Ricardo Nascimento

According Michel Foucault exist a wire of power among us. The power side changes constantly and every moment we can notice it.

Foucault decentralizes power and argues that it does not operate through class but through mechanisms and strategies. Foucault argues that power should be understood in terms of its operations, techniques, tools rather than in terms of simply what it is. Power is not owned by the state, nor is it specific to any particular organization. It is a machinery that no one owns. Power must be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anybody’s hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth.

The authority project comes from an experience that I could face on the beginning of 2006. I was at an immigration department of a European country trying to figure out what should I have to do to have a special documentation. Then, my first thought was ask for a policeman who was in front of the door. Maybe he was so stressed with people asking many different questions in many different languages that when I went to his direction he started to yell in his mother tongue. I was astonished, because I was not able to ask him anything. So, my reaction was start to yelling in Portuguese (my mother tongue) with him. Afterwards, he became calm and we could talk normally.

Authority is an interactive video installation where, inside a small dark room, you face a policeman in the same proportion as you. Thus, you are in the same level of power.

Them he starts to speak with you using his pseudo power. If you do not say anything the policeman becomes bigger and bigger. This will continue until you start to say something. According the volume of your voice the policeman size start to diminish. In this way the power relation is equalized by the decibels.

Ricardo de Oliveira Nascimento, ricardo.nas@terra.com.br, 1977, lives and works in Linz - Austria. He works as multimedia designer, developer and producer. He graduated in International Relations, Social Sciences and Multimedia Design and is taking a master course in Interface Culture at KunstUniversität Linz.
In 2007 he was selected for the Rumos Arte Cibernética by Itaú Cultural Institute in Brazil. In 2006 he produced a biennial edition in art and technology of Itaú Cultural Institute – Emoção Art.ficial 3.0. In 2005 his work “cave canem” was presented at Museu da Imagem e do Som at São Paulo. In 2004 and 2003 he created and produced an amount of cultural and edutainment exhibitions and events as “Cochicho da Mata” which was awarded by Prize Public Opinion and Prize ECO of American Trade Bureau of São Paulo and “ LixoÚtil” which was awarded by Prize Public Opinion – 2005.
More about him at www.popkalab.com