An ongoing artistic research by João Ghira & Samuel Gapp

Artigo Indefinível is an ongoing artistic research project by Samuel Gapp and João Ghira, exploring how human perception and subjectivity can be influenced by the effects of movement, sound, materials and space as evolving ecosystems.

The project unfolds through the creation of successive site-responsive works, in which these ecosystems are shaped within an aesthetic framework. The audience plays a crucial role, as their presence, attention and actions directly influence the work’s reality and configuration. This points at situative interaction and thus deals with the emergence of sense and meaning. Focusing on long-term development, each research phase results in a new version, yet closely connected to the works’ whole through the reframing of previous phases.

In this way, Artigo Indefinível aims to highlight openness and relational complexity as critical forces to shape fundamental knowledge.

Project phases:

Installation at OSSO / ARCA (São Gregório, PT) – July 2026

Residency at OSSO (São Gregório, PT) – February 2026

Residency/Performance at Convento São Francisco (Lisbon, PT) – August 2023

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Installation at OSSO / ARCA (São Gregório, PT) – 2026

On 25–26 July 2026, Artigo Indefinível was presented at ARCA — Dias Abertos da OSSO, as a site-responsive installation at the facilities of OSSO. The presentation extended the research developed during the residency in February 2026 into a spatial situation activated through the presence and movement of visitors. Simultaneously, a space for conversation and feedback with visitors was opened, contributing to the ongoing development of the work.

For further information on the installation and its development, see Residency at OSSO (São Gregório, PT) – February 2026.

Acknowledgements
OSSO Associação Cultural; Allegra Zanirato; Marco Sardinha; Artistic Ensemble of Artigo Indefinível 2023: Pedro Massarrão, Eva Aguilar, Mariana Dionísio, Afonso Gaspar, Tiago Mourato, Jan Michálek, Miguel Cardoso, Inês Zinho

^{Photos by João Quirino / OSSO and João Ghira}

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Residency at OSSO (São Gregório, PT) – 2026

During the one-week OSSO residency, Artigo Indefinível was developed as a closed research laboratory focused on the internal organisation of the project’s compositional and spatial systems, following an theoretical framework centred on questions of ontology and the emergence of subjectivity in artistic environments. The work concentrated on how sound, material structures and spatial conditions can be articulated as an ecosystem that regulates attention and perception, prior to the presence of performers or an audience.

The residency focused on defining and testing a limited set of operative parameters — proximity and distance, directionality of sound, material and textural qualities, degrees of physical intervention, and modes of transition between states. Through spatial and acoustic experiments, technical drawings and iterative reconfiguration of textile and sound installations, these parameters were used to examine how different configurations stabilise or open the perceptual field of the environment.

A central outcome of the residency was the consolidation of a practical distinction between more regulated and more open configurations of the system, treated as a compositional tool for designing future interaction rules, spatial layouts and performative structures.

Sound was approached as a sculptural medium, shaping spatial orientation and material perception. Textile structures and acoustic installations were conceived as active compositional agents rather than scenographic elements, allowing tactile, visual and auditory layers to operate structurally within a single spatial situation.

Sound excerpts

Excerpt from material developed using live recordings from a previous iteration. The recordings were spatialized across a four-speaker system, with controlled randomization parameters determining the distribution and movement of sound between the speakers. This produced a constantly shifting constellation of sound within the space.

Excerpts from live-recorded materials from a previous iteration. Combined through a chance procedure, the recordings were played at low volume through two nearfield studio monitors positioned within the spatial constellation, engaging perceptual processes.

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Performance Convento São Francisco (Lisbon, PT) 2023

This phase presents the first public, site-specific configuration of Artigo Indefinível, developed and presented in August 2023 at the Convent of São Francisco in Lisbon.

As an immersive and participatory environment, the configuration brought together seven musicians and one dancer, moving almost invisibly within meticulously constructed textile structures installed throughout the architectural spaces of the convent and its medieval cistern.

The idea of this configuration was to create a setting in which the roles of creator, performer and spectator were constantly redefined through mutual interaction. As the audience moved through a labyrinthine route with multiple possible paths, their presence and movement directly influenced the performers’ decisions, who reacted according to a set of interaction rules and, in turn, affected the trajectories and behaviour of visitors.

The materials — stone, fabric, acoustic instruments and human bodies — were composed as sonic, sculptural and pictorial phenomena in motion and constant transformation. Architectural, acoustic and historical features of the site became active compositional forces, shifting attention from visual structures towards sonic and spatial perception.

Conceptually, this configuration drew on discussions around composition, identity and process, and on references to classical notions such as the labyrinth, peripeteia and catharsis. The translucent textile structures functioned as spatial and perceptual thresholds, simultaneously separating and connecting bodies, movements and sound, and emphasising the instability of orientation and perspective within the environment.

Rather than offering a linear narrative or a fixed point of view, the 2023 configuration proposed experience as situated, relational and unstable, inviting visitors to participate in the continuous construction of meaning and perception through their presence and movement within the space.

Credits

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