Laetitia Catherine Morais

Le Rayon Vert

Beginn des PhD-Programms / Start of the PhD-Program​: SS 2014 Betreuung / Supervision:
Giaco Schiesser
Miguel Leal This practice-based PhD in Art departs from the green ray - an optical phenomenon, that consists in the sunlight diffraction by the curvature of the earth - which triggers, in the western coasts, where it is best seen, myths and love stories. This relation to an ungraspable event, unfolds into the challenges raised by disrupted perception; the active and non-active dichotomy inherent to long-range observations; the immanency of an event; the way fiction is then attributed to indiscernible happenings and how its re-enactment evokes a rite of passage, in order to arise questions that may provide new views of “western horizons”. Some of these questions can be enunciated as follows: In which way imminence is more effective than consistency? By stretching perception to its limits, may one inflect new imageries? And what is the role of these imageries, desires or myths in the development of a near future?
For dealing with these questions, I will use my own practice, in the form of installation, images or even build-up situations, which best transcribe the actual disquietude of our society.
It is through the openness of these artistic processes, that I hope to foster ideas and notions such as distance, inertia, speed, desire, enactment, affect-effect, efficacy and by putting them in tension with settled situations; to find clues or directions to trigger them and to make use of the gained knowledge (Erkenntnis), by the means of art.
Being a study on efficacy, on space and time, a relocation of imageries – making (thinking and doing) – aesthetics, it is also a key for an artistic discourse capable to dialogue without constraints, combining conceptual objections with experimental practice, raising pertinent questions about the western directions towards the future. I hope that my research will contribute to this reflection which is crucial for today’s society. Kurz-Biographie / Short Bio
Laetitia Morais (Paris, 1984): Visual artist, graduated by the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto in 2006, professor in the field of visual arts since 2008, and currently PhD student at ZHDK, Zurich and Kunstuniversität Linz. Email-Adresse / Email-Address:
laetitia.catherine.morais@gmail.com Weblink:
laetitiamorais.weebly.com