Technology promises us wonders, but it does not tell us which ones to operate.
Bertrand Russell^[1]

If the dawn of science is often regarded as the great thrust of modernity, the instruments it has spawned are the ones that have allowed us to test and manifest its precepts. Roger Bacon praised armillary spheres, magnets and narcotic cures in the thirteenth century to better understand natural processes, refine human life and predict the future. Holding an astrolabe, he observed the rainbow not as a divine event but as an optical phenomenon, estimating its maximum elevation at 42 degrees. Guilherme de Baskerville, inspired by him, said: ‘The divine plan will one day embrace the science of machines, which is a natural and beneficial magic’^[2]. A keen spectacle, watch and astrolabe enthusiast, he believed that ‘divine knowledge is manifested through human knowledge, which is used to transform nature’. Modern concepts such as progress and utopia took an evangelical slant, believing that these strange contraptions would be the engines of a cosmic reunion where the scientist would find rest in the divine bosom. The Greeks also dedicated themselves to machine studies: the bronzed automaton Talos, built by Hephaestus to shelter the island of Crete, was worshipped. Sadly, the Argonauts destroyed it with false hopes of immortality. Its downfall is like the ruin of an entire possible future for this humanity still addicted to the redemptive possibilities of human ingenuity.

Whilst common, the relationship between Arte e Tecnologia – the subject of the Norberto Fernandes Prize – has always fostered essential conflicts. As opposed to the authoritarian industrial revolution, which ‘required the cooperation of an immense number of individuals under a single direction’^[3], Ruskin mentioned the praiseworthy freedom of the Gothic craftsman. How could artistic practice, a stronghold of subjectivity, be compared to the inflexibility of industry? But it was precisely a technological development, the paint tubes, that allowed the Impressionists to throw themselves en plein air into the practice of their autonomy. This gradual personalisation of devices has absorbed so much into the intimate sphere of the individual that it is now almost indistinguishable from human anatomy itself – has this alleged improvement only made the drama more personal? Far from being a utilitarian process, technological development is an emotive gesture: we devise mechanisms that turn us into what we aspire to be, whether we know it or not. The god of technology is feeble – Hephaestus builds machines to rectify his shortcomings. All technology is a prosthesis that first and foremost exacerbates our flaws. So, in the exhibition, I mostly felt like Caliban in the mirror contemplating his own weaknesses and longings, delighted and appalled.

In Artificial Landscapes, Cristina Massena’s paintings provide a model for the 3D-printed works, rendering the intelligible language of painting into an incomprehensible idiom. Looking at their inhuman detail and unusual patterns is as much about being fascinated by the heralding of an unusual tomorrow as it is bitter about our banishment from its dynamics. If the logical ideal of who we are was lodged in machines, it rapidly developed beyond our abilities. Utilitarian progress no longer needs our input – is it our destiny to fertilise another creature? To contemplate this series is like witnessing the uncanny gospel of our end, where only incomprehension is understood.

In his Color Cave series, Pedro Henriques also makes a similar impression. The intimate human being alluded to by the cave assumes here the scientific perspective of cell biology, matter devoid of an aura and yet depicted in an almost ethereal way, its luminous expansion and radioactive tones hinting not only at laboratory dyes but also at the typical fright of self-analysis. He summarises the psychoanalytic monster in relation to the physiology of certain venomous animals, stressing the estrangement found in our own physical structure. Present-day alienation is also refuted here in the mismatch between painting and bas-relief, and the inclusion of buttons reinforces the scientific ideal of the human as a biological apparatus.

Positivism maintained that facts observed by scientists would finally build up a reservoir of information allowing us to sort out existence. In Limit of Disappearance, Bruno José Silva constructs an omniscient machine whose sensors detect the most sensitive occurrences, destroying itself before the audience. Not only is the work destroyed here – mainly the spectators, whose experience is constrained by the curiosity of the former, leading to an unavoidable existential impoverishment that cripples our capacities. Such mental weakness ultimately prevents us from grasping the consequences of our actions, in fact the very impact of this work: we helplessly contemplate the arcane landscape of the turmoil generated by our simple existence, the viscous oil flowing like a grotesque clock to keep pace with our unbridled extractivism.

If José Silva customises his critique of so-called modern progress in Sentiment Data Painting, Rudolfo Quintas – the Prize winner artist and project – extends it to the collective: the chromatic flow of his work is the outcome of an AI’s reading of current news, both good and bad. Rather than providing a clear picture of our psychological state, it stirs up the turbulence of informational logic – the relationship between the individual and society does not function under absolute moral poles, but is permeated by a complex psychology that is not always affected by other people’s catastrophes, quite the opposite – its artistic translation will always require great effort. Its fast-paced news exchange also shows how the seemingly constant supply of information paradoxically feeds the shortage of knowledge. The excess of stimuli obstructs a proper reflection, trivialises its seriousness and leads to powerlessness. Modernity wagered on human mastery over reality, but indifference is the apex of the well-informed subject who, beaten by the relentless march of history, is swept along by its tides.

The contrast between dynamism and inertia is also harnessed by the duo LealVeileby, who break with the propagandist nature of social media by creating short, looping videos that have no obvious meaning. Their hauntingly absurdist atmosphere and the cyclical nature of their narrative trigger a sort of hypnosis of frustrated expectations – the viewer, educated by the culture of communication, expects a revealing outcome that never manifests itself, perhaps finally coming to accept the impact of the oddness present in the most ordinary moments.

Time is also dealt with by Dalila Gonçalves, whose work Sinfonia a Vapor – distinguished with Special Mention – uses the first modern fuel not for utilitarian purposes – each kettle chirps in its own signature chime, reminiscent of the copper animal bonded to the tip of its undulating spouts, like frivolous specimens of species extinguished by the very elements found in the work: the squandered water, the heat of global warming, the metallic industrial imposition, the greenhouse effect of atmospheric gases. Could it truly be a symphony or a collective roar of tortured creatures no longer capable of articulating the lost harmony of nature? More than an imagination activity, such a stopwatch is an exercise in suspense where we anticipate a certain, albeit unassailable, end. It would have been more effective to have presented these themes in an innocent manner, perhaps commenting on our current naivety.

Inês Norton’s Until the Last Drop touches on similar motifs. With a more recent technological approach, it ridicules a future devoid of natural resources, where it is necessary to mimic water in a procedure that fails to omit its tricks. Its pseudo-ocean is trapped in a silky screen whose archaic mechanics simulate its movements and disturb its rest, in a growing sound dissonance. The suggested touch only reinforces the illusion: the ocean that once held mysteries is no longer deep, but now contains only gimmicks, like the poverty of a world whose technology has swapped the insult of the strange for the comfort of the familiar. It becomes a tomb, ritualising the end of what has long been lost, as if delayed mourning were a necessary means of redemption for those who no longer have anything to gain or lose.

If the technology is obvious in Inês Norton, Gabriel Abrantes obscures his tribute by painting in oil images generated by software – their final form offers no qualities that are only accessible by virtual techniques. Is it desert boredom itself that bends its creatures? According to different cosmogonies, the flood is the ultimate threshold between the end and the beginning, an in-between time inhabited by gods and ghosts who mourn the bygone catastrophe. Arantes enhances this dryness in the cruel gentleness of a sun that never ceases its twilight (dawn?) and in the delicacy of instruments that are more prone to useless decorations than soothing melodies.

In Time Lapse, Daniel Nave favours a technology that retains an optimistic touch. Science and technology have been viewed as the driving forces behind the globalisation of customs, in short, psychic communion: Nave dematerialises metropolises built in the International Style, with an iridescence that forces upon us a myopia which is the first stage of amazement. Its stick-billed cube is a magic box similar to the design of the first computers, in whose internal circuits Campbell found ‘a whole hierarchy of angels… Those tiny tubes are miracles’^[4]. The verticality of the poles and the depth of their union combine the transcendent and the immanent, as also dreamt of in the crystal-clear modern city, sacrilegious heir to the earthly paradise ushered in by the Gothic cathedrals.

Carlos Mensil also keeps the scientific optimism in Ilhéu by claiming technology as an aid to understanding. Physics often uses certain visual aids such as strings, loops, waves and veils in an attempt to solve our difficulty in visualising such sophisticated material interactions. ‘When it comes to atoms’, said Niels Bohr, “language can only be used as poetry”^[5]. The increasingly paradoxical and counterintuitive scientific theories call for art, not to illustrate the phenomena, but just to understand them. Therefore, Ilhéu develops its conceptual outlook of the loop theory, keen to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics. Its distorted see-through fabric shapes Einstein’s gravitational theory, and its striking mechanism centres on both simultaneity and the wave-like expansion of quantum physics.

The exhibition Arte e Tecnologia, with the finalists of the Norberto Fernandes Prize, is at Núcleo Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações until November 28.

^[1] Id., (2004). History of Western Philosophy. New York: Routledge, p. 455.
^[2] Eco, Umberto. (1986). The Name of the Rose. California: Warner, p. 14.
^[3] Russell, Bertrand. (2004). History of Western Philosophy. New York: Routledge, p. 455.
^[4] Campbell, Joseph. (1990) The Power of Myth. São Paulo: Palas Athena, p. 21.
^[5] Heisenberg, Werner. (1971) Physics And Beyond, New York: Harper & Row, p. 41.