Early work
During the 1970s, Andrade was a part of a circle of young artists which included Fernando Cocchiarale, Anna Bella Geiger, Ivens Machado and Leticia Parente that began to respond to the severe period of censorship under the military dictatorship in Brazil through intense productions of individual expression through a simple, direct body language. Overt and accusatory actions were revealed without technical or formal intentions to the tight frame of the camera. [4]
Many of Andrade’s early videos feature her performing awkward and painful actions to invoke thought about torture practices employed by the Brazilian government during the dictatorship. For example, Primeira Seria, a 'first series' of videos shot by Andrade in Rio and São Paulo featured television images of Andrade winding a nylon thread around her face until it is disfigured, attacking her body hair with a scissors, driving nails between her fingers, trying to move about with her limbs and head enclosed in bird cages. This series is said to be a critique of television as a tool of conditioning, an echo of the political regime's authority. [4]
Andrade's critique of media and television was also featured in her earliest films. In Untitled (1975), Andrade sat at a table eating a traditional Brazilian meal of black beans, smoked pork, ad sausages with a television set broadcasting an American sitcom and commercials in the background. The seemingly every day scenario turns unexpectedly as discontent awakens inside the artist. The previously harmless television is featured as a source of misery and oppression as the artist begins smearing the beans on her head; shoving them into her mouth with her hand; wiping them on her eyes, ears, and inside her clothes; and ultimately, throwing them at the lens until the scene is obliterated. In Untitled (1977), Andrade appears in front of four televisions and turning them on one by one, then speaks to the audience directly by repeating "turn off the TV" for more than ten minutes to highlight the passivity of the viewers. [5]
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