CC3-Maileryn. Quasi Cinema (Block-Experiment in Cosmococa-Program in Progress), 1973

In New York during the 1970s, the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, together with the filmmaker Neville Almeida, conceived several projects entitled Quasi-Cinemas, a series of projections-performances such as Block Experiments in Cosmococa – Programme in Progress (1973). The Cosmococas, numbered CC1 to CC9, are complex environments including synchronised projections with very elaborate sound tracks and specific decoration. Famous figures are projected with lines of cocaine traced over them. Cocaine dust takes form and modifies the image like make-up or a mask. Oiticica calls them ‘pleasure games’ and a ‘farce’. Using Pop culture, Latin and American music and cocaine, Oiticica offers the vision of a metabolised globalisation.