Endless scroll

Chico Amaral's small scene-paintings refer to a remote imaginary linked to the world of shadows and magic lanterns. The images, apparently static, are activated by a mechanism hidden behind the wall, invisible to the viewer, which reinforces the mysterious and almost archaic dimension of the device. It is a collaborative work that depends on the audience's participation in the mechanisms' activation, which may or may not occur, introducing chance into the interaction.

Up to this point in the exhibition, the experience has remained free of textual mediation: no text or panel has introduced discursive layers between the works and the public. Amaral's proposal is the first to incorporate this textual dimension, but it does so through a mobile and unstable terminological game. 

The work focuses on our propensity to participate in systems that generate images independent of our intentions. Images that come from movement, as in the clouds, opening up to multiple interpretations that can oscillate between the dreamlike, the technological or the catastrophic, underlining the fragility and mutability of language.

Credits
 

Endless scroll
Collages with mechanisms, 2026
DM, methacrylate, bearings, cotton rope, fishing reels, LEDs and batteries.
Technical advice: Cid Adorno Dias

Chico Amaral

Chico Amaral lives and works in Barcelona. He studied painting at the University of Brasilia (UnB), but soon began to work with installations and objects. In parallel, he works with editorial design and has a master's degree in Interaction Design and User Experience from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). He has been producing since the 1990s and has presented his work in several cities in Brazil. Some of his works are part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM-SP) and the MUSEU Nacional da República in Brasilia. 

www.chicoamaral.com