José Carlos Teixeira

DEVIATION and CONSEQUENCE

DEVIATION and CONSEQUENCE, towards a new (r)evolution, is a video installation that works as the remake of IT’S OK (united), #1#2#3, three steps to a (r)evolution. If the previous project, finished in 2006, presented a critical approach to the western cultural and educational system (with emphasis on the North American case)—and where notions of assertiveness, security, power, and control were deconstructed through new lyrics applied to the American anthem—the Portuguese version departs from the same premise.

The video consists of two simultaneous projections, side by side, showing the co-creation process of new phrases for the national song. The protagonists are African-Portuguese, and the main scenario is Lisbon’s Cova da Moura neighborhood. For 22 minutes themes related to identity, otherness, cultural difference, and the feelings of exile or belonging, are revealed and intensified in a both artistic and documentary tone. In the new transnational anthem, the lyrics reveal what each of the performers feels and thinks of the host culture. In the words of João Pinharanda,

[we] get closer to a version of the A Portuguesa, from its interpretation, understanding, and distortion by members of the African immigrant community, who attempt to sing it by introducing in the words and rhythm literal and emotional significations, reasons from other identities and temporalities.

Constructed also as a space for entertainment and irony, DEVIATION and CONSEQUENCE, towards a new (r)evolution, aims to inhabit a broader political and socio-cultural sphere, by creating a collective discourse by all of the participants. Excerpts of texts by Antero de Quental, Fernando Pessoa, and José Gil are an integral part of the installation, intellectually re-focusing the video and contextualizing ideas about Portugal endlessly repeated and maintained.