Abstract

SILVA, Daniela Torres Gelly de Castro e  and  MELIM, Regina. Political-formal experiments in the performative linguistic body: writing in visual arts. Estúdio [online]. 2020, vol.11, n.31, pp.134-144.  Epub Sep 30, 2020. ISSN 1647-6158.

The text that was selected for this congress focused on artist Fabio Morais’ solo exhibition Writexpographic at the Vermelho Gallery in São Paulo in February 2017. The show consisted of pieces that disclosed the artist’s two decade long and ongoing research on writing within the realm of the visual arts. Such practice has been reflecting on the current formal-political experimentation of writing within a performative linguistic body. Writexpographic revealed graphic and spatial articulations that added to the written word the condition of image en marche, rendering new meanings - and new readings - onto the current political scenario in Brazil and abroad. However, the period that marked the completion of the article in late January 2020 and early March, when it was invited by the congress to be the keynote address, the world had dramatically changed. We found a world whose narrative came into a complete halt due to the coronavirus pandemic. The present in which we found ourselves needing to ‘update’ the article before the congress opening was as uncertain as it was hopeful, as it was dark. We were in the dark, except when lit by the blue light reflected by the computer and cell phone screens. In the attempt to reframe and redirect the discussion in the article while committing to its original intent we were motivated by Morais’ practice. We could not be sure what the writing needed to communicate or inform but we were certain what it had to perform, knowing that the role of art from then on demands answers, movement, voices, bodies, ethical posture.

Keywords : visual arts writing; performative writing; voices; bodies; movement; ethics.

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