of the book The Neutral Body and enters a camera’s long take, moving from family portraits to the space of the studio. A movement that continues until it encompasses the entire cosmos and also a piece of ground with its dry roots.

3. What Question or Action does it pose?

A modern visual paradigm: in the discussions of 19th-century culture, there was talk of a “subjective vision,” emphasizing the role played by the mind in perception, from conceptions of imitation to those of expression, from the metaphor of the mirror to the lamp. However, alongside the dissolution of a transcendent foundation for vision, a plurality of means emerged to recode the activity of the eye, organize it, enhance its productivity, and prevent its distraction. The imperatives of capitalist modernization, while demolishing the field of classical vision, generated techniques to impose more accurate visual attention, rationalize sensation, and manage perception.

Filipe dos Santos Barrocas (Portugal, 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and teacher based in São Paulo since 2010. His work combines visual and performing arts, with a focus on photography. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), researching Brazilian art and anthropology in dialogue with the Portuguese colonial past. With a Master's degree in Visual Poetics from the same institution, he published the award-winning thesis "The Neutral Body" (2015). In 2020, he won the ProAC Expresso Aldir Blanc and presented the film "Labirinto" at the Tiradentes Film Festival. He has exhibited at Espaço das Artes (São Paulo), NowHere (Lisbon), Centro Cultural São Paulo (São Paulo), and participated in festivals such as Fotografia de Tiradentes and Rotterdam Photo.