the art of cybridism (a arte do cibridismo english version)

8/3/2019 The Art of Cybridism (A Arte Do Cibridismo English Version)

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NATIONAL FOUNDATION OF ARTS

(FUNARTE)

The Art of Cybridism

-Technology and art production in thecontemporary world -

By Thiago Carrapatoso1


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PRODUCTION:

This project was contemplated by theNational Foundation of Arts

FUNARTE, Critical Production Grant for Artistic Content in

Digital/Internet Media

SUPPORT:

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To all those interviewed: Cicero Silva, Claudio Bueno,

Fernando Rabelo, Fernando Velzquez, Fred Paulino,

Jos Carlos Silvestre, Katia Maciel, Mariana Manhes,

Pedro Veneroso, Vivian Caccuri and especially Giselle

Beiguelman;

To those that transcribed the interviews: Vinicius

Alencar, Heloisa Selles Moraes, Anglica Duarte, Ligia

Souza Aranha and especially Da Paulino;

To those that work at the Casa de Cultura Digital;

To all those involved in Veredas;

And to the two parties that knew I would endeavor along

this path, A.A. and K.K.

Thanks

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Context

We are

The world is no longer physical. There is no longer just one reality for each individual. There are

several; physical and virtual. We are connected. We are online. Our privacy is no longer restricted to

walls. We send pictures, videos, texts from anywhere: buses, boats, motorcycles or even when on

foot. We speak the entire time. We hold conversations at any time of day or night. We even produce

content when we sleep1. We are no longer passive. We are active, producers, managers, coordinators

and divulgers of what we produce and, obviously, what we consume. We have become editors

overnight. We put together networks and circles of friendships with just a few clicks. We erase

memories. We maintain all memories. We listen to music from the whole world for free. We watch

all films produced throughout history in digital format. We can carry several 900 page books in a

single 190mm x 123mm x 8.5mm 250g device. We speak for free by cell phone with friends in New

York, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow. Life is summarized into apps, devices and connections. We

work at home. We work throughout the early hours. We don't have fixed schedules. We have many

bosses. We study all the time. We know everything. We don't have profound knowledge. We know

how to edit videos. We know how to photograph. We put together galleries. We are curators. We are

expositors. We are awarded and in demand, in all forms and in all angles. We don't stop. We don'tdie. We run marathons ever faster. Every year we break various Olympic records. We are trim. We

are muscular. We are stronger than anyone could imagine. We have removable arms, legs and other

appendages. We have drivers. Our training shoes have shock absorbers. Our clothing diminishes

friction. We increase our physical capability with drugs. Health exists through pills. Longevity

exists through pills. We are part organic, part chemical. A portion of what we ingest is created in

factories. Formulas, mechanisms, machines. Our bodies are not only organic. Our bodies have

extensions. Exoskeletons, devices, clothing. We are human. We are machine. We are cyborg.

Walls

The purpose of this work is to study through interviews and a few theoretical references what is

currently being done in art related to new technologies that have surfaced over the last three

decades. My starting point is the democratization of the personal computer. It is a major reference

1 There is an Apple iPhone app called Sleep Cycle that monitors the user's sleep and automatically publishes the resulton Facebook

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within society of when cables, wires, circuit boards, monitors, fuses and everything else were really

introduced into people's homes to stay. When the computer started being used, it's basic components

became a much more well-known and exposed to the less knowledgeable public, that wasn't

familiarized with simple terminology such as circuit boards, networks and hard drives. For

example, to be able to assemble a computer within a home it was necessary to have contact withcircuit boards, parallel ports and power cords. It was as of this point on that the network was

incorporated into the human being.

Exponential technology usage evolution has now culminated in connection portability. According to

2009 Anatel(the organization that supervise telecommunication in Brazil) data, 83.47 out of every

100 Brazilians have cell phones. These are used to make phone calls, take photographs, film videos

and publish life in a parallel but present world, which is the virtual world. Our virtual lives are in

constant conversation with our physical ones, with one increasingly more dependent on the other.To form an idea, today, it is increasingly more common not to have to remember a single phone

number, being that we have agendas in our cell phones and in our portable computers (notebooks or

netbooks), besides banking on the safe old hardcopy agenda.

In a world such as this, why should we occupy our memory with such easily accessible

information? Knowledge no longer needs to be stored between organic synapses. It can be very well

- and easily - converted into binary codes to be transported and sent with no major problems. On-

demand knowledge, as stated by Giselle Beiguelman2 in the first interview3 I conducted for thissurvey.

It is due to this that new media, aesthetics, productions, relationships, questionings and meanings

surface when we address audiovisual production. In his book The language of new media, artist

Lev Manovich4 describes the alterations that cultural product digitization has introduced to modern

society as to what media is.

We should not be surprised that both trajectories - the development of modern

media and the development of computers - begin around the same time. Both media

machines and computing machines were absolutely necessary for the functioning of

modern mass societies. The ability to disseminate the same texts, images, and sounds

to millions of citizens - thus assuring the same ideological beliefs - was as essential

2 http://www.desvirtual.com.br

3 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/giselle-beiguelman/ (portuguese)4 http://www.manovich.net/

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http://www.desvirtual.com.br/http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/giselle-beiguelman/http://www.desvirtual.com.br/http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/giselle-beiguelman/


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as the ability to keep track of their birth records, employments records, medical

records, and police records. Photography, film, the offset printing press, radio, and

television made the former possible while computers made possible the latter. Mass

media and data processing are complementary technologies; they appear together

and develop side by side, making modern mass society possible.5

We live in a mass society, in which everything is information and ideology. We walk along a small

wall that divides us between the physical and virtual world. However, the height and solidity of this

wall is the question that motivated this entire work. To what point is it possible to know that we are

not connected? Up to what point will we bear not producing a specific content? What are the major

products generated from this reality that sometimes appear to be part of science fiction?

The project approved by the National Art Foundation (Funarte) 6 contemplates a mini documentary

on contemporary digital art production. In order to do so, I procured a low-cost portable full HD

Flip7 camera. Right from the beginning, the filming of the interviews was based on amateur

aesthetics, which even though the result is rustic (trembling image, low-quality audio, inadequate

lighting, interviewer interference, un-tweaked photography and many other problems), the content

is primordial and wouldn't have been achieved if that wasn't this desire of achieving

nonprofessional content. I decided on the main approach for the interview transcripts I delivered to

the entity, but which I left out of this version due to size limitations. We are currently at the moment

in which professional quality is no longer essential for fast and simple works, that do not bank on a

production line or team to help. Thus, the transcripts attempt to be loyal to the way in which the

interviewee spoke, but cropping a few mannerisms and making a few editions to make the text more

understandable (when we speak there are always a few intonations that provide meaning that is not

conveyed in the text).

This material is further proof that state-of-the-art equipment is not required for a production with

interesting content. Available low-cost tools manage to produce sufficient material for the general

public to appreciate. For example, it isn't necessary to spend small fortunes, hire teams and

professionals to accomplish and audiovisual production. Nowadays, anyone is a potential quality

producer.

5 (T. do A.) (MANOVICH, Lev. The language of new media. MIT Press. 2001. Pages 22-23.).

6 http://www.funarte.gov.br/7 For more information, access http://www.theflip.com/en-us/

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Shortly after concluding the interviews, I put the content available on the The Art of Cybridism

blog (http://www.culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo) so it wouldn't only be restricted to the end of

the contract with Funarte and not isolated from the foundations collaborators. I wanted this content

that which was financed by public funding, and still do, to be used by other researchers or people

interested in the subject in order to create mass criticism regarding digital, or electronic, or web art,or cyber art, whatever... produced in Brazil. In this way, the public would have easy access to what

was produced during the six months of research.

And the blog also helped me to feel inside the main concept guiding this entire undertaking:

cybridism8. Researcher and artist Giselle Beiguelman, who adapted this theory to Brazilian and

network reality, told me during our conversation how it is almost impossible to find anyone today

who doesn't divide their time between physical and virtual reality:

Cybridism is this highly contemporary experience of being between networks: on

and offline. A few minutes ago we were talking about this increased reality issue as

proof that the XXIst century is cybrid. Cybridism is not an element of virtuality in

day-to-day life (it is also), but what essentially characterizes cybridism is being

between networks. Using a cell phone is a cybrid experience. You are on and offline.

[Considering] Today (the 3G era), when on a cell phone, the user is constantly

among networks, between an on and off-line experience. (...) The cell phone has

cybridized us. I once wrote an article and that was the first phrase. It has

cybridized us because it is an extension connected to our bodies 24 hours a day. Even

when we turn it off, it continues connected. In a certain way, these indications of

cybridization are already in our day-to-day life. What is really interesting about

increased reality is that, if not so long ago, the cell phone had transformed itself into

a remote control of our day-to-day life, something to manage everything: it is our

agenda, our contact platform, SMS, voice, camera; with modern technologies, it has

now become increased reality - a magnifying glass expanding our day-to-day life. I

look at the cell phone and withdraw symbolic elements embedded in things. In the

popularization scale being put in to effect, this is something unprecedented in the

world as well as in contemporary culture.

8 http://www.nosdacomunicacao.com/panorama_interna.asp?panorama=227&tipo=E

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Even though present in everyone's daily lives, it is still complicated to perceive that machines

interfere in our organic world. What used to appear as science fiction is now our day-to-day

experience. The cell phone is an extremely important device in contemporary art production

development and conception. All artists and researchers I interviewed for this work stated that

democratization of technological means has influenced the type of audiovisual production carried

out in Brazil. The interesting thing is to perceive that the basic part of working with video, such as

producing traditional images and audio, was left for the amateur (as discussed further in the first

chapter). Artists take the position of further exploring what else they can do with these mechanisms.

From this, concepts begin to surface such as Katia Maciels9Transcinema10, which not only

explores the visual but also things that are beyond cinema architecture (screen, seats, projection,

spectator), such as video installations and even video arts.

All of this demonstrates how much we are no longer just organic beings. We can't consider

contemporary artistic production just based on the final work. In the same way that genetic

criticism, which was developed and studied starting in the 1960s in France, ceased to know the

context and biography of a specific author to discover the genesis of the work, artistic analysis must

understand the reality of networks and technological development in order to understand the works

that are created. Mariana Manhes11 work for example (an artist from Rio de Janeiro), is only

possible to understand if we take into consideration that technologies (thinking more along the linesof hardware) are intrinsic to the human being. By choosing to use this type of mechanism to

embody day-to-day objects, Manhes is inclined towards a possibly exaggerated Luddism as to

what our bodies are. Objects are embodied with wires, hardware and batteries and it's not difficult

to think that they become humanized due to this adaptation.

During our conversation12, Manhes explained why she chose technology as a way of embodying

her objects:

As soon as I started to do this, I thought: No, I don't want the video to be something

passive in the piece. I was unable to imagine those little characters in there,

immobile. I started to think how I could use images, videos, so as to be active in the

behavior of the work. And that's where a partnership started with my father; because

9 http://www.katiamaciel.eco.ufrj.br/10 http://www.katiamaciel.eco.ufrj.br/textos_download/TranscinemaEsteticaInterrupcao_KatiaMaciel.pdf

11 http://www.marianamanhaes.com/12 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/mariana-manhaes/

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I thought about the 2005 piece called Movido Movente, which was like a propeller

and two kettles talking to each other. An electronic circuit perceives the voices and

turns on a fan above them. Thus, the structure moves to one side and the other does

the same thing moving to the other side. It was the first time I made a piece actually

using a machine; an organic machine.

The organic machine title was given by a critic and describes Manhes piece very well. Its

rattletrap components can be called its body, complemented by videos that disclose the life of an

object, which until that moment was inanimate. The Ludic situations created by Mariana introduce a

touch of naivety to the machinery - considered complex - to her pieces. The machinery is totally

organic.

In the introduction to Donna Haraways book, Cyborg Manifesto post-human vertigo, the

organizer of the Brazilian edition, Tomaz Tadeu, offers a brief explanation as to this fine line

between human and organic. If cybridism is a wall between realities, then the cyborg is a wall

between bodies.

One of the most important issues of our time is precisely: where does the human

being end and the machine begin? Or, given the ubiquity of machines, wouldn't theorder be the other way around? Where does the machine end and the human begin?

Or even, given the general promiscuity between human and machine, wouldn't it be

the case of considering both questions as simply senseless? More than a metaphor,

the undeniable presence of the cyborg in our medium (our?) places human

ontology in check. Ironically, the existence of the cyborg does not enjoin us and the

nature of machines, but much more dangerously, questions the nature of humans:

who are we?Firstly, cyborg ubiquity. One of the most noteworthy features of our era (call it

whatever you want: I personally don't like postmodern) is precisely the indecent

interpretation, the promiscuous coupling, the unashamed conjunction between

human and machine. At a more abstract level, a higher level, this generalized

promiscuity translates into inextricable confusion between science and politics,

between technology and Society and, between nature and culture. There is no longer

anything that is simply pure on any of the sides of the division line: science,

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http://www.marianamanhaes.com/Imagens/MovidoMovente.htmlhttp://www.marianamanhaes.com/Imagens/MovidoMovente.html


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technology, pure nature; purely social, purely political or purely cultural. It is total

and inevitable intertwining. An embarrassing situation? Nonetheless, also full of

promise: the thing is that the entire business is fundamentally ambiguous13

Ambiguity really prevails in our society. The amateur is considered an artist, in the same way that

the artists qualities are subjugated. Today, thresholds that were so well separated a few decades ago

have disappeared. Philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has already shown us that social changes that took

place over the last two decades have transformed our society from solid to fluid.

What all these features of fluids amount to, in simple language, is that liquids, unlike

solids, cannot easily hold their shape. Fluids, so to speak, neither fix space nor bindtime. While solids have clear spatial dimensions but neutralize the impact, and thus

downgrade the significance, of time (effectively resist its flow or render it

irrelevant), fluids do not keep to any shape for long and are constantly ready (and

prone) to change it; and so for them it is the flow of time that counts, more than the

space they happen to occupy: that space, after all, they fill but for a moment. In a

sense, solids cancel time; for liquids, on the contrary, it is mostly time that matters.

When describing solids, one may ignore time altogether; in describing fluids, toleave time out of account would be a grievous mistake. Descriptions of fluids are all

snapshots, and they need a date at the bottom of the picture.14

How does one mold or delineate a fluid being? Now, our generation seeks freedom from

classification or restrictions. It is an eternal search for happiness without having time to question

what would lead to happiness. It is into this paradox that propaganda agencies launch their

consumers and stimulate the production of more electronic equipment, for example. We feel obligedto consume increasingly more leading-edge technology devices that, theoretically, command and

facilitate our lives.

After a few months of using these devices, we no longer know how our lives could exist without

them. Thus, the organic world becomes dependent on machinery. Therefore, a symbiotic existence

is created between the two states and the vicious cycle in which production depends on need all

13 TADEU, Tomaz.Ns, ciborgues - o corpo eltrico e a dissoluo do humano. In HARAWAY, Donna.Antropologia

do ciborgue - as vertigens do ps-humano. Editora Autntica. 2000. pages 10-1114 BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. page 2

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need is created from production.

High-tech culture challenges these dualisms in intriguing ways. It is not clear who

makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not clear

what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices. In so far

as we know ourselves in both formal discourse (for example, biology) and in daily

practice (for example, the homework economy in the integrated circuit), we find

ourselves to be cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, chimeras. Biological organisms have

become biotic systems, communications devices like others. There is no

fundamental, ontological separation in our formal knowledge of machine and

organism, of technical and organic. The replicant Rachel in the Ridley Scott film

Blade Runner stands as the image of a cyborg culture's fear, love, and confusion 15.

The theories and pieces presented herein are not targeted at proving the theory that: 1) access

democratization to new technologies increased or diminished Brazilian artistic production; 2)

amateur aesthetics is better or rather, more or less used in the works of art analyzed; or 3) that they

seek to find a line that unites the works of art of the authors presented herein. The purpose is to

contextualize production, besides showing what has been done in three Brazilian states: So Paulo,Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Artists and researchers interviewed were Cicero Silva, Claudio

Bueno, Fernando Rabelo, Fernando Velzquez, Fred Paulino, Jos Carlos Silvestre, Katia Maciel,

Mariana Manhes, Pedro Veneroso, Vivian Caccuri and Giselle Beiguelman.

In order to facilitate the conception of the theoretical portion, I didn't subdivide the artists into states

or any other subdivision. The idea is not to lay down boundaries, but exemplify what can be or is

being produced in contemporary digital art. The choice of the interviewees was made through

assimilation of the theme proposed. Not surprisingly, half way through the process, nominationssurfaced that werent planned, as was the case with Jos Carlos Silvestre, who had just defended a

thesis for his master's degree on the aesthetics of error and contributed one of the most interesting

theories to the undertaking.

The following pages are contexts and examples that are as yet superficial with regard the

seriousness of the changes caused by new technologies. More detailed studies are as yet required,

with more interviews with artists and researchers, in order to understand the real context and impact

15 HARAWAY, Donna.Antropologia do ciborgue - as vertigens do ps-humano. Editora Autntica. 2000. p. 91

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of these new realities (physical and virtual) in contemporary artistic production.

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Artistic production

In 1999,Instituto Ita Culturalhosted an exhibition called Imateriais 9916, which addressed a few

concepts questioned and promulgated by Thierry Chaput and Jean-Franois Lyotard, two

philosophers considered to be postmodernists. Both were responsible for a manifestation (instead

of exhibition, being that they believed that this pre-established a course) in 1985, which

addressed digital production in a society that up to then was turned towards the material.

According to the undertakings press-release at the time:

Why 'Immaterials'? Research and development in the techno-sciences, art and

technology, yes even in politics, give the impression that reality, whatever it may be,

becomes increasingly intangible, that it can never be controlled directly - they givethe impression of a complexity of things. (...) The devices themselves are also

becoming more complex. One step was set as their artificial brains started to work

with digital data; with data that have no analogy to their origin. It is as if a filter has

been placed between us and the things, a screen of numbers. (...) A color, a sound, a

substance, a pain, or a star return to us as digits in schemes of utmost precision. With

the encoding and decoding-systems we learn that there are realities that are in a new

way intangible. The good old matter itself comes to us in the end as somethingwhich has been dissolved and reconstructed into complex formulas. Reality consists

of elements, organized by structural rules (matrixes) in no longer human measures of

space and time.17

Thus, the questioning was the transformation of data into something digital and the possibility that

several people could simultaneously integrate through small mechanical devices, such as a

computer. In 1985, the two philosophers made devices available for 30 artists, which displayed 50words related to the immaterials theme. They were only concerned about the method, but the idea

was that the guests could construct a written piece together through these codes and projection on a

screen18.

The final piece didn't work out. It is interesting, nonetheless, to perceive that art, 30 years ago,

16 For more information, access: http://www.itaucultural.org.br/tecnica/imateriais/i01.htm17 (T. do A.) Extracted from: http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/kluitemberg_avantgarde.html

(accessed on August 10, 2010)

18 Source: http://www.integral-philippedelis.com/?page=les_immateriaux&menu=phd_references&menu_proj=phd_scenographies

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http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/kluitemberg_avantgarde.htmlhttp://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/kluitemberg_avantgarde.html


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already advocated what today is reality: construction of a work of art through collaboration. One of

the explanations as to what is art considers it as vanguard, in other words, taking the reins of new

instruments or means, experimenting and demonstrating what can be done with things that society

has yet to completely absorb. As stated by Lucia Santaella19, in reference to Eduardo Kac20:

(...) When a new medium of language and communication production arises, an

interesting transition can be observed: firstly, the new medium causes an impact on

the older forms and media. In a second instance, the medium and languages that can

arise from it are taken by artists as objects of experimentation. This was the case

with radio, the first effective mass medium capable of remotely reaching millions of

people at the same time. Initially, radio influenced theater to then later be exploited

as an autonomous source of creation21.

This can be demonstrated through the works carried out by researcher and artist Katia Maciel. As

one of the teachers at the Communication School (ECO) of the Rio de Janeiro Federal University

(UFRJ), Katia organized a book called Transcinemas, which discusses new languages for

contemporary audiovisual production, basing itself on cinema architecture. Katias works are

demonstrations of other experiences with audiovisual, besides eventual projection of images inmovement, as she related to me in our conversation22.

Transcinemas was a medium I created to cater for a contemporary field of

Contemporary Art, which is this cinema expanded by installations. Thus, trans as

in beyond. Thus, it still has the form of cinema some installations incorporate

right from the relationship with the actual image in movement, with the narrations,

multiplication of narrations, multiplication of forms of interacting with thesenarrations. (...) But it is that cinema, right from its origin, which is an

experimentation process. It was an experimentation process in the beginning, and

many artists throughout the entire century cinema is already older than a century ,

19 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_Santaella20 For more information on her piece, read Wikipedia article: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Kac21SANTALLEA, Lucia. Culturas e artes do ps-humano da cultura das mdias cibercultura. Editora Paulus. 2003.

page 15622 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/katia-maciel/

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experimented with this format. For example, Abel Gances23 experience in the 1930s,

splitting the screen into three24, maintains the classic format but expands and

redefines this format in an edition that takes place in an integrated manner with three

projection situations. And, thus, artists at the beginning of the vanguard for

example, the Dadaists25

, [Marcel] Duchamp26

himself, [Luis] Buuel27

thevanguard experimented with the same medium to prove what I'm saying. Today,

many artists experiment with something that is more sensorial, a more sensorial

feature made possible based on experimentation with images in movement. These

images are made available within space. Access to changes of perspectives,

narrations and chromatics is technically made available. Changes to the entire order.

Audiovisual experimentation has been increasingly recurrent. Amateur production has led artists to

explore all media for new conceptions, new methods, as proven by Santaellas theory. For example,

Katia places the spectator within a new projection experimentation, different from the standard size

cinema screens. In her As Ondas28 installation, the spectator is situated in the center of an almost

180 projection of the Rio de Janeiro Ocean. The sensation is of really being present within that

scenario and feeling the ocean waves lapping against your feet, which goes way beyond traditional

cinema architecture.

Katia also experiments with interactivity between the public and her work. In Um, nenhum e cem

mil, one of her most exposed works, the public sees itself facing 10 faces uttering clichs about

relationships, such as I love you, you never listen to me and others of the sort. The spectator is

invited to click on two of the interface characters, who recite random phrases on separate planes

from the image. It is as if the public were interfering and constructing some form of relationship

between the caricatures in the work.

However, the issue is to understand up to what point interactivity within the works of art really takes

place. And up to what point can this be considered experimentation. To open up to a point in which

the spectator is able to modify the work may cause a contrary effect. As stated by Katia during our

conversation:

23 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Gance24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napol%C3%A9on_%281927_film%2925 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada%C3%ADsmo26 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

27 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Bu%C3%B1uel28 http://www.katiamaciel.eco.ufrj.br/trabalhos_KatiaMaciel_2007-2006.htm

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[Jean-Louis] Boissier29, for example: His book provides us with something

incredible, that is, ah, this image-relationship issue 30, in other words, the

construction of an image open to interference is the most closed image there actually

is, because you have to construct all the paths towards this relationship. If you're

going to program something, you know what he's talking about. It's like this, if youclick here, the film goes to this other point and this other thing is going to happen, if

you click here In other words, I have to create several paths in my programming,

but I created the paths. It's difficult to create programming that's going to unless

you do something that's going to be absolutely random. Even so, it is you that

created the path. Plus, it's an interesting way to also think about this reverse flow.

Collaboration, interactivity and even the actual dynamicity of a work of art are issues that the

network strengthened. The ease with which other people can participate in a production - whether

textually, image wise or audially - generates a certain anxiety towards understanding what can be

considered art and what can't. During theEmoo Art.Ficial 5.031Symposium, I questioned artist

Stelarc32 if a cyborg, with its exoskeletons and all its paraphernalia could be considered a work of

art. Stelarc was categoric in stating that art is what you define it as being.

Is it?

On April 30, 2007, the world saw itself without oil. The main energy matrix for vehicles and some

products (such as plastic) would no longer exist in the society in which we live. What could be done

to maintain daily activities without cars, without plastic and without being able to renew asphalt?

How would one manage to maintain one's life without something that seems to be totally essential

for sub-existence?

Alternate Reality Game (ARG)33The World Without Oil(http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/) raised

this issue for the world and asked participants to collaborate in foreseeing a situation that could andcan be chaotic. Those interested could record videos, send photographs, write in blogs, prepare

podcasts, tell friends by e-mail, or collaborate in any way to bring in the greatest number of people

to the cause and to explain how they would imagine that this fictitious world could be placed into

the game. Collaborations with linked into the game site so that any visitor could see the content

29 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Boissier30 http://www.canalcontemporaneo.art.br/documenta12magazines/archives/001042.php31 http://www.emocaoartficial.org.br/pt/videos/simposio-2010/

32 http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/33 For more information, access Wikipedia article: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

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generated.

In 32 days (the game ended on June 1, 2007), they managed to mobilize approximately 1900 people

in 12 countries, who sent in approximately 1500 stories with suppositions and generated a monthly

turnover of 6000 one-time visitors.

Contributions submitted varied from a simple supposition of how life would be affected up to

complex videos in which the citizen would have to plant his own food in his or her backyard. The

purpose of the game was to make people aware of a social and environmental issue: dependence on

oil, a resource that is becoming increasingly scarce in our world. As the video available in the site

shows, many of the people that contributed modify their lives precisely because of this supposition.

Instead of traveling by car to places very close to their homes, they started to walk or use other

types of non-polluting vehicles, such as bicycles.

Imagine a world; build a character based on the life of the author and draft situations that justify the

conclusion. Doesn't this sequence seem similar to the creative process of a writer, for example?

According to Zular, by explaining the mobile text concept, theorized by Philippe Willemart, the

context in which we find ourselves greatly dictates the final outcome. He is the driver of ideas that

foment the artistic side crossed with the subjectivity of each individual.

This is why we talk about ex-pressure, pressure from that that comes from outside,but in which the writer 'upon questioning the source of the pressure, rearranges

culture and provides it with other dimensions34.

Therefore, can ARG collaborators be considered as artists, whether producing textual or visual

work? If authors have their own creative process, which originates portions of a giant undertaking

involving another 1900 authors in various media, if part is object of the study of the work as a

whole (such as a small paragraph in a book), if these then are not authors, who does the final work

of art belong to? Does it belong to the creator of the idea and to the developer of the platform? What

is the work of art in this case? Is it the set as a whole or the thousands of little parts from which it is

composed?

Another example of collaboration are the videos produced by a YouTube member called MadV

(http://www.youtube.com/user/MadV). He is known by other members for his magic tricks, such as

34 33 For more information access Wikipedia article: hppt://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

ZULAR, Roberto. 2002. Criao em processo ensaios de crtica gentica. Editora Iluminuras. Page 1917
http://www.youtube.com/user/MadVhttp://www.youtube.com/user/MadV


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bending spoons or making an iPod disappear35, while wearing a comic book character V for

Vendetta mask and a gray sweatshirt.

On November 16, 2006, MadV published a video called One World36containing a few phrases

inviting people to make a difference and to respond to the invitation 37. Halfway through the film,

MadVs hand appears in front view with a homonymous phrase to the videos title. With a small

work of amateur art, MadV managed to get the videos seen about 1.5 million times (YOUTUBE,

2008).

Various members sent their responses (the exact number is unknown because a hacker invaded the

authors profile and deleted the responses; however, in the file description, MadV states that this is

the video with the greatest number of responses in YouTube's history). MadV then compiled the

best and then organized another video, called The Message38. Dozens of people appear with

words or phrases written on their hands, such as be free, be true, be seen, speak up or

don't give up, amongst others. The idea for the summoning was precisely as follows: compile the

various features and common actions to all nations and to all humans sharing that, in reality, the

world is unique even though there are territorial or cultural subdivisions.

The most interesting thing about MadVs project is that it travels between two mainstreams that

characterize the Web of today: the long tail and collaboration. If there weren't powerful

computers that make it possible for users to record and edit videos easily, MadV would never have

managed to conclude his work in such a short space of time. He managed to make people mobilize

themselves and organize themselves to be part of a completely collaborative product.

MadV made yet another video summoning user collaboration called The 'Humans' Project39,

which generated The Meaning40.

In the same way that in the World Without Oil, MadV video collaborators went through a creative

process until arriving at a final result, which in turn led to another piece composed by other

collaborators and thereby the final work of art.Who can be considered as the real authors of these works of art? The new technologies have not

only expanded study objects about artistic production, but have also made the issue surface.

35 Wikipedia: V for Vendetta is a comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd.The story is set in a dystopian future in 1997 in the United Kingdom, in which a mysterious revolutionist works todestroy the totalitarian government. (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta)

36 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHc0xjRGI60(accessed on August 10, 2000 and)37 YouTube has a service called Video Responses in which members register videos related to the first, as if a blog

comment, but instead of text an image used.38 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-BzXpOch-E (as above)

39 Unfortunately, the video has been excluded.40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4oeO6-BeJk(as above)

18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxqNsUbWlHchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMx2ptIfaIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxqNsUbWlHchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMx2ptIfaI


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A similar weakening threatens the notion of author, even when technological

advance has limited its effects. We recall theImmaterials experience, which was

targeted at exploiting the plural enunciation potential inherent to the digital medium.

Each one of the participants should be able to freely intervene, in order to transmit

an original text to others or a comment on the text of another. (...) The stability of the

author's notions and of intellectual property was, furthermore, submitted to another

approach with the servicing of large textual data banks and electronic library

experiences. In the near future it will be possible to have access to unlimited

intertext, with which the user will be able to play, intertwining loans and comments,

practicing collages and plagiarism, inventing nonlinear paths. If it is as yet too early

to assess the impact of these hypertexts, they unarguably represent a new stage intextual data appropriation via informatics: printed hardcopy is not the most objective

of the treatment, screens are sufficiently spatial and flexible to constitute themselves

as comfortable reading devices; changes produced by research in informatics trend to

be generalized41.

Are the authors the idealizers of the works? Whatever the case, in order to arrive at any conclusion

in relation to the genesis of this entire process, it is necessary to analyze each fragment in its totality

in order to then define what will be defined (no matter how redundant this might appear to be).

Would be a work accomplished by the plurality of authors? Or, would it be a piece created by a

single person, that's managed with one single questioning to organize and mobilize all the others?

Or is it both together?

Filmmakers Ridley Scott (author of giant traditional cinema works of art, such as Alien, Blade

Runner and Thelma and Louise) and Kevin MacDonald (responsible for the beautiful The Last

King of Scotland), recently decided to experiment with a little collectivity amateur aesthetics to

work in their pieces as per MadV. Using the YouTube video platform, these filmmakers summoned

people to send in clips of what they would do on 24 of July, in the Life in a Day 42 project. They

were supposed to film on that day and then had seven days to send into the project. On the first day

alone, there were more than 80,000 video subscriptions.

41 LABRAVE, Jean-Louis. 1992. Crtica gentica: uma nova disciplina ou um avatar moderno da filologia? in

ZULAR, Roberto. 2002. Criao em processo ensaios de crtica gentica. Editora Iluminuras. Pg. 11742 http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday

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In this case, the amateur aesthetics of the summoning was completely forgotten. The summoning

video43, for example, was translated into Portuguese, English, German, French, Italian, Japanese and

Spanish. What appear to be something created by someone with no resources, is now being copied

by teams and important artists in the world scenario.

Collectivity, facilitated by Web tools, does not only surface as a new medium, but also as a new

style. The ease with which production takes place makes us think of a new way of writing. Non-

textual writing, but imagery writing.

The problem with collective intelligence is to discover or invent something beyond

writing, something beyond the language in a way that treatment of information is

distributed and coordinated every part, so that it is no longer the prerogative of

separate social governing bodies, but on the contrary, is integrated naturally into all

human activities, returning into the hands of each individual. (LEVY, 2006, p. 17)

This super language will probably involve all available media. It'll be the perfect joining of audio,

video, image, text and portability. Maybe, in a short while, we will be able to work with all these

media in an intuitive manner without great effort. Technologies for this are increasingly more

accessible to everyone and all types of public. Video, for example, which is considered the mostexpensive of media, is currently accessible to anyone who has a computer with a camera, or even a

digital photography camera. Sharing this has also become much easier in light of the tools of the

become available through the web.

It is interesting to note that practically all artistic productions in this survey involves some form of

audiovisual (excluding some of Vivian Caccuris44 excellent experiments). Video arises as a tool for

the future, to be explored, to be extinguished in its possibilities.

It is not per chance that it is common sense, especially within the art circuit, to hear

that everything is contemporary video. This is the same as saying that video

expands its functions and takes on new attributes and reach; now being understood

as a procedure for media interconnection and is valorized as a producer of network

43 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN3kduHuioU44 http://vcaccuri.net/

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connections between the most varied thoughts and practices45.

This entire multimedia context and of sharing information was also theorized by Levy. He believes

that there are three tripods that sustain the new exchange of knowledge: speed of evolution, mass of

people and the appearance of new tools.

The first has never been so fast as is currently being experienced, which interferes in all relations

and human activities, such as work, daily life and means of communication. And it is mainly within

this knowledge and know-how (savoir-faire for the author) that the acceleration is more acute and

configurations more mobile (LEVY, 2006, p. 24).

It is practically impossible to restrict knowledge solely to academia and the specialists. Today, we

are experiencing a democratize edition of knowledge, with tools and the possibility to access anytype of information available anywhere. Levy believes that the collective should, from now on,

adapt itself, learn and invent in order to live better within the complex and chaotic universe in

which we now live (LEVY, 2006, p. 24). We believe in a world in which anyone can have as much

credibility as in an exemplary curriculum.

Nonprofessional production is not only explored by renowned artists. There are theories that

explain a little about the popularization and adoption of these aesthetics in some works. Engineer,

artist and researcher Jos Carlos Silvestre46presented the aesthetic concept of the error in ourconversation47. The error, by itself, is a new experience, an innovation to be questioned and studied.

It isn't an error in the sense of a problem, but something that has to be fixed. It is the error through

the perspective that it wasn't expected or contemplated in the initial project. It is the per chance

acting as the conductor of new results.

Radio as we know it is an example of how the error is inserted within our society in the same way

as invention itself. The machinery developed by Guglielmo Marconi48 was to be a point-to-point

information transmitter, similar to a telephone, but via electromagnetic waves. However, theinvention didn't only transmit from one place to another but in a radial manner. Therefore, all

devices surrounding the transmitter were able to capture the transmissions and decode them. Thus,

it was an error.

Another example is the photographic camera:

45 MELLO, Christine.Extremidades do vdeo. Editora Senac. 2008. pg. 2746 http://bogotissimo.com/

47 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/jose-carlos-silvestre/48 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi

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There are several possibilities for playing around with a photographic camera in

terms of error. (...) the so-called Camera Tossing49, that is an emerging culture that

has yet to be investigated academically, which consists of pressing the camera's

automatic shutter button, thrown up in the air and see what results are achieved. This

produces a few abstract results. It has a history of experimentation with the camera

in movement, but it is not connected to this. It's something that actually surfaced

from an amateur user playing with the camera. Let's see what will happen. This

generates aesthetics of error because it is a deviation from the way in which cameras

are used. There is an entire convention of how to use a camera that involves not

throwing it up into the air. But you can also play with a mirror, you can play there

is a really cool experiment by Gabriel Menotti50 he used to study at PUC(Pontifcia Universidade Catlica) and is now at the one in London -, in which he

does the following: he took an old cell phone camera and covered it completely

covered it and put it in a drawer. One would expect that in this situation everything

would be black. However, what really happened is that the camera used its image

adjustment algorithms to make its transformations and so on. This starts to produce

small errors. Because there was no input, it started to feedback, in a positive retro

alignment loop that turned into a totally colored animation, full of movement withpurple and yellow.

Even Silvestres artistic works address the theme, as is the case with his Fractais Fracassados51.

He uses a famous fractal (Julia-set52) to compose a visual piece which modifies itself when a code is

activated. Mathematically speaking, the code is correct for an object, but because he uses overly

large values for the computer's processing, it generates images and figures in constant movement, as

if they were traveling across the monitor. In other words, Silvestre plays with his own programming

error. He knows that it won't produce the form it should, but uses this to compose an artistic work.

If everyone is able to produce artistic pieces and the artists themselves use the aesthetics of error to

49 http://www.flickr.com/groups/cameratoss/50 http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:x25quN8luSwJ:bogotissimo.com/b2kn/dump/Gabriel%2520Menotti

%2520-%2520Atrav%25C3%25A9s%2520da%2520Sala%2520Escura.pdf+gabriel+menotti&hl=pt-BR&gl=br&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjAQDeDbkaI2TaxxTe1LLynZUsSUW62Qp-v7GwtjoZug0oS-VnyN56c8kd5wBimGsiS_xknfA7qpvOriUa7zuOYqCRHvc53d9vGb5AdDDIrm7C4iu2Hge5kWiGxHsXqqCg4ufMz&sig=AHIEtbQCjzeHOcuGU8J-U_8PZOV99KJRPw

51 http://bogotissimo.com/ff/52 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_set

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compose their pieces, how then should we distinguish what is art, who are artists and which

concepts distinguish both? Anyone can produce content and play with network tools to generate

information and communicate with their colleagues. What does the artist do differently?

I feel that the artistic side is a little different from this other [educational and

communicational], because it is how you are going to use this as well. If you actually

use the machine to record or produce a video, how does that work? How are you

going to understand the machine to produce? Artistic for me is 10 times greater

than educational or anything else, because it is more dangerous, more risky and if

you stop half way there you're not actually producing anything artistic. And

nowadays, this margin is very wide. It includes a lot of equipment, many things, lots

of Photoshop effects, computer effects, many cameras and loads of little details.

Sometimes, the production of sense is only one. It is still homogeneous. Artists that

manage to transcend this are those that manage to understand these media or work

them with another idea or facility. Nowadays we have various types of very small

cameras. You can buy 10 of them and record 10 images at the same time. The

cameras are small so you can position them in a small place that wasnt possible

before, like carrying out an interview in a sewer hole. From inside and out. The

regular camera doesn't fit inside a sewer hole, but a small one does. How does oneinnovate the framing and whatever else along with this technology, which is art as

technology and not technology as art?

Someone who questions this is artist Fernando Rabelo53, who has an extensive work on how to re-

signify technology for the greater public through art. This piece seeks to bring regular citizens

closer to the hardware, to how the machinery is made. In a society privileged by consumption,

Rabelo wishes to show how to construct together and use the tools to increment daily life.

When we talked54, in Belo Horizonte, Rabelo showed me his workbench full of circuit boards,

cables and connections. What most interested me in his work was the rattletrap aspect of his pieces.

The first of these, Contato QWERTY55, has a simple mechanism. He used circuit board from

inside a keyboard, connected wires to the key circuits and put steel wool on the extremities. In this

53 http://www.hiperface.com/

54 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/fernando-rabelo/55 http://www.hiperface.com/#

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way, the spectator that holds onto the extremities with steel wool closing the circuit, activates the

projection, being that each letter is a different video.

The spectator doesn't only see a piece that works with technologies but also actively participates in

the construction of the project's final result. The mechanisms are exposed, without boxes or any

other forms of protection to camouflage the wiring. It is a naked piece of art. The objective of this is

not to interfere with the spectator's contemplation. He should see and try to understand what is

happening there. Only in this way can the electronics not sound or appear to be something distant

from the daily lives of the people.

Exploitation of the medium, or media, is maybe what really defines an artist and separates him/her

from a simple amateur. It is the analysis of all the possibilities and expressions that a medium can

provoke. Arlindo Machado, mentioned in Priscila Arantes56piece, makes the following comment:

Therefore, what a real creator does, instead of simply submitting himself or herself

to the determinations of the technical apparatus, is to continuously subvert the

function of the machine or program he or she is using, and manipulate it in a

contrary sense to its programmed productivity.57

In Arantes same book, by defining the artmedia concept, Arlindo also strengthens the role of the

artist as a medium, media explorer. For the author, artmedia is understood as the forms of artistic

expression that appropriate technological resources of media and the entertainment industry in

general, or intervene in their channels of diffusion in order to propose qualitative alternatives 58.

In my conversation59with Vivian Caccuri60, she defends the same thesis mentioning a piece by

Cildo Meireles61. The artist recorded an LP (vinyl record) using two audio channels; something

different in each one. In the first, he recorded an indigenous tribe discourse about a massacre that

took place in their village. In the other, he captured the deposition of the whites, of the people

involved in the murders. The public could then modify the importance of each side altering the

volume button. In other words, while manipulating the channels, the discourse of the Indians could

56 ARANTES, Priscila. @rte e mdia - perspectivas da esttica digital. Editora Senac. 2005.57 MACHADO, Arlindo (org.). Made in Brasil: trs dcadas do vdeo brasileiro. Ita Cultural. 2003. p. 2358 MACHADO, Arlindo.Arte e mdia: aproximaes e distines. In Galxia: Revista Transdisciplinar de

Comunicao, Semitica, Cultura, n 4. PUC-SP. 2002. p. 2059 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/vivian-caccuri/

60 http://www.vcaccuri.net/61 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cildo_Meireles

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be placed in the foreground while the whites were subjugated to the background and vice versa.

In the end, it can be perceived that what is being exploited is the root of media itself. It is a game

with a program that was developed for that medium. Both channels are altered through the volume

setting, making it possible for the effect and the final message to reach the public. If Meireles hadn't

questioned the functionality of each of the two channels, it would not have been a work of artmedia.

Meireles understood the meaning of the medium very well and what could be exploited besides

what was programmed for it.

As stated by Vivian:

I think that the mediart vision cuts both ways. It can classify things that were made

previously, through media, as it can establish things as a category that will provide afew principles for someone to produce something. However, I think that all these

principles - within the media art thinking within what is understood as media art,

media, get it? Media is the major issue. It isn't exactly art; it's more of a media

problem.

Vivians works explore hearing as a major questioning point. It isn't music, it isn't just audio

capture. It is the perception of noise and what it provokes in our minds. One of Vivians pieces,

Maquiagem Aumentada62 (sic. Augmented Makeup), exploits the intimacy between therelationship of the makeup artist with the person being made up; the sound of the brush on the skin;

the sound of a pencil tracing the contours of the eyes; cotton wool scraping the wrinkles of the skin

aged by years; mascara bringing together eyelashes to provide a deeper look. It is the act of being

made up with the amplitude of sounds of the instruments rubbing up against the skin. This

performance shows how intimate the process can be of hiding the defects or underlining the skin

qualities. The artists and the public isolate themselves in a specific place, using earphones, for the

section. Those (or the person) being made up (the public) exchange confidences with the makeupartist as to where the defects are, and at the same time they listen to the instruments passing over the

skin to resolve the problem.

In this case, technology surfaces as an activator of this change of perception. It is simply a means of

managing to reach the end determined by the performance. Vivian underlines that her works of art,

without context, cannot be considered as digital art. According to her, artmedia is much more

related to the exploitation of media than art itself which isn't the case with her pieces. Of course,

62 http://www.vcaccuri.net/lang/pt/2008/10/04/maquiagem-aumentada/

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Fred Paulino63is another person that uses these technologies to achieve a certain end. His works

involve the same rattletrap64aspect as those of Fernando Rabelo, but with slightly different

aesthetics. He even created a mascot to represent his undertakings, Jean Baptiste Gambirre 65

(fictional character), and with Paulo Henrique Pessoa Ganso and Lucas Mafra66 developed the

rattletrap armor67

, the first piece that involve a helmet, a watch and even a shoe-phone.

Fred was also worried about the design of his pieces, placing stickers and other paraphernalia in

order to, let's say, make it more interesting. Furthermore, Paulino told me during our conversation68

that he had an extensive stencil piece on the roads of Belo Horizonte in which he questions right

from the iconoclastic figure of Mona Lisa right up to punch phrases such as how much would you

pay me for an idea?

My work is always really based on a research of languages and almost always

conceptually working a little with the irony issue. I also like to dialogue within the

universe of politics. For example, no matter how much Gambiologia doesn't deal

with politics per se, it questions politics in a certain way; the use of devices and

excesses of the contemporary world. It is in this sense that it also brings in a little of

this political issue

Freds urban interventions are more explicit with regards to this political process. Paulino lived in

New York for a few months, where he made contact with the Graffiti Research Lab group. This

collective mixes technology and traditional graffiti. Actually, it isn't so traditional anymore. For

example, they create a tool that pixelates using a laser pen, called L.A.S.E.R. Tagging System 69 -

L.A.S.E.R. signifying: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission Radiation. In other words,

instead of fouling the walls and architecture of a location, they emit beams of light that through a

projection process, stores the work as if it were a painted canvass. Through this friendship, Paulinobecame responsible for putting together a cell of the movement in tropical lands, which addresses

projects at http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com.br/blog/.

Groups, collectives and laboratories targeted at digital or any other type of creation involving

63 http://fredpaulino.com/64 http://www.gambiologia.net/65 http://www.gambiologia.net/blog/tag/jean-baptiste-gambierre/66 http://lucasmafra.com/67 http://www.gambiologia.net/blog/category/armadura-gambiologica/

68 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/fred-paulino/69 http://graffitiresearchlab.com/projects/laser-tag/

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technologies are very common abroad. However, here in Brazil, it's difficult to find this type of

space for collaborators to be able to get together to produce joint efforts. For now, there are no

governmental or even private initiatives to develop this type of work. For now...

Pedro Veneroso, of the Marginalia70 group from Belo Horizonte, explained71 the plans to put

together a laboratory with great influence from what happened at the MediaLab do Prado72, a major

reference for the issue. The idea is to open up a summoning for national and international

collaborators and residents to use the infrastructure of a laboratory to be opened in the city center.

They already had a previous experience, but the number of collaborators was not sufficient to

structure more precise logistics. All this was possible due to sponsorship provided by cellular phone

company Vivo.

However, proliferation of technological appropriation is negatively affected due to the high cost of

basic services for this type of center, such as connection to Internet. Broadband in Brazil is one of

the worst and most expensive in the world, besides the major discrepancy between what is charged

in So Paulo or in Recife, being outside of the centers - where there is greater circulation of cash -

the price is much higher. The difference between family income in the Southeast and in the

Northeast is enormous, nonetheless service there is much more expensive. Furthermore, the money

spent can't be compared with the type of service offered. When I spoke to 73 digital researcher Cicero

Silva74, he made me aware of the precariousness of paying for telephony roaming service, that is,

every time upon leaving one state a tariff is paid on the cost of a connection because the actualtelephony company has not procured better equipment to provide the same service throughout

national territory. The same is the case with DDD (landline long-distance). Making long-distance

calls is something totally obsolete that only impedes proliferation of new initiatives related to

digital culture.

Cicero explained the importance of these laboratories dedicated to digital culture and technological

creativity.

What is the industrys role in re-signifying art? How is the artist going to appropriate

industrial instruments or industrial apparatus in order to build his works or even

software? Industrial instruments not in the sense of the XIX century, of heavy

70 http://marginaliaproject.com/lab/71 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/pedro-veneroso/72 http://medialab-prado.es/

73 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/cicero-silva/74 http://www.cicerosilva.com/

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machinery, but in the sense of intellectual capital. By promoting circulation of

intellectual capital, which today works at the level of software abstraction, for

example, in a specific cultural space, you expand... culture acts as a catalyzer, as an

integration process between the differences. By passing from the level of the XIX

century, which we still live in the city of So Paulo, of heavy industry, to aknowledge industry level, of the society of knowledge75, you have to have a

passage, and Culture is reflexive dialogue and digital art, in this case, by

appropriating these new resources, these new mechanisms, achieves this passage.

The centers abroad, as is the case in Prado in Spain, don't only have the objective of proliferating

digital culture, but also of re-signifying the surrounding space. They work with the communities

within the area in order that culture becomes this rite of passage between two completely different

centuries. There are workshops for training, courses, seminars, monitoring, basically various

activities to insert those interested in this type of culture.

Even with this country having access restriction to centers or even to faculties with well-structured

courses, Cicero believes that production in the country is of very high quality. This researcher even

compared what has been done here with that accomplished by Experiments in Art and Technology

(E.A.T.)76, a group created in the 1960s with the purpose of mixing engineers, mathematicians

biologists and professionals from other areas with artists. They wanted to mix the areas to see what

would happen, as can be seen in bio-art and biotechnology, for example. Production is still almost

nonexistent when compared to USA, Japan, Spain or even China, but domestic productions quality

makes it stand out, as proven by the special mention received by artist Lucas Bambozzi77and by the

CulturaDigital.BR platform78, besides Giselle Beiguelman having participated as a judge in maybe

one of the most important awards related to digital art, which is the Ars Electronica79.

Another interviewee that mentions the areas hybridization issue to produce works of art is Fernando

Rabelo. The difference is that according to him there is an authorship problem involved in this

marriage. Today, many artists simply use the technical knowledge of other professionals to compose

their undertakings, but when accrediting the work they don't contemplate the assistant. At the

time when authorship is debated by all angles - especially because of these technologies -, this

75 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedade_da_informao76 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_Art_and_Technology77 http://www.lucasbambozzi.net/

78 http://culturadigital.br/79 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Ars_Electronica

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happening is somewhat paradoxical; and, it is simple to find out which artist forgot to accredit the

assistant: all one has to do is ask how it's done.

Rabelos research doesn't only involve makeshifts or rattletrap. This artist was recently in

Amsterdam, Holland, to do some research on 360 cinema. This project brings a new language and

aesthetics to cinema for the digital art agenda. The research is about the 360 panoramic screen

where videos are projected.

When I got there, there were several cool things. There were also several antique

machines, but what greatly interested me was the analogical panorama system,

composed of 10 videocassette players connected to 10 projectors. The videocassette

players had a mechanism I forget what its called which synchronized videos in

order to be played. In reality, it wasn't a videocassette. It was a videocassette, but

then it was substituted for DVD. When I got there, they were in the process of

synchronizing the DVDs. In this case it was as follows: the system is cool, but my

work was almost all digital. I had to record 10 DVDs to play in there, so, for me, the

greatest challenge was to make the same system work digitally. That was the first

idea. Within this process, we try to use the least possible amount of hardware to

make the digital system it was easier to replicate and understand how the system

works. So, I developed it with a computer and three Matrox Triple Head80 circuit

boards. The entire system can be found at http://www.hiperface.com/panorama.html .

There is a step-by-step explanation of what I did at the time. I developed a digital

projection system and, within that, I started to work with the interaction proposals

with these images, starting with a webcam, which duplicates these images you can

make more than 3000 camera images from the same webcam, but all fragmented into

a mosaic. I made a little panoramic Big Brother81 type game, which is completed

surrounded by images of yourself from one webcam.

One of Rabelos experiments was to project an image over the 360 screen. In other words, it is an

image in movement in movement (no matter how paradoxical this might seem). Thinking about

new cinema aesthetics greatly reminds me of Katia Maciels Transcinema theories. The architecture

that defines the moviemaking system, in this case, is broken to generate a new language. The artist

80 http://www.matrox.com.br/axio.htm81 http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Irmo

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can no longer just think about the image in movement, but about the movement that the image in

movement will have on a 360 screen. The idea that the public are just spectators of a work of art is

going asunder.

Giselle Beiguelman also reminds me of other cinema aesthetics that was placed in check by new

technologies. If before it was necessary to be in a specific location at a specific time in order to be

able to see a film (as is the case with cinema), the advent of television destroyed this obligatory

spatial imposition. Internet, on the other hand, has managed to abolish both concepts, temporal and

spatial. Content can be accessed at any time, from any place, right from the cell phone up to your

personal computer at the office.

It's not only location that interferes in cinema aesthetics. To think about this language using the

network is to take into consideration situations and standards over which there will be no control.

How? If Giselle creates, as she explained, a piece of webart to be seen only on desktops, she should

perceive that because my personal computer will not be the same as she had foreseen, even if we

use the same equipment. The configurations of my monitor may be completely different from that

of hers, which would affect the piece arriving to me (which, in practice, would be another, not the

one originally created by the artist). Furthermore, we have the configuration of my entire CPU: it

will depend on the operational system I'm using, my video board and my monitor's resolution,

basically on all the customizable options.

Another point that Giselle raised, is that it is necessary to also think about access conditions to the

piece. In other words, if she places a work of art on the net, visualization and fruition of the piece

will depend on how many people are accessing the site at that time, how many are accessing the

same service provider as the spectator, the page host plan, the amount of band possible to load, and

many other possibilities that are impossible to control. All this without considering that that piece

was created to be seen on the desktop and can be accessed via notebook or even by a cell phone.

What I would especially underline is: 1) the network culture obliges one to think

about transmission aesthetics82, which in a certain way depends on intellectual

generosity ethics. Why? Because the Internet is uncontrollable with regards to laws.

Why is uncontrollable? Because everything influences everything. (...) All of this

will influence and impact the way in which the work will be unpackaged to others.

This is intrinsic to the nature of the network. And this is where the intellectual

82 http://netart.incubadora.fapesp.br/portal/Members/gbeiguelman/Textos/por_uma_estetica_da_transmissao_full.pdf

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generosity issue enters. I have to take into consideration a series of reception

variables in project conception. This implies in yet another issue, which we talked

about a little while ago, which is communicational aesthetics83, which are these

thoughts about the work as something publishable, edited. All of this is already quite

particular to the network situation.

Transmission and even communicational aesthetics is explored as well by artist Claudio Bueno84,

but from a different angle. Bueno is interested in using the transmission mechanisms, such as cell

phones or even through network streaming, to question the concepts of public and private spaces.

Buenos works use these tools as a medium and, consequently, thinking and altering transmission

and communicational aesthetics.

One of the pieces the artist commented on during our conversation85 was the Casa Aberta86. There

was a gallery with a screen with a live transmission of Claudios living room, in which the artists

sofa and television could be seen. In the gallery, next to the screen, there were two cell phone

numbers for the public to call; and by calling they could turn Claudios television on or off and

change channels.

The piece invites one to think about what is this new situation that is forming itself,whether it's the space in the residence, sort of why do I transmit myself? or why

do I transmit my living room?. To activate a presence? To be connected? To make it

seem as if I'm accompanied? When Isabela is not here working with me, am I here

alone? If I connect myself or if someone in the gallery turns on my television, it's

almost like saying look, there's someone here with me. This presence of another,

which sometimes can also be understood as too much, of the cell phone that I didn't

turn off and might ring while we are talking, of an e-mail that arrived before you didand that I might be thinking about it, of these external presences that end up entering

into the environment which would then be closed, without these transmissions,

which would only be a space within these walls and that these concrete walls are no

longer limitations, they no longer delineate private space. It is permeated by other

presences.

83 http://www.ufscar.br/rua/site/?p=68684 http://buenozdiaz.net/

85 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/claudio-bueno/86 http://buenozdiaz.net/casaaberta.html

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The interesting thing is that Claudio's questioning fits perfectly with the cybridism concept. If were

connected 24/7 at the same time, does it mean we're accompanied during this time? Does it mean

that there is someone, whoever that person might be, that is about to interfere in our space and

time? When I talked to Vivian, she told me about a friend she went to visit in Mozambique who was

watching a ritual. A woman dressed in native attire, with a turban and everything, was thumping a

log on the ground while speaking in her native tongue. Suddenly, she stopped the ritual to answer

her cell phone. When I think about the cell phone, it is this interference thing. It is like seeing time

overlap itself. Other people's time with yours, and establishing a different relationship with it,

because you have to interrupt this thing to finally be able to attend to some other demand,

explained Vivian.

Nowadays, this interference is most sought-after. We want to be available every day and all the

time. We need to be available to receive messages, receive calls and be ready in order that others

can overlap their demands on ours, anywhere. The mobility of the device led Bueno to create

another piece, Transporte87, in which he uses two cell phones as mechanisms to make a piano

hung from the ceiling go up or down. If you call one number, the piano goes down. If you call

another, it goes up.

It is an annoyance because of the weight, because it won't budge. The idea of

mobility is an annoyance. Anne Galloway88 has a phrase that goes as follows

mobility is only free when is freely chosen. The idea of mobility is associated with

an idea of total liberty. I can be in any place - isn't that wonderful? Deep down,

mobility also has its annoyance.

The transmission and mobility issues don't only raise questions within the spectator, but also in artproduction, especially digital art. I will let Giselles words explain:

The other issue that also interests me greatly within these communicational

aesthetics, besides this issue of transmission aesthetics, is the shock in as much as

the artistic issue is concerned , on the one hand, the narcissism of the creator, which

87 http://buenozdiaz.net/otransporte1.html88 http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/

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the transmission aesthetics already jolts because there's no way of guaranteeing the

reception conditions of the work, but you guarantee them less than context in which

this work will be unpackaged. The cell phone situation accentuated and heightened

this a lot. It's almost as if you put yourself in a position to make a work of art not to

be seen, or to be seen amongst other things you use a cell phone in situations inwhich you are multitasking89: you're driving and speaking on the cell phone and

receiving a message and loading a video and opening an e-mail. All this greatly

transforms the creation process; specifically at the digital culture90 level, in that

niche. Today, digital culture is practically everything, but in that niche targeted at

what is specifically digital creation. The network experience. That can't be done

outside of the digital medium. You can do photography which today everyone does

digitally can it be done non-digitally? It can, and very well, thank you -, literature is it difficult to find anyone that does it? It's difficult, but it can be done -, but on

the network it can't. Network cultures DNA is digital from end to end. In this sense,

online arts are the specific daughters of digital culture. They are transformed by

Not to have this type of control seems to dilute the meaning of creating a work of art. In theory,

things are created to be seen in that way, in a determined manner. Nowadays, there is no longer

control over how people will see something that was planned, going back a little to the aesthetics oferror discussed by Jos Carlos Silvestre. One works with the per chance right from literary

creation.

Maybe it's also for this reason that artist Fernando Velzquez91 believes that this is the end of the

romantic idea of the artist. Since 1960, as I explained earlier in this work, genetic criticism has been

trying to show the genesis of a specific work of art. In the beginning it was more targeted at

literature, but now it has more space amongst other artistic angles. This science puts an end to the

idea that creativity is something divine, that there are gods that drive us to create a work of art and

Venuses to inspire us. No. Creation has logic and it can be proven. There is nothing divine and that

only a few illuminati possess it.

Velzquez believes that the network and collaboration also place this issue in check. Inspiration on

the other hand, comes from all sides, from everyone. To create alone, as suggested by the romantic

idea, is almost impossible (of course it is possible, but the effort to achieve it is much greater than

89 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

90 http://culturadigital.br/o-programa/conceito-de-cultura-digital/91 http://www.blogart.com/

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otherwise). Maybe that's why, during our conversation92, Velzquez pointed out that the databank

made possible by informatics is one of the great inventions to influence artistic creation.

Especially on the Internet, there is an absurd quantity of material with which artists can work

without needing to ask permission or authorization from the real authors. Fernandos work Sua

histria, nosso filme93 [Your Life, Our Movie] uses the databank to compose a live piece, on the

spot, only with images posted by Flickr94 photo hosting service users. The spectator types the word

that has something to do with his or her trajectory over the interest in seeing the result, and the

system created by Velzquez extracts the images from the hosting service to assemble an animation,

right there, where the photographs were registered as related to that word.

I think the idea of memory identity was the main thing. This idea of being able to see

it on Flickr it's an album of memories, which used to be something personal,

people would write things in a book and it was a secret that not even one's mother

could hear, nowadays that has been turned upside down. In reality, the cool thing is

to show your intimacy. And it is also how to work with the upside down of this

concept of an identity, of a part of our identity. And then also the idea of the

audiovisual.

Another piece for which she uses the databank as raw material is the Descontnua Paisagem95, in

which the public, via cell phone, send the coordinates, and the images altered in the projection. In

this case, besides the relationship with the collaborative role material, which are these hosting

platforms for multimedia content, the landscape of a time surrounded by digital is also questioned.

If therefore, in order to achieve images from around the world one would have to see them on

television, buy books or sort through the newspaper, nowadays they are easily available from the

net. The landscape we work with is worldwide, asynchronous, pocket-size.We don't even realize it, but a little time ago, for example, it was almost impossible to find a map of

an airport (also because of strategic and secrecy reasons). Today, however, we can easily get these

through Google Maps96 or Google Earth97.

92 http://culturadigital.br/artedocibridismo/entrevistas/fernando-velazquez/93 http://www.blogart.com/indexhibit/index.php?/installation/you-life-our-movie/94 http://www.flickr.com/95 http://www.blogart.com/indexhibit/index.php?/installation/descontinua-paisagem/

96 http://maps.google.com/97 http://earth.google.com/

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In reality, the series to which I'm referring to now is the 2008 series which continues

up to now; which, in reality, is a process that surfaced based on identifying airports

in Google Mapsand making different translations of this information to obtain a

form, a vinyl mask. This then goes through an industrial process, where it is painted

with automotive paint. It's a work where he mixes... in reality, he works with a wide

range of things, going from issues such as art automation, painting, non-author,

collective authorship and industrial processes. This specific piece he has a special

fondness for landscape as well, because despite it being a simple fact, of using a tool

such as Google Maps and Google Earthto produce a work of art which is obvious,

because it is a massified tool -, it is the way in which one sees this tool is what's

relevant. (...) Despite the way in which we access it being banal, as something verymundane. I think that everyone when they look at Google Maps, must've gone

through a few cities what a beautiful form! Even when you travel by plane, you

look at things from above. This is the thought that permeates many of us. (...) The

link I found to construct these paintings was also very simple, if you translate a piece

of the city, from that form that was already pretty right from space which also has

its attractiveness because if it was ratified by an architect or not, it was appropriated

by people, that form was emerging, it was self-generative in a social real-life issue.

the art of cybridism (a arte do cibridismo english version)

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