Technopolitics & Pleasure on Patrícia J. Reis — Media & Installation Artist

Skin under skin

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Skin under skin, is an audio-visual-tactile interactive installation composed of three human-scale soft objects that invite direct bodily engagement. Made from flexible materials, the work creates a sensorial and intimate relationship between the interactor and the system of the piece. Each object integrates an audio-visual-tactile interface: flickering light, pulsed sound, and internal vibration. When the interactor approaches with eyes closed and engages through touch, the synchronisation of these stimuli generates internal visual phenomena—moving geometric patterns and colours emerging from the brain’s interpretation of altered sensory input. Through this process, perception becomes the site of image construction. The interactor’s sensorial apparatus operates as an active system, producing individual and singular experiences. The interaction is not limited to the work’s technical system; rather, Interaction unfolds within the body, occuring within the internal space of the interactor. The interactor interacts within its system, generating new information and producing experiences in a singular way.

Sensorial Mechanisms

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Artists Dorota Walentynowicz and Patrícia J. Reis create a shared visual and conceptual space shaped by a soft yet firm negotiation of the gaze. The exhibition brings together a constellation of objects, images, and surfaces that do not fully reveal themselves. Instead, they flicker between presence and concealment—between the desire to be seen and the right to refuse visibility. Embedded within these gestures is an inquiry into the digital gaze: mediated seeing, synthetic vision, machine desire. The artists ask whether, even for a brief moment, we can step back from the flood of images that saturates our daily lives and reflect on the normative frameworks of seeing and being seen—frameworks that reinforce prejudice, capitalism, and colonial narratives. They direct the audience’s attention toward what remains unseen, shifting the gaze away from spectacle and toward its backstage. In doing so, they expose mechanisms of power, recover what has been forgotten, and open the possibility of re-reading the history of visual media and technology from a feminist perspective.

Display Island

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In Display Island, Reis focuses on the physical involvement of participants. The installation activates the viewers’ sensory systems and, in response to the excess of images dominating contemporary visual culture, proposes an alternative mode of engagement—one that operates not primarily through sight, but through bodily and auditory perception. The circular couch installation features a sound work delivered through sound showers shaped like lampshades. The piece takes the form of a spoken, spell-like manifesto. Through layered whispers and declarative voices, it invokes Medusa and the Odalisque as guardians of embodied difference, transforming a critique of patriarchy and the commodification of pleasure into a sensorial act of resistance and remembrance. Interwoven with the voice, a mystical noise is both heard and physically felt through transducer speakers embedded in the couch. In this way, Reis explores new forms of communication between humans and technology grounded in sensuality and intuition. Her works function as laboratories of embodied perception, in which the body is reclaimed as a full-fledged instrument for cognition and interaction with the world.

Traces of Control

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Within their artistic research Patrícia J. Reis and Ruth Schnell explore the far-reaching societal and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence, as well as its technological influence on our lived environment. Their interactive mixed media installation expands the physical exhibition into a hybrid experiential space by interweaving virtual and physical layers and adding a digital dimension to real objects and artefacts.

The Cosmic Box

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In their site-specific video installation titled The Cosmic Box, artists Patrícia J. Reis and Fernando Mesquita craft a thought-provoking satire that reflects on the human condition, blending dark humor with poignant social critique. Part of the group exhibition Tombola, where the theme and media for each artwork are determined by chance, Reis and Mesquita received the theme “Hope” and the media “Staging.” Their response is a clever subversion of the very notion of hope, offering instead a narrative steeped in pessimism and critique of human existence.

Massage Chairs Love series

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The work Massage Chair series offers a tangible encounter between automation and perception, where the machine and the body share a material space, engage in a metaphoric dialogue of touch, each responding to the other’s inputs. Participants are invited to embody, relax, and sit comfortably in the specially adjustable chairs — upcycled massage chairs modified by the artist, to which she added comfortable upholstered details and a technical audiovisual–tactile interface.

from object to affect: proposals for future archives after the media

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current context of the big data in which data processing, data curation, storage, transfer, visualisation and privacy are major topics of discussion, artists Carla Cabanas and Patrícia J. Reis collaborate for the second time on an artist project that aims to reflect upon alternative ways of digital archiving, materialisation and/or dematerialisation of private objects.

"The Medusa v. The Odalisque"

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

“The Medusa v. The Odalisque” is the artists’ ongoing research towards a critical reflection on the subject of visual pleasure in the age of digital entities. The exhibition consists of a collection of objects and images which engage the visitors in a spectacle of gazes.

Intimate Archives After Media

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current context of the big data where data processing, data curation, storage, transfer, visualization and privacy are major topics of discussion, artists Carla Cabanas and Patrícia J. Reis proposed to collaborate on an artist project that aims to reflect upon future ways of materialization and/or dematerialization of visual private archives.

Inside out: myself as Diana

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Inside out: Myself as Diana is an interactive installation that allows participants to see another reality behind a wall. A small monitor is placed on a table, leaning to a wall, inviting manipulation from the interactor. By doing so, he/she can see a video image representing an intimate scene, namely a woman bathing. The interactor can manipulate the screen freely on the wall’s surface to watch small parts of the image, in order to compose the whole represented action. The screen works as an access window to a virtual and intimate space, a tangible interface between two realities, turning interactivity into a voyeuristic experience.

Patrícia's bath

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

“The title O Banho de Patrícia refers to the myth of Diana and Actaeon, and departs from representations of the mythological narratives, resumed during the Ancient Regime by painters such as François Boucher or Antoine-Jean Gros. In the photograph, the viewer progresses in space and arrives to the place where someone is taking a bath.

Underneath the skin another skin

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Underneath the skin another skin is an audio-visual-tactile interactive installation presented in the shape of three human-scale tridimensional objects. It is made of flexible materials such as textiles, inviting the interacting audience to engage physically in a bodily sensorial and sensuous relationship with the artwork.