Time Machine

Time Machine (2023), by Igor Jesus, is a multi-media installation, which revolves around an electronic sculpture. The installation, one of five project rooms embodying the multifaceted project AYNI: Theorems of Reciprocity, examines the predominance of anthropocentric ontologies of perception and proposes, much like his larger body of practice, that art and artistic practice has the means to make visible the otherwise imperceptible.

Departing from traditional static art, this exhibition integrates photography, movement, interactive sound, and radio elements. The work, in conversation with the physical space of the here and now also pulsates with dynamic sound and visual effects, offering a sensory journey that extends beyond the boundaries of the gallery space. Time Machine builds on Igor Jesus’s previous works, including Poem of Fire (2021), where he blended classical and electronic music together with light and astrological activity. Inspired by the unfinished work of Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1871–1915), Poem of Fire explored the modelling of sound after the visual, using a NASA database to translate solar pulses into song.

By drawing inspiration from previous experiences, Time Machine invites viewers to engage with a living sculpture, a space to meditate, a space of liminality, through a different kind of discourse. The artist’s ability to translate visual stimuli into auditory experiences creates a synesthetic encounter, challenging conventional notions of artistic vision. Given the loyalty to his research-based practice, the installation serves as a natural progression of a kind of exploration that at once pushes the boundaries of expression and audience engagement and creates new discursive and epistemic material in the field of perception.

Lastly, by framing the piece’s multisensory elements within Galeria Antecâmara, one can imagine Jesus’s narrative to infuse the hollowed spaces of the building’s architecture, while also, due to the space’s exhibitionism-ready windows, extend beyond the confines of the gallery. It would be a laborious attempt to define the threshold between inside and outside, of where the skin of the artwork truly ends. Instead, Time Machine serves itself as a translatory and transitory experience with more-than-human phenomenon.

The project is part of the Curatorship Seminar, of the MA and PhD international programme in Culture Studies, The Lisbon Consortium, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas and Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Curated by MA and PhD Students in Culture Studies of The Lisbon Consortium, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas and Universidade Católica Portuguesa Teresa Catarino Bivar Weinholtz, Rosalind Shenay Murphy, Ida Vaage Svee, Aishwarya Kumar lyer, and Joana Nóbrega Guilherme Silva Cardoso

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Igor Jesus lives and works in Lisbon and has a degree in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. In 2013, he won the first prize in the ICA (Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual) competition for the making of short films. His solo exhibitions include: Chessari (2016), Solar Gallery, Vila do Conde, The Last Letter to Santa Claus (2015), Filomena Soares Gallery and Under the Sun (2015), Appleton Square, both in Lisbon. In 2014 he presented the exhibition Old School #32, in Lisbon, and in 2013, Peso Morto, Espaço Zero, Tomar.

Igor most recent group exhibitions include: HangarOut – EntreLinhas, Palácio Marquês de Abrantes (2017), 2016 Artists' Film International (at MAAT, Lisbon, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Istanbul Modern, Turkey, GAMeC – Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy, and Projecto 88, Mumbai, India); Topología del Aura, Galeria Bacelos, Madrid (2016), Down with borders! Long live design and the arts – Dialogue on design and works from the António Cachola collection, Elvas Museum of Contemporary Art and Pátio da Galé in Lisbon (2016) and The lynx knows no borders, Fondation d'Entreprise Ricard, Paris.

His works can be found in collections such as: António Cachola Collection, Elvas, Portugal; Fernanda Ribeiro Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; EDP Foundation Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; Norlinda and José Lima Collection, São João da Madeira, Portugal; TFRA – Teixeira de Freitas e Associados, Lisbon, Portugal. Conceiving a work that is singular with each drive, the unity of Igor Jesus' work is manifested precisely in its plurality: although he outlines an implicit set of persistent issues that will be dealt with in this text, his guiding line is particularly sinuous and irregular, finding its greatest coherence in the unpredictable and heterogeneity.