About Paulo Mariano — Senior Art Director and Creative Lead based in Lisbon, International Advertising Jury Member
Anish Kapoor: Descent into Limbo, 1992 | Fundação Serralves, Portugal
Jan 24, 2019
O terceiro homem
Dois sujeitos entram num autocarro e tomam assento. Vários rostos ocupavam os espaços daquele lugar e muitos deles vinham em cópia, refletidos no vidro das janelas. Cada ocupante investe tempo consigo. Riem.
Comentam. Olham a paisagem, mas estes dois conversam sobre a noite anterior de um deles e seu encanto pelas ancas de uma mulher chamada Alice. Seu colega ri e toma o fôlego necessário para sua fala maliciosa.
Ocorre o inusitado, duas pessoas falam, em uníssono:
— E quando você ligará para ela?
— E quando você ligará para ela?
Imediatamente o silêncio. Alguém ouvira a conversa, presume. Ambos olham para trás encarando o terceiro homem.
— Porque falaste isso?
— Porque falaste isso?
Silêncio novamente. Eles o encaram como quem procura razão. Toca o telemóvel da mulher que olha para a rua. Ela atende.
— Estou?
— Estou?
— Pois, já estou a chegar, perdi a hora.
— Pois, já estou a chegar, perdi a hora.
Agora é ela quem olha para o terceiro homem, que reproduz suas falas e de outros 7 passageiros que imediatamente após 3 ou quatro frases em uníssono se calam na tentativa de estancar aquela verborragia que havia sentido quando dita unicamente pelo autor.
E quem disse o que disse? O menino que lamenta ao perder o brinquedo com a frenagem do carro? A senhora com olhar perdido que, cansada de falar para dentro, pergunta as horas mesmo com o relógio na bolsa?
Calam-se, mas o pensamento borbulha.
Um pensa, um reproduz. Um escuta, um ignora. Ambos falam. Ambos são percebidos.
O terceiro homem, que já fora outros números, se mantém no autocarro.
Não se sabe seu nome. O que se sabe é que tem a habilidade de incomodar.
Não. Tem a habilidade, poucos sabem sobre isso, de reproduzir o que fora pensado para ser dito. Em outras palavras, não necessita da audição para colocar em dúvida quem assiste ao coro.
O que também não se sabe é que este homem, mesmo tendo reproduzido tanto, não guarda absolutamente nada. Seja porque ninguém que tivesse tomado consciência de sua existência tivesse algum desejo de recordar o ocorrido, ou porque ele simplesmente não possuía memória. Não possuía. Um comportamento muito próximo a uma caixa de som a reproduzir um discurso e só. Um indivíduo sem pensamentos e, portanto, sem problemas, sem frustrações, nem noção de mérito ou culpa. Este indivíduo fútil pelo olhar alheio conhecia
um único sentimento: tédio. Fazia o que sempre fizera: reproduzir.Presumia em silêncio o idoso sentado ao seu lado que sua fala aparentava fala pensada, daquelas que passam pela compreensão antes de existirem. E que por isso, sabe lá porquê, o homem exercitava ininterruptamente aquele tipo de empatia típica de palhaços e comediantes que procuram no sorriso alheio a comprovação de sua existência.
Já o ouviram fazer perguntas, recitar poesias, reclamar injustiças, gritar, mas o que dele se esperava era o silêncio.
Incomodava o roubo. Incomodava a vergonha, incomodava o silêncio imposto.
— Beijinhos, também sinto sua falta.
— Beijinhos, também sinto sua falta.
— Fizeste muito bem.
— Fizeste muito bem.
— Gostou do corte de meu cabelo?
— Gostou do corte do meu cabelo?
Incomodava escutar o pensamento na boca de outro.
Escutar-se.
Nov 3, 2019
The Third Man
Two men board a bus and take their seats. Several faces occupied the spaces of that place, and many of them came in duplicate, reflected in the glass of the windows. Each passenger invests time in himself. They laugh.
They comment. They look at the landscape, but these two are talking about one of their nights before, and his fascination with the hips of a woman named Alice. His companion laughs and takes the breath needed for his own lewd remark. Then the unexpected: two people speak in unison.
— And when will you call her?
— And when will you call her?
Silence, immediately. Someone overheard the conversation, he assumes. Both turn around and face the third man.
— Why did you say that?
— Why did you say that?
Silence again. They stare at him as if looking for a reason. The phone rings for the woman watching the street.
She answers.
— Hello?
— Hello?
— Yes, I’m on my way, I lost track of time.
— Yes, I’m on my way, I lost track of time.
Now it is she who looks at the third man, who repeats her words and those of seven other passengers, all of whom fall silent after three or four sentences in unison, trying to stem that flood of words they had not felt when it was spoken by its author alone.
And who said what was said? The boy who cries out when the car brakes and he loses his toy? The old woman with a lost gaze who, tired of speaking inwardly, asks the time even with a watch in her bag?They fall silent, but the thinking keeps bubbling.
One thinks, one repeats. One listens, one ignores. Both speak. Both are perceived.
The third man, who has been other numbers before, stays on the bus.
His name is unknown. What is known is that he has the ability to disturb.
No. He has the ability, and few know this, to repeat what was thought in order to be said. In other words, he does not need to hear in order to cast doubt on whoever witnesses the chorus.
What is also unknown is that this man, having repeated so much, keeps absolutely nothing. Either because nobody who became aware of his existence had any desire to remember what happened, or because he simply had no memory. He had none. A behaviour very close to a speaker reproducing a speech, and nothing more. An individual without thoughts and therefore without problems, without frustrations, with no notion of merit or guilt. This man, futile in the eyes of others, knew only one feeling: boredom. He did what he had always done: repeat.
The old man sitting beside him assumed in silence that his speech seemed considered, the kind that passes through understanding before it exists. And that for this reason, who knows why, the man practised without interruption that kind of empathy typical of clowns and comedians, who look for proof of their existence in someone else’s smile.
He has been heard asking questions, reciting poems, protesting injustice, shouting, but what was expected of him was silence.
The theft disturbed. The shame disturbed. The imposed silence disturbed.
— Kisses, I miss you too.
— Kisses, I miss you too.
— You did the right thing.
— You did the right thing.
— Do you like my haircut?
— Do you like my haircut?
It disturbed to hear one’s thought in another’s mouth.
To hear oneself.
Two men board a bus and take their seats. Several faces occupied the spaces of that place, and many of them came in duplicate, reflected in the glass of the windows. Each passenger invests time in himself. They laugh.
They comment. They look at the landscape, but these two are talking about one of their nights before, and his fascination with the hips of a woman named Alice. His companion laughs and takes the breath needed for his own lewd remark. Then the unexpected: two people speak in unison.
— And when will you call her?
— And when will you call her?
Silence, immediately. Someone overheard the conversation, he assumes. Both turn around and face the third man.
— Why did you say that?
— Why did you say that?
Silence again. They stare at him as if looking for a reason. The phone rings for the woman watching the street.
She answers.
— Hello?
— Hello?
— Yes, I’m on my way, I lost track of time.
— Yes, I’m on my way, I lost track of time.
Now it is she who looks at the third man, who repeats her words and those of seven other passengers, all of whom fall silent after three or four sentences in unison, trying to stem that flood of words they had not felt when it was spoken by its author alone.
And who said what was said? The boy who cries out when the car brakes and he loses his toy? The old woman with a lost gaze who, tired of speaking inwardly, asks the time even with a watch in her bag?They fall silent, but the thinking keeps bubbling.
One thinks, one repeats. One listens, one ignores. Both speak. Both are perceived.
The third man, who has been other numbers before, stays on the bus.
His name is unknown. What is known is that he has the ability to disturb.
No. He has the ability, and few know this, to repeat what was thought in order to be said. In other words, he does not need to hear in order to cast doubt on whoever witnesses the chorus.
What is also unknown is that this man, having repeated so much, keeps absolutely nothing. Either because nobody who became aware of his existence had any desire to remember what happened, or because he simply had no memory. He had none. A behaviour very close to a speaker reproducing a speech, and nothing more. An individual without thoughts and therefore without problems, without frustrations, with no notion of merit or guilt. This man, futile in the eyes of others, knew only one feeling: boredom. He did what he had always done: repeat.
The old man sitting beside him assumed in silence that his speech seemed considered, the kind that passes through understanding before it exists. And that for this reason, who knows why, the man practised without interruption that kind of empathy typical of clowns and comedians, who look for proof of their existence in someone else’s smile.
He has been heard asking questions, reciting poems, protesting injustice, shouting, but what was expected of him was silence.
The theft disturbed. The shame disturbed. The imposed silence disturbed.
— Kisses, I miss you too.
— Kisses, I miss you too.
— You did the right thing.
— You did the right thing.
— Do you like my haircut?
— Do you like my haircut?
It disturbed to hear one’s thought in another’s mouth.
To hear oneself.
Anish Kapoor: Whiteout, 2004