Luiz Roque
1979, Cachoeira do Sul-RS, Brazil; São Paulo, Brazil
©Luiz Roque, Video still of White Year, 2013 Interested in the plasticity of the image, its surface and iconic potential, Luiz Roque often uses analogue
technologies—particularly Super 8 and 16mm film, but also VHS—to superimpose layers of time on his
films, often casting shadows over underlying semantic layers. He uses media and the pop culture to raise
questions concerning depth of vision, usually concentrating on the epidermal aspects of society, since
relationships with otherness, and notably with the alien body, take place in the realm of desire, appearance,
and the function of sexual organs.
©Luiz Roque, Video still
Based on studies developed by Beatriz Preciado, a defender of individuals’ rights over their own bodies—
through which any human being can decide to undergo change, according to the intimate nature of their desires, rather than to their biological nature— Luiz Roque engaged in extensive bibliographical, academic,
and scientific research about the body and its status quo in the last decade.Discussions with Gender Identity
Disorder Program of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the Mechatronic
Engineering Center of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUCRS) led to the artist developing the
science-fiction film White Year, 2013 presented in the 9th Bienal that considers the context of this political
battle in the immediate future, when gender change is “de-pathologized,” and the individual becomes the
sole responsible for the fate of his or her own sex.
Created by the artist in collaboration with Mechatronic Engineering Center of PUCRS, as part of
Imagination Machines in the 9th Bienal do Mercosul | Porto Alegre.
Luiz Roque has held solo shows in institutions as Paço das Artes São Paulo, 2008, and Ateliê Subterrânea,
Porto Alegre, 2009, and has participated in group shows including: Abre Alas 6, A Gentil Carioca, Rio de
Janeiro, 2010 and Video Links Brazil, Tate Modern, London, 2007. His video Projeto Vermelho was shown
at 12th Biennnial de L'image en Mouvement, CIC, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007, and was selected for
LÚCIDA, a panorama of the Latin American video art broadcast on Argentine television in 2007. In 2010
he participated in Constructions Views: Experimental Film & Video from Brazil at New Museum, New
York. In 2011 he was presented at 17º Festival SESC_Videobrasil, São Paulo and was selected for the
program Rumos Artes Visuais from Instituto Itaú Cultural exhibiting the video installation Projeção 0 e 1
in the Brazilian cities São Paulo, Belém, Recife and Rio de Janeiro.