Diogo da Cruz: 'A shot in the dark' at Serralves Museum (2020)
Impressions from 'A shot in the dark' at Serralves Museum, Porto. (Photos: Diogo da Cruz)
The performative installation 'A shot in the dark' by Diogo da Cruz was presented at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal, from 7 November 2019 to 15 March 2020. With the installation, Diogo da Cruz proposes that the current research on dark matter, and in particular the CRESST experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), might be creating a new photographic tool.
Excerpt from the video 'A shot in the dark' by Diogo da Cruz. Courtesy of the artist
CRESST is an international collaboration including researchers from the SFB1258 to run und further develop the most sensitive and accurate detector capable of recording dark matter, a substance that can be observed by its gravitational impact but has never been detected so far. By classifying this detector as a photographic camera and introducing such scientific experience into the history of photography, Diogo da Cruz intends not only to show the literal universality of this subject to be discovered, but also to comment on the present difficulty of detecting absolute truths in the socio-cultural context.
Diogo da Cruz was one of the finalists of the prestigious portuguese Novo Banco Revelacao Award 2019 and received a production grant for the installation. The other finalists selected by an international jury were Luis Ramos and the winner Alice dos Reis, the works of the three artists were presented in a collective exhibition at Serralves Museum. The Novo Banco Revelacao Award is an intiative to support young artistic production in the field of photography in Portugal.
