Tiago Aires Lêdo was born in Porto in 1992. He is a sound artist, new media artist and performer and is part of the multimedia collective - COLECTIVO 「大音量コンピューター」and the Teatro Universitário do Porto.
Interested in sound activism, generative music and interaction, he participated in education, music, cinema, television, video games, and installation projects. He has published music under the pseudonyms: rizumirai, 空のリズム, ghostrhythm, and SOM FLORES.
Under this last name, he released in 2021 the EP album ☷T'AI☰ and the single MOÇO, works more focused on political themes through personal life and personal themes through political life.
He has a Master's degree (MSc) in Multimedia with a specialization in Interactive Music and Sound Design from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) and a Degree in Cinema and Audiovisual from the Escola Superior Artística do Porto (ESAP). He completed the Interpretation Introductory Course from Teatro Universitário do Porto (TUP) and is a music technology/programming trainer at the Laboratório de Experimentação Musical (L.E.M.) and collaborator in the educational program of the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.
Still completing the third cycle of the artistic residency program No Entulho, by ArtWorks, organized in partnership with Pedreira, between September 15th and November 15th, 2021, transmasculine artist Tiago Aires Lêdo took as the starting point in his research a letter written and not sent by him and Tiago Colaço in 2018 to the Portuguese Communist Party requesting their disaffiliation due to the “[unethical] position taken by the PCP in relation to the bill prepared by the PAN party [People-Animals-Nature] that intended the abolition of bullfighting”. This written statement by Lêdo and Colaço marks their decolonial commitment by suggesting that affectionate populations who “are left without this activity are not prevented from developing any other that does not include unnecessary aggression towards an animal” and also points out that “the Portuguese Communist Party bench had the unique opportunity to be on the side of workers and animals, but chose only one of the two.” That said, throughout Lêdo and Colaço's letter, the masculinity of the “comrades and friends” emerges, we realize through their decisions, as political cartography and government practice, since these political categories that organize the interior of our public life are male categories. Therefore, the State’s reasoning is configured based on a masculine grammar and embodied as a representation of masculinities, and, therefore, this masculine bodily imaginary is normally associated with forms of power and action, especially encoded by the language of war, weapons and violence.
When accompanying Lêdo during his artistic residency, I learned that the “objectified and victimized bull [in a state of aggression]” described in his letter served as a mirror of himself to the world and this vision transmutated during the research process into one of the constituent mythemes of the Labyrinth myth, the Minotaur, which, in turn, led Lêdo into exploring the different ways of understanding the worldly experience of what is conventionally called man and, finally, to explore a process of fictional production of himself, his gender and his male body.
Full text here, by transgender artist and curator Hilda de Paulo.
Credits
partnership with Pedreira
resources: iron, electronic material, painting, video format: residency cycle 03 fotografia: Bruno Lança
