Exhibition catalogue INTERFERENCES

I N T E R F E R E N C E S
ANDGUESTSS C O T T M A C L E A Y

There are no new subjects, only innovative personal ways of perceiving them
conceptually.
The only thing I can say with any confidence about my perception is that
it is rooted in the co-existence of my absolute insignificance and relative
significance in relation to others and to the environment in which I evolve.
All of my photographic work deals with this duality and the uncertainty it
generates about who I am and what I think and feel. This need not constitute
a reason for inaction, for we can be riddled with doubts of all kinds and in
some strange way, feel confident about working through them.
To me, life, like art, is one long balancing act whether we acknowledge it
or not and the more curious we are and the more risks we take, the more
we are able to perceive the multiple vectors of interference that disturb our
existence as sources of growth and development bringing a much-needed
semblance of balance to what is, in reality, a permanent state of disequi-
librium. The social scientist in me might say that life is a set of unsolvable
simultaneous equations.

Interference and the doubts it generates are fundamental to our development and the work that
results. They oblige us to work to maintain the required dynamic state of lucid confidence. The
direction taken by our lives is often dictated in large part by some form of interference, whether
self-imposed or of external origins, sometimes expected, other times surprising, often of a positive
nature but sometimes disastrously negative in consequences.
Interference of diverse varieties affects not only our personal lives but our professional lives as well,
leading us into uncharted waters and forcing us to dig deeply into our latent capacity for survival
in conditions that permit us to continue evolving. Interference is what separates our dreams from
what actually happens to us. It is omnipresent. It is also one of the only ways we have of provoking
change in ourselves, of challenging ourselves to be brutally honest about what we feel and what we
think and questioning the true nature of our motives. The ability to auto-interfere is, in my view, a
pre-requisite to being an artist. But sometimes we need a push, some external interference that is
powerful enough to initiate a long-term evolutionary process.
In January 1975, in Vancouver, Canada, I was a bored PhD student at the University of British
Columbia and I enrolled in a weekly evening photography class taught by American photographer
/ architect / graphic designer Ted Scott. I chose the course simply because I had received a 35 mm
camera as a gift several months before and decided that learning B&W photographic techniques
would be a good way to relax and take my mind off my doctoral studies. The day after the 8-week
course was completed in the month of March 1975, I quit my doctoral studies determined to
become a photographer. To say that both the giving of the camera as a gift and the meeting with Ted
Scott interfered with the direction of my life would most certainly qualify as an understatement.
Within 3 years, I too was teaching in the Continuing Education Department of Langara College
in Vancouver, pursuing a successful commercial photographic career in fashion and editorial
portraiture and desperately trying to find enough time to undertake my personal photographic
research. The open sharing of information and experiences free of any hidden agenda was always a
priority for me as it was for Ted Scott. While Ted Scott went on to teach at universities and colleges
in Vancouver and Toronto, I moved to Paris in 1979, dedicated myself fulltime to my artwork and
founded the Photography Department at the American Center for Artists in Paris, later becoming
the Director of its prestigious Center for Media Art and Photography.
2

From the outset I was interested in visually representing what I felt and thought rather than what I saw. This
preoccupation required less figurative images, symbolic of the world around me, something considered
quite eccentric at the time. I began studying the relationship of a specific form of high-key lighting with
various types of fabric employing innovative exposure/development combinations for colour slide film
to generate flat, detail-free forms that were far more abstract in nature than those proposed by traditional
techniques designed to yield supposedly faithful photographic reproductions of reality.This led to research
into the use of multiple images, multiple layers and a multitude of forms of movement all in the service
of representing increasingly intangible subject matter. With hindsight, almost everything I was interested
in exploring involved some form of interference with how things normally appeared. I was focused
on developing processes in the service of concepts rather than techniques in the service of content.
By the end of the 1980s I felt I had exhausted what analogue colour work could offer me and turned
fulltime to composing contemporary music for video art, contemporary dance and for my musical
research group Private Circus. The digital revolution was already well underway in the audio domain
and I felt at home in a universe where I could interfere on a multitude of levels.
Around 2004 I returned to making photographs because the digital revolution seemed to offer the
possibility of continuing to move forward from where I had left off in 1990. Upon moving to Brazil in
2010, I devoted myself full time to digital photography, new media and digital audio research.
In 2011 I founded an informal movement “The Creative Process” dedicated to the development of
Santa Catarina as a hub for new media artwork including transmedia research. The idea was to present
a program of residences/workshops for talented young Brazilian artists interested in developing new
perspectives in photography, video and web-based media art. Over the past three years workshops have
been organized in photographic festivals such as Floripa na Foto and Foto em Pauta em Tiradentes as
well as in institutions/associations in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Florianópolis, not
to mention the online courses also available for persons in Europe and North America. Young artists
began coming to Florianópolis to take personalized residency workshops for up to four weeks at a time.
In 2012, the Creative Process participated in organizing ICP’s first international transmedia workshop
with ICP and the New School in Athens, Greece. In 2013 we further enlarged our perspective to include
finding and developing opportunities inside and outside of Brazil for students to develop their art.
3
S C O T T M A C L E A Y A N D G U E S T S

In late 2012 the city of Florianópolis approved a photographic exhibition project in the context of the
city’s cultural incentive legislation designed to promote local cultural development and overseen by
the Franklin Cascaes Foundation. The result is the exhibition “INTERFERENCES - Scott MacLeay and
Guests: The Road to Florianópolis” - a 70-image exhibition of contemporary photography dedicated to
the notion of interference and the important role it plays in our lives and in our work from both practical
and conceptual points of view. I think it is interesting to note in passing that if Ted Scott had not interfered
with my plans in 1975, this exhibition would certainly never have existed.
It is the first major exhibition of work undertaken by artists participating in Creative Process activities in
Brazil and abroad. It is concerned with the importance of voluntary meddling in a wide variety of ways
with simple visual representations of what we think we see in order to achieve an image more relevant
to what we feel and think about what we believe we see. A desire to explore intangible concepts such as
ambiguity, doubt and time rather than more material subject matter has an important role to play in such
a schema, as does the ability to manage uncertainty, risk-taking and failure, progress’s most faithful allies.
However, to restrict it to this theme alone would be ignoring another important aspect of the event, that
concerning the obligation of all artists to generously share their experiences and knowledge with the next
generation of artists, knowing that such efforts improve the overall quality of life of those concerned as
well as of all those who have the opportunity to share their journey for a time. Such exchanges and the
on-going dialogue they generate are quite simply essential to the growth and maintenance of a dynamic,
innovative creative environment. Life is a bit like a relay race. There is an ideal moment for passing the
baton, in our particular case the baton of knowledge and experience. The exhibition therefore pays
homage to the notion of interference and its inherent focus on researching new conceptual processes
as well as to the multitude of forms of interference generated by the free and open transmission of
information.
The notion of creating artwork and teaching go hand-in-hand for me. I confess that I have never understood
what a teacher who is not, and never was, an artist could possibly have to teach that would be of
practical, long-term use to young artists and that couldn’t be found in existing reference books, as I
have never understood artists who have no time to teach and by neglecting this noble pastime forfeit the
opportunity to be challenged and stimulated by young minds almost always more agile and more in tune
with contemporary society than their own.
4

The exhibition includes the work of three generations of artist-teachers: that of my only professor, American
architect/photographer/designer, Ted Scott, my work of the past three years and that of a new generation
of artists who have participated in Creative Process residencies and workshops that I have created in
Florianópolis since 2011. The condition for participating in these programs is a thirst for exploration, a
passion for risk-taking and a solemn promise to assume the responsibility for sharing all their knowledge
and experience without restriction with the next generation. It is a serious responsibility and one that must
not be taken lightly.
Like my professor, Ted Scott, I have always considered the layering of information as a fundamental form
of interference. While Ted’s interests lie in the graphic design potential of this process, mine are more
focused on its potential to enhance the power of movement and textural considerations in the service of
psychological themes. The juxtaposition of multiple information types in multiple layers combined with the
incredible colour control offered in the digital domain, have opened up new avenues of research concerning
the visual representation of intangible concepts. This has lessened photography’s dependence on simply
representing reality as we it see and that we often mistakenly think is universally perceived in the same
manner. The digital world is nothing more or less than the perfect complement to the analogue world and
there is no reason for tension to exist between them.
The capacity of multiple layering and multiple images to simultaneously generate harmonious and conflicting
perspectives has permanently altered photography’s potential as a medium for self-expression. It has opened
the door to exploring the immaterial. Investigating ways in which to synergize these developments with
other mediums including video, painting, drawing and performance art have made the past two years
particularly rich in experiences, both for myself and for those artists with whom I have had the pleasure of
working in Creative Process workshops and residencies.
This exhibition bears witness to the indelible traces left by these experiences and to the wealth of varied
perspectives that result when our focus is transferred from the content of our images to questions related
to the conceptualization of this content and why the approach undertaken is relevant to our intellectual,
emotional and psychological perceptions of reality. There is perhaps no more powerful motor for innovation
in perspective than the prioritization of process.
Florianópolis, março de 2014
Scott MacLeay
Curator of the exhibition INTERFERENCES: SCOTT MACLEAY AND GUESTS
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SCOTT MACLEAY: Canadian new media artist / composer / writer
MacLeay began his career in Vancouver, Canada, in the mid-70s. He lived in Paris and worked in Paris and New York
for thirty years before moving to Florianópolis, Brazil in 2010. The first important phase of his exhibition photographic
work stretched from the end of the 70s to the end of the 80s before dedicating himself fulltime for more than 15 years to
contemporary musical composition and audiovisual project development. His photographic work was represented by the
Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery (NYC) and by the Galérie Créatis (Paris). He has exibited widely in private galleries and museums
in Europe and N. America, S. America and Japan, including: Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museu de Arte e
História de Friburgo (Switezerland), Münchner Stadt Museum (Munich), Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles (France), The
Museum of Fine Art Houston (USA), The Space Gallery (NYC), Ao Gallery (Tokyo), The American Center for Artists (Paris),
Ton Peek Gallery (Amsterdam), Fundação Badesc (Florianópolis) and the Museum of Art of Sanata Catarina (Florianópolis),
among others.
His work has been widely published and documented in the press worldwide: Art Magazine, Art in America, Clichés,
Zoom, Camera Arts, Empreintes, Photo Magazine, among others. He was named Rockefeller Foundation Artist in Residence
at the American Center for Artists in Paris for his 1982 multimedia exhibition “Fragments, Cycles, Sounds”, created for the
biennial Month of Photography in Paris. the same year his work was included in the Time-Life collection dedicated to the
History of Photography in the volume entitled “The Art of Photography”. His work is included in the permanent collections
of Museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art (NYC, USA) and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston (USA).
In addition to his exhibition work, he founded the Photography Department at the American Center for Artists in Paris
and became Director of its Center for Media Art and Photography (CMAP) in the mid-80s, creating a cultural crossroads
for international exhibitions, festivals, co-productions, seminars and pedagogical programs in the technological arts. The
CMAP was an international hub of avant-garde media activities and audio-visual productions, collaborating with the most
important French cultural institutions and television networks (Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, Cité de Sciences et de
l’Industrie de la Vilette, Canal +, Arte).
Upon moving to Florianópolis in 2010, he once again began dedicating himself fulltime to photographic, video and new
media creations as well as to his passion for sharing his experiences and knowledge with a new generation of young
artists in Brazil. In 2011, he founded the CREATIVE PROCESS, a movement devoted to the promotion and development
of innovative work in the technological arts. This same year he joined the team of writers at the Brazilian periodical Photo
Magazine, contributing articles on the philosophy and art of photography and new media work. He is currently finishing a
book of essays on the same theme scheduled for publication by the Brazilian publisher Editora Photo in mid-2014.
Since moving to Brazil, much of his new media work in the photographic domain has been concerned with the notion
of traces and the distorted, ephemeral qualities of our souvenirs of both remarkable and banal events/situations. One
particularly interesting aspect of this work involves developing ways in which to provide spectators with an alternative
reading of a piece of work depending on their viewing distance from the work, thereby linking the notion of physical
proximity to emotional and psychological perspective. Several examples of this can be found in the images presented here.
www.scottmacleay.com
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WHY Panel II (of IV) from the series Provocative Barcodes © Scott MacLeay 2013INHALING IT from the series PROVOCATIVE BARCODES © 2013 Scott MacLeay
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8
FLEETING REASON (Panel II) from the series PROVOCATIVE BARCODES © 2013 Scott MacLeay

9
THE STORY: VERSION I AND VERSION II from the series AM, AM NOT © 2013 Scott MacLeay

10
SOCIAL SCIENCES (tríptych panel) from the series AM, AM NOT © 2013 Scott MacLeay

11
TRIBAL GRAFFITI from the series AM, AM NOT © 2013 Scott MacLeay

12
SIGNS (Panels II & IV) from the series AM, AM NOT © 2013 Scott MacLeay

13
CYCLES (DISTANCE EVOLUTION III) from the series AM, AM NOT © 2013 Scott MacLeay

14
>1 MONANA from the series INNUENDO © 2014 Scott MacLeay

15
TOUCHED from the series INNUENDO © 2013 Scott MacLeay

16
ALMOST from the series MOVING EXPERIENCES © 2013 Scott MacLeay

17
THE WEIGHT from the series MOVING EXPERIENCES © 2013 Scott MacLeay

18
DAYDREAM from the series TRIBAL CONFUSION © 2012 Scott MacLeay

19
EVERYTHING EVOLVES & NIGHT FALLING from the series TRIBAL CONFUSION © 2013 Scott MacLeay

TED SCOTT: American photographer / architect / graphic designer
In addition to his architectural and visual arts work, Ted Scott is a dedicated professor and passionate
traveller. At the start of his creative adventures, he was drawn to all things jampanese that he encountered
while earning his masters degree in Japaese Architectural History from the University of Waseda in Tokyo,
over time becoming fluent in Japanese. At the conclusion of these studies he spent a number of years
photographing the daily life and culture of contemporary Japan. From there he moved to Vancouver,
Canada and continued to to study and lecture extensively Japanese gardens and architecture.
Ted Scott has been making photographs for more than three decades, and teaching photography for more
than two at Vancouver Community College, The University of British Columbia, The Ontario College of
Art and Design, Ryerson University, The Art Gallery of Ontario, and The University of Toronto.
He has exhibited widely in galleries, universities and cultural institutions across Canada: The Ryerson
Gallery, The Bau Xi Gallery (Vancouver and Toronto), The University of Toronto, The Art Gallery of
Victoria, The Burnaby Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia and others. He has published
two books of his travels and architectural expertise: Photographs of Provence and Imperial Japanese
Gardens.
He currently resides in Toronto, Canada.
Speaking about his exhibition work he recently remarked “Most of my images are isolated then extracted
from ordinary scenes. The identity of the original subject is sometimes lost in that translation from scene
to print, from three dimensions to two dimensions; the scale of it often becomes ambiguous. Sometimes,
in making an image, the highest levels of technique are invaluable; at other times they are irrelevant.
In a few cases, the printed image never existed; it was created layer by layer on film or digitally, one
exposure after another, one fragment after another, so that the final image is a blended accumulation of
selected pieces, a re-assembly, giving birth to an entirely new image.”
http://www.ecm2art.com/#!__ted-scott/
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49-SQUARES from the series SAILS REVISITED © 2012 Ted Scott

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MOAB from the series RAGS © 1983 Ted Scott

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SKYWALK from the series RAGS © 1983 Ted Scott

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UNTITLEDE (Ref: 3833AA) & SUNTITLED (Ref: 3812AA) from the series PALETTE © 2010 Ted Scott

25
UNTITLED (Ref: 7309A) from the series WALL © 2012 Ted Scott

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UNTITLED (Ref: 6468AAAA) from the series SUMI-E © 2011 Ted Scott

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UNTITLED (Ref: 6479) from the series SUMI-E © 2011 Ted Scott

S c o t t M a c L e a y e C o n v i d a d o s
NEW PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CREATIVE PROCESS PROGRAM
The Creative Process pedagogical program is made up of a series of conceptual workshops, public lectures and portfolio
critiques given in photo festivals and other events organized in Brazil as well as a series of private and semi-private
workshops custom designed for the specific needs of individual artists seeking to challenge their know-how by exploring new
processes in the technological visual arts (photography/video/film and including those specific to the Web-based universe
of interactive transmedia work). Over the past year, the program of activities has been expanded to include the promotion
of work undertaken by Creative Process program participants in Brazil and abroad via curatorial and art direction services
designed to promote and showcase their work. Recently, we have further expanded services to include counseling for artists
wishing to study in media programs or participate in residencies, workshops and hackathons in Europe and the United States.
This program is a celebration of the multiple perspectives opened up by the ongoing development of new media formats,
platforms and programs over the past decade, mixing analogue and digital formats and integrating concepts and practices
from other forms of expression including performance art, painting, design, music, theatre and dance. Since courses were
initiated in 2012, in addition to local Florianópolis residents, over a dozen Brazilian artists have come from Belo Horizonte,
Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Curitiba and Santos to participate in workshop residencies in Florianópolis. Others in New York,
London, Paris and Grenoble have participated in online programs and benefited from various project development services.
The exhibition “INTERFERENCES - Scott MacLeay and Guests” pays homage to the work of these new artists and underlines
their obligation to keep the flame of interference and defiance of the status quo alive and well for future generations.
In order of appearance in the following pages, the artists invited by Scott MacLeay to participate in the exhibition are:
• Suelen Pessoa: new media (photography, video, performance) - Belo Horizonte, Brasil - www.suelenpessoa.com
• Marilda v.r.: photography - Santos, Brasil
• Lauro Andrade: mixed media / photography - Curitiba, Brasil - www.lauroandrade.com
• Patout: photography - Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - www.patoutphotography.co.uk
• Marco Giacomelli: photography - Florianópolis, Brasil - www.marcogiacomelli.com
• Otávio Nogueira: photography - Florianópolis, Brasil - www.flickr.com/people/55953988@N00
• Gela Borges: mixed media / photography - New York, USA - www.gelaborges.com
• Fátima Lourenço: photography - Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - www.fatimamlourenco.com
• Laura de Avelar Fonseca: photography - Belo Horizonte, Brasil - www.lauradeavelar.com
• Sandra Arruda: new media (photography, video, performance) - Belo Horizonte, Brasil - www.sandraarruda.com
• Luma Jochims: photography - Londres, Inglaterra - www.lumajochims.wix.com/en
• Guilherme Ternes: photography - Florianópolis, Brasil - www.guilhermeternes.com
• Ana Carolina von Hertwig: transmedia, photography, cinema - Florianópolis, Brasil - www.anacarolinavonhertwig.com
• Fabrício Sousa: photography - Florianópolis, Brazil - www.fabricio.fot.br
• Rodrigo Ormond: photography - Florianópolis, Brasil - www. ormondart.com.br
• Antonio Carlos Lima: photography - São Paulo, Brasil - www.flickr.com/photos/antoniocarloslima)
• Luiza Christ: ceramics, photography - Florianópolis, Brasil - www.luizachrist.com
• Helena Leão: photography - Belo Horizonte, Brasil - www.helenaleaoarts.wordpress.com
• Cris Sales: photography - Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - www.cris-sales.com
• Kris Moisson: photography - Paris, France - www.ecm2art.com/#!__kris-moisson---port
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BROYER DU NOIR 1 from the series BROYER DU NOIR © 2013 marilda v. r.

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CORTINA I from the series DIAS VERMELHOS © 2013 Lauro Andrade

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HOMEM NA PRAIA from the series COPIA E PASSA © 2013 Patout

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DÍPTICO HORIZONTAL 1 - SÉRIE 2 from the series SOBRE ÁGUAS INCERTAS © 2013 Marco Giacomelli

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BRAVE NEW WORLD (Díptico 1) © 2009 Otávio Nogueira

The realization of this document was made possible thanks to the generous support of
the following sponsors: CANSON, EDITORA PHOTO, EPSON and IMPRESSUL

Exhibition catalogue INTERFERENCES

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