How many times must we repeat our mistakes before finally learning from them? Although the history of humanity is often seen through the lens of progress, it is also marked by ruptures and dilations.
In catastrophe orchestra no. 1 (Act I), Antonio Társis addresses drive and repetition as metaphors for the historical trajectory. Using collected matchboxes, the artist builds panels with empty areas and a relentless insistence on the same material. The red surfaces evoke breathing bodies: repeated, yet porous. In this context, repetition appears as an expression of humanity’s constant search.
The work also incorporates the idea of rhythm, activated by a mechanism that sets in motion rope pendulums connected to the panels. As they strike drums, this movement wears down the elements and transforms the material, revealing time as an agent of change.
As Starasea Camara observes in the Bienal catalog, “from the friction of heated water to the pressurized whistles of steam, through the muffled echo of coal striking atabaques, handmade drums from his community in Cabula, Salvador, his installations evoke landscapes of disorder that reveal human extraction, consumption, and destruction.”
The installation occupies a large area with 11 suspended walls, formed by mosaics of small fragments of matchboxes painted in vibrant shades of purple, red, and pink, with touches of orange, green, black, and yellowish stains. Glued onto a structure of thin wooden slats, these fragments form panels of dense, irregular texture. Scattered throughout the space, 64 rope pendulums hold pieces of coal that, activated by a motor, fragment on impact. The residues fall to the floor and mix with the debris of the walls, continuously transforming the appearance of the work.
Beneath some pendulums, three leather drums—djembes—receive the coal fragments, producing muffled, dry, and irregular sounds. Captured by microphones and amplified, these sounds blend into a soundscape composed of noises and human voices, creating an unpredictable, fragmented cadence.
In the artist’s own words, his installation is “an attempt to create an environment of collision between materiality, destruction, noise, the cold sanitization of grand technologies, and humanity.”