R.I.P. (Rest in Privacy)
Filipe Vilas-Boas (PT/FR)
With R.I.P. (Rest in Privacy), the artist once again takes up religious traditions and alienates them for his own purposes, similar to the performance Carrying the Cross. Where in Christian tradition a memorial stone is a sign for the loved ones who are no longer with us, Filipe Vilas-Boas invites us to mourn the decline of privacy with this installation.
Privacy, specifically that in our digitised everyday lives with emails, social media and webcams on every laptop, has been increasingly vulnerable for years now. From large-scale surveillance of US citizens by the US National Security Agency (NSA), online services that we – unknowingly – feed with data on our personal surfing behaviour – it is our daily actions that put our right to hide our most intimate or personal moments under great pressure.
Join together for a collective session around R.I.P. (Rest in Privacy), to commemorate what we have not realized was so essential, until we didn’t have it anymore.
Filipe Vilas-Boas (* 1981) is a French-Portuguese self-taught conceptual artist. He currently lives and works in Paris. Without being a naive tech utopist or a reluctant technophobe, he explores our use of digital media platforms, its aesthetic implications, and political, social and environmental repercussions. His installations, performances and conceptual artworks question the global digitalization of our societies, mostly by merging our physical and digital worlds. His works were highlighted in the Portuguese Emerging Art Books, 2018 & 2019 Edition, and have been shown internationally notably at Nuit Blanche Paris, the UNESCO, Biennale Siana, Le Cube in Issy-les-Moulineaux, The French Ministry of Culture, Némo Biennial in Paris, Athens Digital Art Festival, Monitor – Heraklion Contemporary Arts Festival, Zaratan, MAAT Museum and Tate Modern.