Cyriaco Lopes and Terri Witek
Today, at different times, I ran into two friends who had a fight. Each one told me his version of why they fought. Each one told me the truth. Each one gave me his reasons. They were both right. They were both absolutely right. It is not that one of them saw it one way and the other another way, or the one saw one side of what happened and the other a different side. No: Each one saw things exactly as they happened, each one saw them according to the same criterion, but each one saw something different and so each one was right.
I was baffled by this dual existence of truth.
—The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, p. 182
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TEMPO
s.m. Medida de duração dos fenômenos. / Duração limitada: empregar bem o tempo. / Momento fixado: chegar a seu tempo. / Prazo: d&ecirl;-me tempo para pagar-lhe. / Tempo disponível: não tenho tempo. / Época, relativamente a certas circunstâncias, ao estado das coisas, aos costumes, às opiniões: no meu tempo, era diferente! / Estação: o tempo da vindima. / Estado da atmosfera: tempo ùmido. / Música Divisão do compasso: compasso de dois, de quatro tempos. / Gramática. Modificação da forma do verbo, para exprimir relação de tempo (passado, presente, futuro) com o momento em que se fala ou com o momento indicado pelo verbo principal. // Ter tempo, não estar apressado. // Ganhar tempo, contemporizar. // Mau tempo, tempestade, chuva. // Passar o tempo a, empregá-lo em. // Perder seu tempo, aplicar-se a coisas inúteis ou sem resultado. // Astronomia. Tempo civil, tempo médio adiantado de 12 horas: o tempo civil conta-se de zero a 24 horas a partir da meia-noite, com mudança de data à meia-noite. //
Google translation:
S. M. measure duration of phenomena. / Limited Duration : employ your time well. / Time set : get your time. / Deadline: give me time to pay him. / Time Available: I have no time. / Season, for certain circumstances, the state of things, customs, opinions: in my time, it was different! / Station: the time of harvest. / State of the atmosphere: wet weather. / Music Division Compass: compass of two, four times. / Grammar. Modification of the form of the verb to express relative time (past, present, future) with the moment in which we speak or the time indicated by the main verb. / / Take the time, do not be rushed. / / To save time, temporize. / / Bad weather, storm, rain. / / Pass the time, use it on. / / Losing your time, apply to unprofitable or without result. / / Astronomy . Civil time, average time of 12 hours in advance: civil time is counted from zero to 24 hours from midnight, with the date change at midnight. / /
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MAR
s.m. Grande extensão de água salgada: o mar ocupa uma grande parte da superfície da Terra. / Uma parte determinada dessa extensão: o mar Cáspio; o mar Vermelho. / Fig. Grande quantidade, o que é imenso: mar de sangue. // Mar alto, parte do mar longe das costas territoriais de qualquer país e sobre a qual nenhum Estado pode invocar soberania. (Diz-se também alto-mar.) // Mar territorial, espaço marítimo que separa do mar alto o território e as águas interiores de um Estado, que sobre ele exerce direitos de soberania limitados pela servidão do tr&aactue;fego marítimo internacional (passagem inocente). (A extensão do mar territorial varia entre 3 e 200 milhas, segundo a legislação do país interessado; o Brasil estabeleceu em 1971 a extensão de 200 milhas.)
Google translation:
sm Large extent seawater: the sea occupies a large part of the Earth’s surface. / A certain part of this extension: the Caspian Sea, the Red Sea. / Fig. Big quantity, which is immense: sea of blood. / / Mar high, the sea away from the coast of any country, territory over which no State can invoke sovereignty. (It is also the high seas.) / / Mar territorial, maritime space that separates the offshore territory and internal waters of a State, which it exercises over sovereign rights restricted by serfdom of international maritime traffic (innocent passage). (The extent of the territorial sea between 3 and 200 miles, according to the legislation of the country concerned; Brazil established in 1971 extending 200 miles.)
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COSTUME
s.m. Hábito comum aos membros de um grupo social. Resulta da prática de preservar as idéias e ações, de geração a geração. Os costumes variam muito de um lugar para outro e de um grupo para outro. Variam também através da história de um mesmo grupo. A pessoa que viola um costume de seu grupo pode ser punida, embora de modo informal. Os outros membros do grupo podem evitá-la, ou excluí-la de suas atividades. Mas não existem leis contra a violação dos costumes.
Google translation:
sm habit common to the members of a social group. Follows from the practice of preserving the ideas and actions, from generation to generation. The customs vary greatly from one place to another and from one group to another. Also vary through the story of a group. A person who violates a custom of your group may be punished, albeit informal. The other group members can avoid it, or delete it from its activities. But there are no laws against the violation of customs.
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COME
3a pess. sing. pres. ind. de comer
2a pess. sing. imp. de comer
v.t. Levar á boca e engolir. / Fig. Carcomer, roer, consumir: a ferrugem come o ferro. / Fig. Omitir: comeu duas palavras na transcrição. / Fig. Eliminar, ganhar (pedras em jogo de tabuleiro). / Chul. Possuir carnalmente. / V.i. Tomar refeição, alimentar-se habitualmente: comer em restaurante. / Roubar. // Comer com os olhos, encarar atentamente; desejar com avidez.
Google translation: 3rd pers. sing. pres. ind. Eating
2nd pers. sing. imp. Eating
v.t. Lead to mouth and swallow. / Fig. erode, gnaw, consume: the rust eats iron. / Fig. Omit: ate two words in the transcript. / Fig. Delete, win (stones in the board game). / Chul. Owning carnally. / I.V. Taking meal, food is usually: eating in the restaurant. / Stealing. / / Eating with the eyes, face carefully; eagerly desired.
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DEGRADE
gradiente de cor é: uma sequência de tons contínuos, podendo ser limitado ou ilimitado. Ou seja, é a área onde duas ou mais cores são sobrepostas, cada uma com suas intensidades, formando uma transição suave entre as cores, no sentido de apresentar aspecto em 3D.
Google translation:
color gradient is a sequence of continuous tones, and can be limited or unlimited. I.e. is the area where two or more colors are superimposed, each with their strengths, forming a smooth transition between colors in order to present 3D aspect.
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CHANCE
substantivo feminino
1. Possibilidade de algo acontecer. = PROBABILIDADE
2. Oportunidade dada a alguém.
Google translation:
feminine noun
1. Possibilidade something happen. = PROBABILITY
2. Alguém given the opportunity.
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TEMPORAL
adj. Que passa com o tempo, transitório (por opos. a eterno): a existência temporal do homem. / Relativo ao mundo ou às coisas materiais (por opos. a espiritual): os bens temporais. / Secular, leigo, mundano. / Anatomia. Que diz respeito às têmperas: osso temporal. // Poder temporal, o poder dos papas como soberanos de seu território. / S.m. Grande tempestade. / Anatomia. Osso par da região inferior e lateral do crânio.
Google translation:
adj. That passes with time, transient (for opos. The eternal): temporal existence of man. / Relative to the world or to material things (for opos. The spiritual): temporal goods. / Secular, secular, worldly. / Anatomy. Regard to tempers: temporal bone. / / Power temporal power of the popes as sovereign territory. / &151; S. M. Big storm. / Anatomy. Bone pair of the lower and lateral skull.
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Cabo da Roca, Portugal, the Northernmost point of Europe.
Artists’ Statement
False Friends collects words that look and sound exactly the same but have different meanings in English and Portuguese. The piece also uses words that look, sound and mean the same in both languages. Google Translate is brought in as a third, in-between language. False Friends is built around the labyrinthine process of language and cultural (mis)communication.
The visual component is comprised of photographs of water (ocean, rivers) taken in the U.S. and Brazil (the new world) as well as in Portugal, England, and elsewhere in Europe (the old world). They extend the linguistic exchanges into culturally charged physical space. Printed on large fabrics and re-photographed on other continents, the encounter of those images from opposite sides of the Atlantic makes a poetic comment on colonialism.
False Friends uses doubled languages to show what both separates and unites us. It’s not just that we see similarity but speak difference–it’s that rhythms in words or in waves take on different site-specific meanings. Both can be, as Fernando Pessoa writes in The Book of DisQuiet, “absolutely right.”
About the Artists
The poet Terri Witek and the visual artist Cyriaco Lopes have been collaborating since 2005. While Witek often writes poetry about art, Lopes’s artwork often investigates language. A signature of their collaborations is that their media, art and poetry, interweave while each retains its identity. By reinventing, interrupting and restaging each other’s words and images, they create a hybrid third possibility. Their collaborations so far have extended to video, performance, photography, drawing, and artists’ books.
Their projects have been featured at Art in Odd Places (Big Bronze Statues was chosen as one of the highlights of the 2009 season by Time Out New York), in a solo show at Le Petit Versailles, New York, at the British Film Festival (finalist in the avant-garde category), and in Contemporary Flanerie: Reconfiguring Cities (Oakland University, Michigan) among other venues. The first retrospective of their work to date,but here all dreams equal distance, was shown at Grinnell College’s Faulconer Gallery in April, 2010 and featured a collaborative multi-media event, the day you left. In November 2010 their site-specific project, A Shelter on King’s Road, placed the trace of Martin Luther King’s firebombed cottage in the Markland House, a National Register treasure acquired by Flagler College in 1966. Current projects include All Love is Stolen (2013), a 5000 flyer street distribution in South Beach for O, Miami, and The Fernando Pessoa Game, which they ran in Lisbon in Summer, 2013.
In the past few years Lopes’s work has been seen in the U.S. at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, at El Museo del Barrio, ApexArt and the America’s Society in New York, at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, among other venues. In the same period his work was also seen in France, Germany, Poland, Chile and Portugal. In his native Brazil the artist has shown at the National Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern Art of Salvador, and the Museum of Art of São Paulo, among other institutions. His work was curated into exhibitions by artists such as Janine Antoni, Luciano Fabro and Lygia Pape, as well as by curators such as Paulo Herkenhoff. Lopes was the winner of the Worldstudio AIGA and RTKL awards, the Contemporary Art Museum Project award (Saint Louis) and the Prêmio Phillips of a trip to Paris. A recent project, Crimes Against Love, was featured on the cover of The Advocate. His website is cyriacolopes.com.
Terri Witek is the author of Exit Island, The Shipwreck Dress (Florida Book Award Medalists), Carnal World, Fools and Crows, Courting Couples (winner of the 2000 Center for Book Arts Contest) and Robert Lowell and LIFE STUDIES: Revising the Self, as well as a recent comic book/poetry chapzine, First Shot at Fort Sumter/Possum. Her poetry has appeared in Slate, The Hudson Review, The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, and other journals, and she is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat, and the state of Florida. A native of northern Ohio, she teaches English at Stetson University, where she holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing.
