Distraction and protection

Full HD video, 6min22sec. 2017

A magician performs sleight-of-hand with coins and banknotes. Simultaneously, the soundtrack presents a technical account by a helicopter pilot describing the evacuation of Argentine president Fernando de la Rúa during the 2001 financial collapse.

The work aligns two systems governed by similar logics: misdirection, substitution, and the management of attention. One operates as performance; the other as economic and political procedure. Placed side by side, they remain unresolved: neither fully explains the other, and neither reveals where the trick resides.

Video presented at Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil. Performance directed by the artist and performed by José Adler, professional magician.

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