decelerate (letter)

I’m standing at a crossroads.

One of the main reasons why my work is transmedia is also the same reason I chose to become an artist: to do whatever I want. In the world of traditional arts, there’s this expectation of supposed consistency — endless repetition, an obsession with a single poetic object of study.

At first, my work was a bridge to myself. And no matter how much people might project egocentrism onto it, you can’t take pride in an ego that never had space to exist in the first place.

My work was never separate from my life. Through it, I built my own subsistence, up until now. I carved myself out, described myself, opened dilemmas, exposed vulnerabilities. Through art and psychotherapy, I discovered my worth, my dignity, my strength. I know myself now. I’ve never been so present in myself.

Today, my struggles no longer revolve around lacking the basics — housing, food, support networks.

During the pandemic, I had both the privilege and the pain of true isolation. That was when I developed my creative autonomy. I joined several critical mentorships, and selling art gradually stopped being an exception and became routine — mostly thanks to blockchains.

And that drove me to create more. To experiment more. Honestly, so many new things emerged since then, and I wanted them all. I did self-portraits, video art, then moved on to photogrammetry, pixel art, gifs, art direction for other artists, artist books, generative images, digital collages, collaborations, generative video, experimental music, fashion, and performance art.

I’ve been true to my desires. I explored everything without fear, because I believe there’s nothing more contemporary than that. Our future is uncertain, and life has never been this chaotic.

I regret nothing. I hold an amor fati for all my choices, because they brought me here and gave me knowledge and experience I would never have gained if I’d let fear dictate the path.

I went back to university. Before the pandemic, I was still living in extreme vulnerability: crashing on friends’ couches, waking up not knowing what the next day would look like, unemployed, broke, surviving on the kindness and goodwill of others.

Now that I’m back, with multiple resources I never even dreamed of having, I want to give my best. I want to make the most of this, because I know that having access to higher education in my country is a privilege — especially in a field as bourgeois as Visual Arts.

Returning to school aligned with my desire to reconnect locally. To attend vernissages again, collaborate with local artists, circulate. And I had forgotten how deeply the local scene is still rooted in traditional formats: painting, drawing, sculpture. It’s honestly surprising that in Brasília — Niemeyer’s hypermodernist capital — so many artists remain attached to these techniques.

That triggers me a PDA (persistent drive for autonomy). After all, if not even my mother intervenes in my decisions, who does the local art circuit think they are to try and push me into a mold?

But at the same time, I feel the pressure from the NFT market to stay labeled as a “digital artist” or to keep inhabiting the intersection between art and technology in one form or another.

And I don’t even have to say it: I hate impositions. I hate them so much I’ve even considered faking my own death — just so my works could increase in value and I could put an end to this dilemma of choosing between one side or the other.

But the truth is: these rules and constraints only exist inside our heads. The dicotomy is an illusion. In the end, it’s up to us to do what feels most true to ourselves and to the paths we walk.

I want to paint. I want to make pixel art with crochet. I want to write letters as art objects. I just wanna do whatever my heart desire, whatever feels right.

Back then, half of my work was writing. Conceptualizing my ideas in a poetic way. But my therapist — for better or worse — planted the idea in my head that I didn’t need to “justify myself.” And honestly, I still can’t tell whether I was justifying or simply writing because I wanted to, because it made me feel good.

After that, I started seeing artwork descriptions as something boring, imposing, purely a technical bureaucracy. I began outsourcing some of them to AI — at least when I wanted to show some effort. When I didn’t, I’d reduce it to format, date, size — pure technical specs.

“Oh, but there are countless cis male artists who prefer to let the work ‘speak for itself.’” But guess what? I’m not them. And I will never be, even if I wanted to.

In the end, all of this was necessary. And it will teach me one more lesson. Probably something about hyperstimuli, crossroads, or liminal spaces.

The way we deal with our devices is utterly unhealthy and unprecedented — we can’t even estimate the long-term impact.

Once again: I’m not afraid of the future, the new, the tools, or other forms of intelligence. But I must admit: we do need to slow down.

Maybe I am, indeed, pro-deceleration.

Let’s slow down. There’s already so much to digest.

I’m learning, in a hypersensitive way, how to reconcile my conflicting desires: my desire for time, for ideas to mature, for learning through movement — not just data. My desire as a living organism, my desire for the spirits of the forests, and my desire for the spirits of machines.