Jane de Almeida

Jane de Almeida
Jane de Almeida
Born	Para de Minas, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Occupations	Researcher; professor; director; curator; theoretician;
Employer(s)	Harvard University, University of California San Diego, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo
Known for	Art film; contemporary art; film; cinema; new media;
Awards	Hubert Bals Fund (1994)
Website	www.janedealmeida.com

Jane de Almeida, born in Para de Minas, Brazil, is a researcher, director, artist, curator and theoretician.

Biography

Raised in Minas Gerais de Almeida started to study psychology and cinematography in Belo Horizonte. Currently she is based in São Paulo, Brazil and in Lisbon, Portugal.

de Almeida works belong in the following categories: experimental film, video art, contemporary art and computer art.

de Almeida is an interdisciplinary researcher, professor and independent curator. She has published several articles and book chapters such as “On Elephants, Telescopes, Microscopes, Cartography, Aliens, and Computers: Notes on Scalability in Alexander Kluge's Works” In: Stichwort: Kooperation. Keiner ist alleine schlau genug (Alexander Kluge-Jahrbuch, Verlag, 2017), “The dot and the line” for A companion to Contemporary Drawing (Wiley, 2020) and organized the books CineGrid: cinematic futures (Cinusp, 2017) and Harun Farocki: Programming the Visible (bilingual, Cinusp, 2018) with articles by Thomas Elsaesser, Erika Balsom, Alfredo Suppia, Harun Farocki, Patricia Moran among others. She curated the first 4K films exhibition in Brazil at the FILE (Electronic Language International Festival) and organized the first transmission from Latin America to the US (UCSD) and Japan (Keio University) of a 4k film over a 10 Gbit/s photonic network at FILE 2009 Transcontinental. Currently she coordinates the Advanced Visualization Working Group (Content) for the Brazilian National Education and Research Network (RNP). Jane is the director of the short films 2014k (4k 3D, 2010, 10 mins) screened at Casa Brasil during the FIFA Soccer World Cup in Johannesburg and San Diego), StereoEssays: Five or Six Essays in Search of a Narrative (4k 3D, 2011, 16 min), which has been exhibited in venues such as the Maison de L’Amérique Latine in Paris, CineGrid in San Diego, the Sesc Film Festival of Arts in São Paulo and the Tecnofagias Art Exhibition (in loop for 2 months) at the Tomie Ohtake Institute for Contemporary Art. She has also directed the short films Openmouthed (4k, 2014, 3 mins), The Diving (4k, 2014, 2 mins) and Pixel Race (4k, 2015, 9 mins), which were screened at CineGrid in San Diego and Tokyo. She was co-scriptwriter for the films 500 Souls (2004, with several national and international awards) and Invenção de Limite (awarded with the Hubert Bals Fund). She directed the film-essay LOGA - Mars Projections about the planet Mars and the 3D city-symphony film StereoEssays São Paulo. Jane holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Semiotics.

de Almeida followed her artistic career using a large variety of film materials, forms and techniques: installation, film and video.

Research and teaching

de Almeida has taught at numerous universities and cultural centers, among others at the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, at the São Paulo Museum of Art and at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, in São Paulo, Brazil. Jane de Almeida was artist in residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, Visiting Fellow in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University (2005), visiting researcher at NOVA University Lisbon (2019) and University of Porto (2001), visiting scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Boston College (1999), guest researcher at Medialab-Prado (2006), visiting scholar in the Department of Communication and lecturer in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego (2007/2008/2018).

Curatorial activities

de Almeida curated art exhibitions and film festivals for art spaces, galleries and museums such as Off the Radar at University of California, San Diego Visual Arts Gallery, Harun Farocki: Programming the Visible at Paço das Artes, In the Beginning all was Black about Aldo Tambellini's work, FeFiCi Festival (Festival de Filmes Científicos), Ulla, Ulla, Martians! at Casanova Gallery, the Dziga Vertov Group, Alexander Kluge: the fifth act, Metacinemas and Aisthesis at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, accompanied with catalogs or comprehensive books.

Selected bibliography

Passages on Brazilian scientific cinema. Public Understanding of Science, 26(5), 579–595.
Festivais buscam divulgar conteúdo científico por meio do audiovisual. Revista FAPESP. Letícia Naísa, ed. 335, jan. 2024.
Apontamentos sobre o Cinema Científico: Arlindo Machado. Significação: Revista De Cultura Audiovisual, 49(57), 41-60.
The dot and the line. Drawing amongst computers. In: A Companion to Contemporary Drawing. London, Wiley, 2020.
Harun Farocki: programming the visible. São Paulo, CINUSP, 2018.
On Elephants, Telescopes, Microscopes, Cartography, Aliens, and Computers: Notes on Scalability in Alexander Kluge's Works. In: Stichwort: Kooperation. Keiner ist alleine schlau genug (Alexander Kluge-Jahrbuch, Verlag, 2017).
CineGrid: cinematic futures. São Paulo, CINUSP, 2017.
Interview with Yve-Alain Bois
Interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin
Alexander Kluge: o quinto ato. São Paulo, CosacNaify, 2007.
Dziga Vertov Group. São Paulo, witz edições, 2005.

Films

Loga - Mars Projections
StereoEssays Rio de Janeiro
StereoEssays São Paulo
Openmouthed (4k, 2014, 3 mins)
The Diving (4k, 2014, 2 mins)
Pixel Race (4k, 2015, 9 mins)
500 Souls (scriptwriter)

Decorations and awards

1994: Hubert Bals Fund