João Polido ~ Keywords: time is when, music, diffusion, smoke, worldmaking, sound production, cultural memory, the ripple and the echo, alienation, remains, embers, cinders.
João Polido (1994, Marinha Grande) is a musician and artist, currently living in Lisbon.
From the material and technological properties of sound – and its relational and immaterial dimension – his work probes questions of language, archive, cultural memory, and intersections between histories of music and politics. Aside from performing music, his work has taken the shape of sound pieces in both visual and sound installations, mixes and lectures.
In recent years, João's research has focused on Portuguese cultural production under the dictatorial fascist regime Estado Novo—how it engendered transformations present in contemporary Portugal via genres such as folklore or fado, and how these changes were then assimilated and naturalised through stages of production of cultural memory. By way of comparative musical arrangements, his sound work presses on the threshold of recognition and alienation.
In parallel, João Polido works as a sound engineer and sound designer for film, having worked with Filipa César, The Living & The Dead Ensemble, Margarida Meneses & Madalena Fragoso and Pedro Huet.
He has shown work or performed, among other places, at the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2022), MAAT (Lisbon, 2021), National Museum of Contemporary Art (Lisbon, 2021), CCB for BoCA Biennial** (Lisbon, 2021), Sismógrafo* (Porto, 2021), Sonsbeek20-24* (Arnhem, 2021), Ruhr Ding* (Bochum, 2019), Spirit Shop (Lisbon, 2019).
*in collaboration with Louis Henderson.
**under a commission by Andreia Santana.
Learn more about João Polido's 20 minute performance Hearing Smoke for 'tuttə (le) rottə - all (the) ways: unfixed' ~ DAI's Aeroponic Acts 2022 at Centrale Fies in Italy.
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Learn more about João Polido's written MA thesis (DAI, 2022): Hearing Smoke: An Acoustic Ripple
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Follow João 's "Life after DAI" by means of his website