Emilia Álvarez (b.1985) Visual and multidisciplinary Argentinian artist.

OSX AN OPERA OF SILENCES, 2022 Performance 30:00min

ArteBA Fair, 2022
@fondofluido stand invitada por @disidentxs
Foto: María Langevín

ABOUT

The project began with the handmade creation of the bear suit, inspired by Fischli & Weiss’s Rat and Bear. Using the alter ego as a critical tool rooted in dark humor and the absurd, the OSX emerges as a displaced body questioning systems of hegemony and silencing. Central to the suit are hand-sculpted graphite claws. These claws repurpose graphite, an industrial material known for its conductivity and mechanical resistance, shifting it from a machine component to a tool for sculptural inscription.

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In performances like ArteBA 2022, the OSX drags cotton paper with nautical ropes, eventually waking to obsessively draw Xs and flowers: each X marking a silenced soul and each flower validating an existence. This "minimal opera" of breath, sound, and stroke creates a territory where the repressed finds form, also functioning as a space of denunciation and inquiry into the cruelty of the act of silencing, as well as the power of tenderness and the courage to express what has been repressed. The resulting paper traces remain as drawing-sculptures, while the performance’s ambient sound is recorded by the bear with a handy recorder to be reused in future iterations.