The gesture of rubbing the thumb and middle finger together to produce a rapid noise that expands in space brings together the human body, movement, ephemerality, and sonic issues.
Recent studies show that this noise lasts approximately seven milliseconds; the blink of an eye, for comparison purposes, tends to last one hundred and fifty milliseconds. It is a voluntary gesture that, in the human experience, is related to diverse uses and interpretations: musical composition in genres such as blues, samba, jazz, and rock 'n' roll; a call to action; inducing and awakening in acts of hypnosis; the domestication of other animals; the attempt to recall a word we've forgotten; a request for silence in a classroom; a way to applaud a presentation or encourage a speech in progress. In the snap of a finger, everything can move. In the Portuguese language—unlike the words "chasquido" in Spanish and "snap" in English—the word "estalo" has a meaning that goes beyond a direct connection to this gesture. The term designates many situations in which a sudden movement alters the state of different materials and, possibly, generates sounds of different vibrations. The movement of tectonic plates that results in an earthquake, the sensation of stepping on a fallen tree branch, and the clink of a glass full of ice when we pour liquid into it: all these actions generate pops. Some have a macro-scale, capable of altering and even destroying an entire city; others are in the realm of microhistory and carnal pleasures that sometimes go unnoticed. In Portuguese, the word also has a layer of interpretation that refers to violence: a "estalo" can simply be a slap in the face, just as the same word can refer to objects being violated—a broken glass—or to a noise associated with violence, such as the crack of a whip. At the 14th Mercosul Biennial, this title—"Snap"—is an invitation to inhabit the movement and transformation from one state to another. One living being acts upon another through dance, sound, drawing, painting, video, or installation; we want to bring together artists and works interested in "snaps" related to human and more-than-human beings. If some of the research presented at the biennial brings something explosive due to its agitated, abrupt, and iconophilic nature, other artists create visualities that, although they may seem quieter, simply by existing, can be seen as a snap. Let's not forget: there are grandiloquent snaps and almost imperceptible ones—from the germination of a seed to the vibration of trap music beats, this is a project about metamorphosis.

What happens when one existence joins others and, from a crowd, dances in a dark, artificially lit space or under the sunlight of a city like Porto Alegre? Which bodies have historically been seen as subordinated and, in contemporary times, move courageously and confidently in public space? How do the planet and its cycles, so battered by drastic ecological changes, generate movements that affect human bodies and the other species with whom we interact daily? In what ways can being alive be seen as an act of resistance?

The sweat that once ran down a body due to fear becomes sweat that is the fruit of pleasure, warmth, courage, and affirmative action—this is, broadly speaking, the rhythm we wish to imbue with this edition of the Mercosur Biennial.