ELECTRIC WORDS
ALKANTARA FESTIVAL
24TH MAY TO 9TH NOVEMBER
Infiltrating street corners, theatre rooftops and other locations of Lisbon with his sign-works, Tim Etchells spells out simple-but-intriguing phrases, messages and instructions in neon and LED. A series of interventions which often explore contradictory aspects of language: the speed, clarity and vividness with which it communicates narrative, image and ideas, and, at the same time, its amazing propensity to create confusion and uncertainty.
Appearing to address the viewer directly, Etchells creates awkward moments of intimacy and encounter in a public setting. Each work implicates the viewer in an incomplete question, narrative or instruction – drawing us into a story we can’t refuse and which, at the same time, we can’t quite understand, a contradictory no-man’s land between fiction and reality.
Words evidently more appropriate for private communications here become garish public declarations, creating a host of confusions and amplifications to their status and significance.
To mark this special event the British artist will lead a Lecture Performance at Museu da Electricidade. In A Broadcast / Looping Pieces Tim Etchells lends an insight into his creative process. Alone on stage, the artist gives the public the opportunity to witness a generous session of improvisation where he cuts his own memory into bits and puts it back together again in new arrangements.