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Orelha Negra - M.I.R.I.A.M. X Vhils

2011 · Lisbon · Portugal

Orelha Negra - M.I.R.I.A.M. X Vhils — Explosives work, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal

Vhils transformed the music video into an extension of his sculptural practice. Created for Orelha Negra's M.I.R.I.A.M. and filmed in December 2010 at Lisbon's Fábrica do Braço de Prata — a site where he had produced his first carved wall in 2007 — the project returned to a place that had become foundational to the evolution of his language. Portraits carved into the complex's rendered walls were animated through stop motion, allowing the physical act of excavation to unfold in time, while stencil-cut inscriptions introduced fragments of text that echoed the emotional register of the music. Documentation photographs are by Pedro Seixo Rodrigues (2011). Produced alongside the Detritos art videos, the film marks an early moment in which sculpture, moving image and sound converged, expanding subtraction from a static intervention into a cinematic process without losing its grounding in the material history of the site. The explosion footage was later tokenised as 'Debris #1' (SuperRare, 1/1, September 2021), with the artist's own description identifying the piece as the first videoclip he ever directed.

Year2011PlaceFábrica do Braço de Prata, Marvila, Lisbon, PortugalMediumExplosives