Short Story: (Over) loading

BY / POR MAURA GRIMALDI

It had been days since I attended the last social event. I was home, wearing my old baggy trousers, which had been sitting in my closet for 14 years and went extremely well with the coffee stains left on the third cup of coffee I had that morning.

While I was trying to manage the 23 tabs open in 3 separate windows on my desktop – on 2 different monitors - I remembered I had to search for Nuno Ramos’ new art project for the web¹. I had seen this Brazilian artist’s new release being advertised the day before on my social networks.

So I entered the website www.aarea.co and let the navigator running. But it was not working. The video was going to air simultaneously with Jornal Nacional² (major TV news in Brazil), and it would only be broadcast a few minutes later that evening. To avoid looking at the time incessantly, I decided to turn on the TV. Suddenly, I realized the TV was on, the computer was on, the cell phone was ringing, messages coming in, the lights were on both in the kitchen and in the living room, and all rooms and devices were exhaling energy. The video was loading and I was overloaded with lights and multiple monitors.

 The bell rang and I rushed to the door to open it, pretty sure it was her.

– What’s with you? – I answered as I turned my back on her. – Hurry! You have got to see this! She joined me, and when I looked at the monitors, there it was. Flashes, leaps and robot-sounding speeches recreating Lígia³, a well-known song written by Tom Jobim. Syllable by syllable, unraveled, extended at times, to the sound of a machine long overdue, a shredded song was coming through.

I was looking forward to the chorus and to my surprise, the words kept on getting stuck. I could hardly believe it when I realized that, what I presumed to have been caused by my poor internet connection was, in fact, an intentional mistake used as a resource by the artist.

The work was available for a few days, and then got lost in the ephemeral world of online channels. Despite the subtracted lines that Me metem mais medo que um raio de sol (frighten me more than a ray of light) , Lígia became a hideous creature. The ghost in the news, the ambiguity in the song.

Melancholy was in the air.

¹Nuno Ramos recreated the song ³Lígia - composed during the military dictatorship in Brazil - through video and audio editing. The artist used news videos from ²Jornal Nacional, that aired on March, 16th and August, 31st, for his project, specially produced for Aarea (a digital platform for artists), in which the tapped phone call between former president Lula and Dilma Roussef was released, and when the petition for impeachment of Ms. Roussef was approved. The anchors appeared to be singing the words written by Tom Jobim, due to really good editing. The video was broadcast together with Jornal Nacional, and interrupted during commercial breaks and when the news were not on air. It was available for approximately twenty days.

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Telas sobre telas

Fazia dias que eu não comparecia aos eventos sociais.  Eu permanecia em casa com aquela velha calça desbotada que completava o seu aniversário de 14 anos em meu guarda-roupa e que combinava com o resto de café grudado no fundo da terceira xícara sobre a mesa.

Enquanto administrava as 23 abas separadas em três janelas distintas no desktop do computador – distribuído em dois monitores – lembrei de buscar o novo projeto do artista brasileiro Nuno Ramos¹ feito para a web. Havia visto sua divulgação no dia anterior em uma das minhas redes sociais.  

Digitei o código www.aarea.co e deixei a navegação correr por conta. Não, o trabalho não estava funcionando. Ele só seria iniciado no momento em que o Jornal Nacional² fosse ao ar. Faltavam minutos. Ao invés de marcar pelo relógio, melhor seria marcar pelo televisor. Ele ligado, o computador ligado, o celular a piscar intermitentemente as mensagens que chegavam, diante de uma sala e cozinha também acesas. A energia a postos, todos em modo on. Telas sobre telas.

A campainha tocou, levantei-me com a plena convicção de que ela havia chegado.

– Por que essa cara? – E eu respondi já me virando de costas. – Corre! Vem ver! Ela juntou-se a mim, e quando voltei-me para as telas, lá estava. Em cortes e saltos, falas robóticas a refazer os versos da canção Lígia³, de Tom Jobim. Sílaba por sílaba desfiada na prolongação dos tempos. Ao som da máquina em atraso, uma música cheia de rasgos.  

Eu ansiosamente no aguardo do refrão, mal poderia prever que ele seria a palavra mais atravancada. Mal poderia prever que aquilo que acreditei ser um erro da minha conexão com a internet, na verdade eram as falhas garantidas originalmente pelo vídeo.  

A obra ficou apenas alguns dias disponível, depois perdeu-se na efemeridade dos canais virtuais. Apesar dos versos subtraídos que Me metem mais medo  que um raio de sol, Lígia tornou-se figura assombrosa. O fantasma do noticiário, o duplo da canção.

 O clima era de melancolia.

 ¹Nuno Ramos recriou através da edição de vídeo e áudio a canção ³Lígia – composta nos tempos da ditadura militar brasileira. Nesta obra produzida especialmente para a Aarea (plataforma virtual de trabalhos de arte para internet), o artista usou as edições do dia 16 de março e 31 de agosto de 2016 do  ²Jornal Nacional, quando foram divulgadas as conversas entre os ex-presidentes Dilma Roussef e Lula, e também na aprovação do impeachment da presidenta. Através de um trabalho de montagem, os apresentadores cantam os versos do compositor Tom Jobim. O vídeo era exibido apenas durante o noticiário, sendo interrompido nos momentos do comercial ou fora do horário do programa. A obra cou disponível aproximadamente vinte dias.