biarritzzz

Mandacura

biarritzzz is interested in how the development of the internet, and experimentation in the virtual world happens simultaneously with the experimentation in the material world of the human species; and how these developments reflect the precariousness of life within neoliberalism. The title of their video work Mandacura is a corruptela (a linguistic distortion on writing or pronunciation) of the Portuguese sentence Mão da Cura (Healing Hand), distorting Portuguese into what sounds as Brazilian Afro-Indigenous. Inspired by and using the music and poetry of Alberto Marques, and drawing sources from archival images, webcam videos, screenshots, gifs and memes, the video asks: What provokes our feelings toward society, history, culture, and the future? How do we need our Gods? What are they trying to tell us? Is what society has done to our ancestral people and knowledge a sign of an ending?

Alberto Marques’ poem:

The hand of cure is always attentive

and always feeding our bodies

with prayers

with prices

with deadlines

proceedings

with prizes

with postures

promises

assumptions

with primes

primaries

with nails

auctions

The hand of peace is always feeding our bodies

with arms

with squares

with chats

presences

with prisms

with claps

feats

poems

with steps

promenades

with bridges

lungs