Susana Chicó (Lisbon, 1985) started taking photographs at the age of 15 at ETIC (Technical School of Image and Communication) where she graduated in Photography in 2003. In 2009, she graduated in Artistic Studies-Performing Arts at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon.
She is currently a freelance photographer with more than a decade of experience in visual communication in the performing arts. She collaborated with Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, Estudios Victor Córdon, Teatro O Bando, Teatro do Mar, Companhia Olga Roriz, Teatro Nacional XXI, Companhia Erva Daninha, Chapitô, Um Coletivo, among others.

TEXT HACK 

Images: courtesy Susana Chicó

TEXT HACK 

SUSANA CHICÓ

TEXT HACK is a glitch photography project that corrupts the digital photography paradigm by using a text editor, and changing the image file extension jpg/tif/png to the text file extension .txt. With this change, the image becomes a text file (which contains computer code related to the image) and it is then possible to insert new letters, words or phrases, in this case, words from different authors and creative processes. After the written intervention, the hack is saved, and the .txt extension is changed again to jpg/tif/png, and the end result is images with a damaged appearance.

TEXT HACK is inspired by the current pandemic and the idea of contagion. By observing the difficulties in the performing arts sector, I wanted to infect photographs of shows that were cancelled, reformulated, or even created for new capacity and public spaces in 2020/21, with words that inspired/served their creators. Text is the only aesthetic tool, the only interventional element, and therefore performative, transforming a conventional photographic format. The shows are in their nature ephemeral, however, the photographs, videos and texts associated with them are the  only elements that give them perpetuity, TEXT HACK challenges the temporal stability of the photographic document by vandalizing its digital structure with words, and proposes, in its formal rebellion, a visual upheaval alluding to the unforeseen of Covid-19 and the intrusion of the virus into social functioning.

*The results presented here do not have any kind of extra manipulation, such as processing in Photoshop or other software.

PERFORMANCE IMAGES CONTAMINATED WITH WORDS FROM:

VÃO – Erva Daninha – Guião de Espectáculo (autor: Erva Daninha)
CRISÁLIDA – Daniel Seabra – Indulgência Plenária (autor: Alberto Pimenta)
SILÊNCIO – Um Coletivo – Silêncio para 4 (autor: Ruben A. )
O AMANTE – TNXXI – The Lover (autor: Harold Pinter)
OPEN AIR – Oskar&Gaspar | Laboratório – Guião de Espectáculo (autor: Oskar&Gaspar | Laboratório)