Fios de Siler e (2024) is a sound and light installation that dives into the question: "How can silence be materialized in an audiovisual work of art?". Silence has no singular meaning but rather diverse constructions and complex meanings. It is not merely the absence of sound. Each person is in contact with silence and creates it alone and with others. The diversity of literature on this topic makes it clear that no consensus is possible. Thus, silence is elusive. How do we materialize the elusive? This artistic research project delves into this problem by looking at and studying how artists materialize silence, write and talk about it, and also look at how humans experience and relate to it. Extending the scope of research beyond the auditory world to embrace light as another dialectic force to address the materialization of silence, sound and light become the vehicles for expressing our thoughts. They permeate the exhibition space with metaphorical silences, making the materiality of silence tangible through the interplay of technological devices and physical structures, allowing it to be experienced by both bodies and minds.

Keywords: Silence, Materiality, Audiovisual installation, Sound art, Lumia

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In today's digital art landscape, we encounter what could be described as a certain technological fetishism. Regarding interactive audiovisual works, both the audience and the authors are too dazzled by technical excellence and complexity, placing the relationship with the work on a secondary level. The literature's focus on the computational system reflects this issue, greatly fostering aesthetic disinterest. In light of this, there arises a need to understand the metaphors that give life to these artistic objects, to comprehend how we can move beyond technological fetishism in creation, and to expose how aesthetics must, at the very least, be side by side with technique. As an artistic research project, its outcomes are the creation of tree-dimensional: an interactive audiovisual installation that arises from the observation and regular photographic recording of a tree over a year, and the composition of performative activations for it. Metaphorically, its outcome is a music box that fills the space and invites us to spend time with a ballerina full of branches, leaves, and roots.

Keywords: Interactive Artwork, Technological Fetishism, Metaphor, Tree, Performative Activation

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Silence is shaped by the context in which it is felt; therefore, we often consider its understanding as a simple thing. However, if we analyse in detail the vast range of situations in which it occurs, we can acknowledge that its meaning is not singular, but rather diverse and complex. Silence is calm, it is quietness, it is pain, it is awkward, it varies culturally, but it is no longer merely the absence of sound – it is expression, it is felt physically, and each person receives and creates silence, alone and with others. Literature has already categorised silence, but there is no consensus. This artistic research project aims to understand this concept and how we, humans, relate to it, going beyond the auditory world and taking it on as something audiovisual. Through the creation of an artistic installation where sound and light are vehicles for the expression of this concept, this project proposes to fill the exhibition space with silences, where their materiality is evidenced by the means used and felt by the bodies present.

Keywords: Silence, Materiality, Audiovisual installation, Sound art, Lumia

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This paper approaches the academic project facial_unit.pde – an interactive installation that presents a stream of images captured via a webcam and showcased on a screen within a public setting. The faces and expressions of the individuals who interact with the installation are stored, aligned, and superimposed in real-time, creating a collective and dynamic representation that merges their identities into a composite portrait. The installation seeks to understand the demographic diversity of these same individuals, highlighting and questioning the concept of community, as well as its intrinsic diversity. The artwork aims to challenge the viewer to reflect upon this average human figure located in the exhibition space, and the increased adoption of facial recognition technology for surveillance, monitoring and military purposes, questioning evasion techniques and their ethical and social implications.

Keywords: Interactive Installation, Face Detection, Computer Vision, Community

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