Critical Study of Oiticica and D'Almeida's Cosmococas Published by Afterall

Afterall has released a book by Sabeth Buchmann and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz examining Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida's "Block-Experiments in Cosmococa – program in progress" (1973–74). The work comprises nine 'supra-sensorial' environments with slide projections, soundtracks, cocaine powder drawings, and visitor instructions. Oiticica, initially a Neo-Concretist and later key to Brazil's Tropicália movement, created the series in New York with filmmaker D'Almeida. The book analyzes influences from the New York underground, Brazilian avant-garde cinema, concrete poetry, and writings by Marshall McLuhan and Henri Bergson. It explores the work as a basis for media theory in art, focusing on duration, blurred formats, and spectatorship. The publication is available via MIT Press and Google Books.