Primal Faith

Hugo Barata e Ricardo Nunes

synopsis

Year

2025

university

Lusófona University

This video work shows a calm, natural landscape on a foggy day that we perceive from the point of view of an animal inhabiting it. By changing the viewer's gaze to that of an animal, the work disrupts the hierarchy between observer and observed and invites a more reciprocal standpoint.

By using close-up that surpasses an anthropocentric origin, Hugo Barata and Ricardo Nunes build a visual aesthetic that bridges human and nonhuman worlds. The low-angle shot, combined with a wide-angle framing, is a philosophical strategy to destabilase the human-centric perception. As the scene unfolds, we hear a machine-like voice off, that seems to make comments about what we are seeing, suddenly, an erratic pixelization occurs. The pixel effect renders the scene incomplete, and the glitch distorts the voice that is reading Lucretius classical De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). The glitch is a metaphor for the disruptions that persist in attempts to return nature to its wild state, and for the fragmented and mediated ways in which we perceive and interact with the natural world. By exaggerating this fragmentation, the work investigates the technocratic foundations of rewilding, questioning whether such efforts can ever transcend the instrumental logic of human control.

Hugo Barata is a visual artist, independent curator, university professor, and researcher. PhD Cinema and Media Art from Lusófona University. Working with nationally and internationally renowned artists, such as Paula Rego, Jeff Wall, Thomas Struth, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Bruce Nauman, Gary Hill, Michael Borremans, Nam-June Paik, among many others, and with institutions such as the Museu Coleção Berardo, the Chiado Museum - National Museum of Contemporary Art or the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Zé dos Bois Gallery, MACBA, Warburg Institute, Haus Lange-Haus Esters - Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Museu de Serralves, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Centre Georges Pompidou, Walter Benjamin Archives. Integrated researcher at CICANT research center and a collaborating researcher at Design ID. He has several ongoing funded research projects, namely HN: Healing Nature: Animation for Health and Well-being in Children Hospital Environments, AH_While We Wait: Animation for Health and Wellbeing in Hospital Waiting Spaces, ENACT_NOW, FilmEU Dynamic Cluster (P.I.)

Ricardo Nunes is a designer and visual artist with a multidisciplinary practice in graphic design, image post-production, motion design, and video. Holds a degree in Design, a master’s in Multimedia Communication Systems, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Media Arts and Communication. Since 1996, he has been creating artistic and commercial projects that explore moving images, visual aesthetics, and digital experimentation. Since 2007, he has also taught at institutions like ETIC, IPA, and Universidade Lusófona, contributing to programs in Film, Fine Arts, Photography, Digital Animation, Video Games, and Design.