empenas (2023)

AV laser performance
Exhibited at konvooi festival x het entrepot, Bruge (BE)

Empena is a Brazilian word for blank walls between buildings. A concrete surface that was built without windows or doors, waiting for another building to be added. When empenas have no neighbors, they become ideal poster walls for advertisements or a favorite canvas for political graffiti. Empenas formalize a series of guerilla public projections, the first iteration being at Konvooi Festival 2023, in Bruge(BE).

Image credits: Inge Kengen, Inga Hirsch, Brecht van Houte, Cato Crevits

During Konvooi Festival, laser projections took place on two empenas on the Groot Handelsdok, 100 metersaway. The buildings across the port are food processing factories, catering to the agribusiness. The performance acknowledged the projection surface, aiming to raise awareness between the large scale farming and global warming. It also featured field recordings from animals in farms, processed through granular synthesis, as a metaphor to animal-processed food.