Ruy Cézar Campos South Atlantic Nodal Techno-Imaginaries, 2024
Mixed Media Installation
Presented by Dreaming in Public with Nato Thompson
South Atlantic Nodal Techno-Imaginaries invites viewers to contemplate the tangible manifestations of global connectivity, delving into the intersection of digital infrastructure and physical environments.
Adorned in fiber-optic cables, Ruy Cézar Campos performs above undersea cable landing points, weaving a narrative that navigates the Brazilian, Angolan and Colombian Caribbean coastal landscapes where South Atlantic Cable System and Globenet are routed.
As analyzed by Nicole Starosielski (UC Berkeley) and Iago Bojczuk (Cambridge) in a recent article to e-flux, “In this embodiment of signal traffic, Campos draws attention to the materiality of media: to the sand that covers and composes the cables, and into which his feet sink; to the impenetrability of manholes that he can only encircle, almost robotically; to barbed wire and fences alongside cable landing sites. In several scenes, the artist divides the screen into quadrants that highlight the presence of cable structures such as manhole covers, the semi-urban, rural, and coastal surroundings, and the artist’s body.”
About the Artist:
Ruy Cézar Campos (Fortaleza, 1989) researches the distribution of digital data and the fluxes of “primary natural resources”, the infrastructural landscapes and narratives that involve this distribution, the relationship between media and environment, the modes of embodiment of the digital network, as well as methodologies of media archaeology focused on interculturality. He participated in exhibitions such as the 13th Havana Biennial, Take me to the river (Hamburger Bohnhof and online), Digital Art Biennial (Oi Futuro/Museu da Pampulha), 17th Verbo, Fields of Invisibility (Sesc Belenzinho), among others.