Noémia Herdade-Gomes, a researcher at the Center for Architecture and Urbanism Studies at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (CEAU-FAUP), who teaches drawing at FAUP, and Francisco Providência, a member of the Institute for Research in Design, Media and Culture (ID+ UA), at the University of Aveiro, who teaches design at DECA-UA, have created films based on the graphic and cinematographic collection of South African artist William Kentridge, one of the most prominent names on the international contemporary art scene.

Noémia Herdade-Gomes (in post-doctoral studies) and Francisco Providência (in scientific supervision) wrote the script for the series of films "Creative Machines", which deals in an unprecedented way with the creative methods present in William Kentridge's graphic and cinematographic collections, edited and edited on video by Cunha Pimentel and made available by the artist, since August 2023, on his website (Cabinet section).

In the tradition of Western culture, drawing is always produced with the aid of tools (machines) to "re-present" (simulate presence or reproduce); Kentridge develops a technological park of creative machines to "a-present" (make present or produce), thus inverting the classic submission to the model, to open up the experience of drawing to the participation of the other and of chance.

In this way, Kentridge uses a variety of creative machines to create his work. He methodologically rethought drawing as an unfinished process, a means of collecting and generating iconography (mediated by different technologies), with the aim of maximizing the narrative breadth that goes beyond the limits of graphic representation, using sound and cinematography.

In the investigation of his work, a documentary taxonomy is proposed to identify different strategies employed by the artist in the production of "idea-images". These films are an essay demonstrating the content of the book of the same name (in press), which focuses on the interpretation of Kentridge's work as a creative system for artistic production (through drawing), which is thought to be able to contribute to other creative domains.

Noémia Herdade-Gomes collaborated with William Kentridge to create a database of more than five thousand documents, which served as documentary support for his doctoral thesis in drawing, defended at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona (2011) and awarded by that University.

The films were produced with funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology through the CEAU-FAUP and ID+ UA research units.

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