LARGO DAS ARTES: DAY 36

Today Monday morning the traffic in Rio was slowing down my journey. It took me one hour to arrive at Largo das Artes by bus n.422 leaving from Corcovado terminal and stopping closer to Uruguaiana street. Usually it is a trip of half hour... At midday I had appointment with Speed Print Lab for the third time! Finally today Fabio (photo below) with the supervision of the owner of the place (the man at the telephone) printed my photos into a new clean and fresh solvent so he was able to control better the colours and matching them as closer as possible to the original test. Eureka, my perseverance has been rewarded and a big thanks to the great translator Jasmine! Tomorrow I will be there to collect the 160 prints that I can utilise for a future show in Sydney.

On the way back to the studio I couldn't resist to buy a glass of fresh coconut water - in Portuguese Agua de Coco -  served by Fabiana and Mariana that are working in the same spot everyday very close to Plaza Tiradentes from 9am to 8 pm, non stop!

At the studio I planned my meeting with Frado Monteiro at 5pm that arrived wearing a creative dress made by a big plastic bag to protect himself from the rain while driving the scooter because he forgot his jacket at home! At the same time Samuel Urias arrived with all the 6 shell speakers repaired and made for me! One last supervision by Frado that discovered that one of the 10cm speakers was broken so he made Samuel repaired it... Poor Samuel it will be the last commission I promise, I made him to pose with the Umbanda herb to attract money!

With Frado Monteiro we choose the sounds to work with and we experimented with different waves, curved and squared, different rhythms and seeds. I am not sure if I will utilise all my sounds I recorded since I am here in Rio or stay simple with just the pure sounds vibrations created with one of Frado's special sound applications. Another alternative is that I will also integrate my improvised singing following the created rhythm... Let's see how it will go the feedback with Felippe Moraes next Thursday at Largo Lab .

LARGO DAS ARTES: DAY 35

Today, Sunday, I planned to go to visit the Museu do Indio because I read in the Lonely Planet guide that it contains 200 sounds recordings! This could have been a great source of inspiration for my acoustic installation also approved by accidental encounters like the palm leaf I walked on just outside of my accommodation, decorated in a way that reminds Indio ancient knowledge. I took a bus from Corcovado terminal and I arrived near the place much earlier I was expecting. So I stopped to the Casa de Ruy Barbosa one of the last residence left at the time when the area called Botafogo was surrounded by farms and transformed in residences during XIX century. Also this house was opening around 2pm so I visited only the garden, a peaceful space for couple, old people and families. I went a little bit crazy with filters using Instagram application because the place has so much a feeling of a past allure...

When I arrived to the Museu do Indio there was Tom Carneiro waiting for the Museum to be open. I met Tom at the beginning of February at Parque Lage and when I explained to him the reason why I was there he suggested to go to visit another exhibition where I could listen to some authentic Indio sounds! This is so much a coincidence! He was there to buy some presents for his family so I followed him inside of the shop where I bought an authentic bracelet made by the Indigenous tribe called Kayapo from Para'. It was my way to celebrate the Woman's day surrounded by the women working there! From left the sales woman Anete Macedo, me, the receptionist Deby Freitas on the right and the beautiful smile one Eloah Santos.

The little Museo do Indio was very interesting and well presented with a special exhibition called Os Ashaninka, O Poder Da Beleza representing the Ashaninka culture, one of the biggest tribes living in the Amazonia Est. The library and archive were closed because of Sunday, I will be back during the week for sure but I am not sure if I will find the 200 sounds recording there because nobody seemed to know about it.

With some time left I decided to go to visit an other contemporary exhibition called O Papagaio de Humboldt at Oi Futuro Flamengo near to Largo do Machado area. An interesting acoustic installation made by 15 artists from Latin American recording forgotten tribal languages that are risking to disappear. The exhibition is inspired by the Parrot Myth about a parrot found around 1800 by the German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt as unique talkative survivor of a tribe that was living in the forest of Orinoco and being totally destroyed after a battle between tribes. I was very inspired by the simplicity of the installation based on words, cacophony of sounds and illuminations.

An interesting thing to know is that at Oi Futuro you can sit and read and listen to all the books, newspapers and Cds you choose. So I stayed there another half hour reading about contemporary Brazilian Art while taking some sneaky shots of readers and writers.