Rui Soares Costa © 2023 | All Rights Reserved
poster I for the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Portugal
untitled 1038/1, 2020
70 x 50 cm
graphic design: Leonel Duarte
poster II for the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Portugal
untitled 668/1, 2020
50 x 35 cm
graphic design: Leonel Duarte
home/work/other_projects/25_anniversary_MCT/...
LIFELINE SERIES
The drawings made for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology are part of a line of work called the Lifeline Series. They are drawings that register, condense time in lines that attempt to be straight. The imperfection of these lines comes from being drawn by a free hand. The hand, working as a seismograph, registers the artist in the timeline. There is an equation guiding this series, with several fixed parameters and some variable ones. As fixed parameters we have: 1) lines are drawn with the pen that allows drawing the thinnest possible line (0.15 mm); 2) lines try to be straight; 3) lines attempt to be as close as possible to each other; 4) lines avoid touching each other. These last two rules of opposite direction result in a vibration that appears on the gray surfaces that emerge from the slow accumulation of hundreds or thousands of lines of this human seismograph working like a time press. The variable parameters have to do essentially with the interruptions of the lines: when and where does each of these lines will be interrupted? And, once the line is interrupted, where does it start again?
For the series of drawings carried out for the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, two new parameters were added. Science is characterized by being absolutely transversal. There is no domain that scientific knowledge does not touch. The drawings in this series seek to explore the diagonal as a representation of such transversality, adding the idea of a blade, a cutting edge, that separates knowledge from ignorance. With the motto of science as rigor, these drawings seek to symbolize minutia, precision, dedication, time, focus and the incessant search for truth that characterizes the scientific pursue of knowledge.
Rui Soares Costa
March 2010
(scroll right for the pictures)