Alberto Caetano Dias Rodrigues
ÁGUAS
Artist | Alberto Caetano Dias Rodrigues |
Year | 2010 |
Duration | 2:57 min |
Edition | 10 + 2 AE |
Technical info | Master memory cards and transferred on DVD, loop |
Contact | |
About the video
UNINTERRUPTED CYCLES
The first and last scenes of the video Fazendo Água (2010) are deliberately similar: in both cases what we see is the image of the sea. Just as it is hard to tell them apart, it is also difficult to identify where the images were taken. But more than anything else it is important to note the way in which Caetano Dias has married the coexistence of parallel times, each associated with different spaces and existences. Thus, on seeing the vertiginous sky above the horizon, the eye of the onlooker is divided and confused by the calm repetitive movements of the ocean water. A beat that is out of synch with the calm rhythm of the waves and the violence of the clouds keeps pace with the swinging arms of a man, who moves slowly onwards until he comes across a small boat, on which he seems to be able to control what is around him.
An extract from a poem by Fernando Pessoa reminds us of hu¬man frailty: «a vida é breve, a alma é vasta» [life is brief, the soul is vast]. The frailty of life to which Pessoa was alluding is manifested here in the act of sinking: although the Brazilian expression “Fazendo Água” [literally “making water”] is used to describe a sinking boat, in his piece Fazendo Água Caetano shows us a man filling his boat with buckets of water that he is in turn filling from the sea. It seems that he is unaware of the imminence of his actions. If indeed life is fleeting, it is so because of the alienation of the self, which while seeming to act is often conduced to put an end its own existence. And so – in uninterrupted cycles – the desires and the control over the tini¬est part of nature that the self would seem to deter dissipate. This video, an important example Caetano Dias’ work, has close ties to the thinking of Seneca, in his turn influenced by Lucilius, on the great problem of watching life pass by as we create the conditions for our own drowning.
Josué Mattos
Credits
Direção e Fotografia: Caetano Dias
Participação: Carlos Rodrigues
Trilha Sonora: Wilson Sukorski
Produção: Marta Luna
Edição e Finalização: Dunia Quiroga
Assistente Técnico: Paulo de Souza (Palito)
Apoio: Carlos Gomes
Agradecimentos: Fernando Pigeard, Marco Antônio Ramos, Luísa Saad, Dona Lia Filmado em Ilha de Maré, Salvador-Bahia