Mariana Manhães at Mattress Factory

And in the end…

marianaatthefactory — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:38:16 +0000

Thesethose - installation view at The Mattress Factory

After months of deep engagement with this project, the installation is now on show at The Mattress Factory. Thesethose is finally there, inhabiting one of the 4^th floor galleries.

Sometimes people ask me about my creative process – questions like if I start with the video or with the body of the work, how decisions are made, etc. I always tell people that there is no rule and for each different project I experience a unique process. With Thesethose, it wasn’t different. It was the first time that I had left all decisions concerning the “body” to be taken in situ, during my stay in Pittsburgh. Risky, but surely this was one of the reasons I enjoyed doing this project so much.

Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without my engineer, Antonio Moutinho, and The Mattress Factory great team.

Thanks to you all!

Photos and a video of Thesethose can be seen in my website:

marianamanhaes.com

The exhibition at The Mattress Factory will be on until May 2012.

First week at The Mattress Factory

marianaatthefactory — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 01:38:20 +0000

It’s been a week since I arrived in Pittsburgh. I came with my engineer, Antonio, and we have been working hard since the first day.

The first thing to do was to set up two tables and organize our “office” at the gallery.

"Office" at The Mattress Factory.

Then, we begun unpacking things, checking carefully if there was any broken piece. Everything was just fine.

So many pieces!

In most of my previous work, there was always something to be decided in situ, but this experience is being unique – this is the very first time I left almost all decisions to be made at the exhibition space. This is very good for the work, because every little step is decided according to the piece. I can try everything before, to see if it works in the space.

Testing...

Small pieces.

Ideas.

Pipes.

Plastic bags.

Lung.

Pittsburgh: this is the view from my gallery, at the Museum. One of those pretty windows is my bedroom window, at the residence. Today, it was 1 degree Celsius in the morning - quite a low temperature for somebody from Rio!

How fast things go

marianaatthefactory — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:34:35 +0000

The two packs containing the work’s “brains” are already at The Mattress Factory!

On the left: photo taken in Rio, last Tuesday. On the right: today Owen Smith, Exhibitions Manager at the MF, sent us this photo to show everything arrived safely. How fast!

Packing up

marianaatthefactory — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:48:54 +0000

As we decided to prepare most of the circuits and motors here in Brazil (or the “brains”, as we are calling them), we are now packing up everything to be shipped to Pittsburgh hopefully next ~~Monday~~ Tuesday.

So, what we are doing now is to organize everything, checking carefully if there’s something missing. What you can see in the pictures bellow are some wind blowers, circuits, motors… brain stuff.

Window #2

marianaatthefactory — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:39:59 +0000

The weather was fantastic today and I got a perfect view from my window to record video #2.

Second video: window #2

Window #1

marianaatthefactory — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:32:32 +0000

A few weeks ago I told you I was planning to do something with the three windows in the exhibition room. Well, I’m going to use my house’s architecture to be part of my work. This will create a dialogue between my windows and the ones in the room.

Today I started capturing their images with my video camera. This process is very clumsy, because I don’t worry about making digital effects or so. When recording a video, I normally use strings or my own hands to move things.

Next step: to record my voice and start editing the animation videos.

Window #1

Introducing: my hand.

Rainy day

marianaatthefactory — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:51:25 +0000

Today is a cold and rainy day in Rio, so I’m taking the opportunity to stay at home and work on the sketches. This is going to be a hard working week and I want to have the whole idea for the work figured out by friday.

Here are some pictures of the studio today.

Click to view slideshow.

Note: having a blog might be a new task for myself, but I know many artists who also find this the best way to keep everyone updated about what’s going on. Here are two of them I’d like to recommend:

Lucas Bambozzi

Marcelo Moscheta

Drawings

marianaatthefactory — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:36:02 +0000

A big work that is going to an exhibition next October is practically finished and now I will (finally!) be able to dedicate myself to the MF project. Actually, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do… just have to sketch ideas up and start building a prototype.

I will definitely use the windows, but I have to work that out a little bit. It’s more like the “idea of windows”. I’ll do another post on this subject later on.

Sketches I'm working on.

This is one of the sketches I’m working on. Drawing is very important to my process and I use to call these drawings Syntaxes, because they are like arranged ideas that make sense when put together. Like in linguistics.

The detail bellow shows some of the equipment I’m planning to use in the project: electric fans.

Electric fans.

A Room with Three Windows

marianaatthefactory — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:12:37 +0000

Thinking...

Last week I’ve received the first images of the exhibition room. Great!

Naturally, my mind was immediately filled with questions about the space: what can and what can’t be done in there? Can I drill holes in the walls? Can I hang things on the celing? Is that an emergency exit? If it is, can I use the floor space right in front of it? I’m organizing all these questions in a list to ask in the next Skype call.

The room is very large and almost as big as the one occupied with the installation “Among” in Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil last year (*). The diference is that it is divided into two ambients by a small corridor that leads to what seems to be an emergency exit. It is full of natural light, provenient from three windows.

I like those windows.

(*) “Among” [in portuguese: "Dentre"] was a solo exhibition held from August to September 2010 in Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro. For more information, please visit this page.

GETTING STARTED!

marianaatthefactory — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:54:16 +0000

Studio in Rio.

This blog’s aim is to show the process and development of a new work – a site specific installation for The Mattress Factory, located in Pittsburgh, US.

For the next months, I’m going to work in my studio in Rio, sketching up ideas and maybe working on prototypes. Later on, during October, I will fly my way to Pittsburgh to work in situ.

This blog and my Facebook Profile will both be used to report all information about the process: ideas, images, videos and comments on what will be going on.