The experience of the place
A conversation between Marcius Galan and Fernando Oliva on “Point to Scale, MASP”
Fernando Oliva_ I would like to start by talking about your work process and how it led you here to this solution, “Point to Scale, MASP”.
Marcius Galan_ I started thinking about these works at the time of the 29th Bienal de São Paulo. I had two projects that were about transposition of scale and one of them was a set of map prints that I had taken from Google Maps, and I would cut out a small section where a border line was printed and send it to a laboratory that would do a microscopy, adhering to the map scale, in order to find the actual scale. I conflated two disciplines, created my own methodological rationale, and with this methodology, I created a loophole that let me question the accuracy of this representation. When microscopy enters a small piece of paper, landscapes begin to emerge, formed from the fibers and chemical elements that exist within it—landscapes that do not exist, contained within the dividing line, which is a place that does not belong to either side: it is a space for “entry“ or a space “between”. The work was called “Entre” in Portuguese, [a word which, remarkably, means both “enter”, “come in” and “between.”]
FO_ In what way has this thinking affected your new proposal?
MG_ These works attempt to create friction in the very idea of representing place. Here, especially, when you invited me to participate in this exhibition [Avenida Paulista1], I soon thought of this series of works, since MASP is historically a point of convergence for political situations, [a point] that goes beyond just the cartographic idea, that goes beyond the geometric and cartographic relationship that was present in the previous work I had shown at the Bienal. I was thinking a lot about the relationship of the point [or dot on a map] to São Paulo, about creating a graphic element printed on the actual surface of the city. But at the same time, depending on the distance from which you look, it turns into a point or dot that marks a place—as on the map. On the one hand, you have the distancing that the map provides, organizing our spatial understanding and, on the other hand, we have the actual place, which obeys the scale of the map but combined with all the confusion of the city.
FO_ Other works, such as “Insulators”, also dealt with similar problems.
MG_ Yes, the “Insulator” series brings into play the idea of demarcation of territory, which also starts with this informal demarcation of territory on the street, with the tapes that isolate a place temporarily. On the street, you see a guy isolating a parking space for a car with a tape. He goes there and sets up a cement post, puts a tape in place, and creates these territorial relations within the city. I think this question is recurrent in my work—the question of limits, territories, lines. And, in this, the question seems to go beyond place, beyond the political question involving the territory and the relationship of the people with the city, to become a question of design as well, a question of geometry, of the point as a graphic element, which begins in the design. For me it is also very interesting to think of the point as the essential element of design in geometry. Two points constitute the starting place for making a straight line, then three for creating an area, but the point itself is an abstract element, a completely fictitious element. In any definition of geometry, the point has no area. It is a completely abstract element and from the moment that you draw a point on the paper, that you mark a point, it moves from the plane of the idea to the plane of the surface where it presents itself as a point, and it now has a size. It is, in itself, a contradiction. So, I kept thinking that geometry begins with a great contradiction: that you create the whole logical structure of the representation of space with an element that is completely imprecise. So, this issue of precision and imprecision is, I think, the starting point of this work.
FO_ Wouldn’t this imprecision be related to the fact that an ordinary vocabulary has to be sufficient for a global grammar? Because a point is always the same, on the map, in cartography. But it can represent both a city like Sarajevo and another like Curitiba. It has the apolitical aspect of cartography, but at the same time it can’t escape politics because it can’t keep up with the transformations, with the momentum of political transformations. I’m saying this because Avenida Paulista—MASP— has become this point: it has short-circuited, with manifestations ranging from the most libertarian and progressive to the most reactionary and conservative.
MG_ Exactly, and that’s what made me think about this work for this location. Avenida Paulista is already like this and MASP, in particular, has become a point of convergence. But there are two lines of reasoning moving in parallel. The question of precision is closely related to the idea of geometry itself, finding a breach within a precision system. Of course, I create some rules that are somewhat arbitrary, that I set up, or I associate disciplines to create a space where I can have doubts about the idea of representation.
FO_ I’ve wondered, Marcius, if there might be a contradiction, if your project might be on this borderline between a shared vocabulary, which is what cartography is, and the point in cartography, which has to seek neutrality—it has to be neutral. It will be dealing with degrees of measurement, with the number of people in the city, and the points [dots] will be larger or smaller. They will have colors, too. Anyone who has seen such a map, Michelin cartography, for example, knows the precision that such a system can achieve.
MG_ Yes, this organization is not precise, because in fact you have two things: the point enters as a graphic element, which is a representation, and the cartography has scale. This scale is reflected in everything on the map, except the lines and dots, which constitute another layer on the map that you deduce—you look at the map almost as if it had two layers. So, when you submit these graphical elements to the scale of the map, which is what I did for this work, this point will have size, which is a cartographic or, in this case, a geometric aberration. The point is a theoretical element; it is not an element that can be measured. So, this idea of having a point on the map in scale and having that result reflected in actual size is a geometric prank that deals with these questions of doubt, of having doubts about representation. When you represent a space on the map, this space is teeming with particularities and nowadays we recognize the representation of everything, we know more or less what the map of each place, each capital, looks like; we recognize, but we haven’t had the experience. This relationship between the experience of the place and the representation of the place is another thing that interests me. I think that when the point is actually under your feet, when you walk on it, it is as if you had transitioned from the representation that is inside the museum, inside the frame, from that point on a map that is totally white, without any reference, to this point or dot reflected on the pavement, on the ground, in the city, where things happen, where demonstrations take place, where young people gather to smoke marijuana, where people who have nowhere to sleep find shelter. The experience of the place versus the virtual possibility of a superficial, distant global knowledge. The further away, the more precise.
Fernando Oliva is a curator, researcher and professor. He integrates MASP’s artistic directorship. He holds a PhD in History and Art Criticism from the University of São Paulo.
[1] The exhibition Avenida Paulista took place at MASP, from Feb. 17 to May 28, 2017.
Adriano Pedrosa and Tomás Toledo were responsible for the curatorship, with Camila Bechelany, Luiza Proença, Fernando Oliva (MASP curators) and Amilton Mattos (Univ. Federal do Acre).
Photographs Douglas Garcia, Edouard Fraipont (pp.14-15, 28-29)
Interview Fernando Oliva Proofreading Alexandre Barbosa de Souza
Translation Ruth Adele Dafoe Image editing Douglas Garcia
Graphic design Marina Oruê Printing Meli-Melo Press
São Paulo, july 2017
Membrana ⁄ www.membrana.info/100
The work “Point to Scale, MASP” was commissioned for the exhibition “Avenida Paulista” at MASP, curated by Adriano Pedrosa and Tomás Toledo, with Camila Bechelany, Luiza Proença, Fernando Oliva and Amilton Mattos.
Acknowledgments Fernando Donaire, Gustavo Donaire, Mauro Amorim, Luisa Strina, Douglas Garcia, Edouard Fraipont and Guilherme Pacolla.