emoção art.ficial

by Marco Aurélio Fiochi. july 4th 2004
photos by Rubens Chiri

In a scenario in which Internet users become avatars, that is, they are given a virtual body; in which discussion communities appear as an alternative for people with common interests and ideologies; and where it is possible to subvert the operations of institutions by means of global actions that confront their power, artistic initiatives and experiments appear in cyberspace making the man of the technological era increasingly more individualized. That is called web subjectivity.

On the third day of the Emoção Art.ficial 2.0 international symposium – Divergências Tecnológicas (Technological Divergences), the experiences of the man-machine interaction were the topic of the roundtable Subjetividades em Rede, (Web Subjectivities), which gathered Mariela Yeregui, Minerva Cuevas, Sara Diamond, Giselle Beiguelman, Suzette Venturelli and Mario Maciel, moderated by Paula Perissinotto.

Mariela Yeregui, resident artist of the Media Centre d’Art i Disseny, Mecad, in Barcelona, focused her presentation on creating in new media, which she classifies as works “on” and “for” the web. According to her, the exchange among people in the virtual space enables the creation of ideological marks. “Subject identity and the position contrary to mainstream discourse arises from this mobilization. It awakens the power of activism and resistance in people,” she said.

The position is shared by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas, whose work Mejor Vida Corp. (1998), being exhibited in the Emoção Art. ficial 2.0 exhibition, is a statement in favor of democracy and the inclusion of those marginalized from the web.

It is a virtual fictitious company that subverts advertising symbols, showing the “other side” of products and institutions. An example of the work of MVC is the campaign about the Mexican Institute of Information and Statistics, Inegi, in which she denounces that the institution excludes the poor from its census. Another service provided by the “company” on the Internet are credentials that enable students to obtain discounts. Bar codes created by MVC allow consumers to buy cheaper products at the supermarket.

Demystifying the web – Sara Diamond, a video-artist and executive producer of Banff Centre, Canada, defended the online collaborative environments of creation and development. According to her, it is necessary to demystify and create personal behaviors in the virtual space. The process is shown on the video of the project called CodeZebra. The work starts with dramatizations that are filmed and are posted on the Internet, where subjectivity is implicit, outlining the whole experience.

Sara and the Banff Centre were present in the first edition of Emoção Art.ficial, in 2002, with the work Talk Nice, which analyzed the way people expressed themselves on the net.

Giselle Beiguelman, an artist and professor at the Catholic University of São Paulo, PUC/SP, pointed out the action of the “society of control” in the domestic space and in the body. As an example, she mentioned smart cards, which monitor what people consume. “We have become mobile data banks, and the scenario is very similar to what was portrayed by Steven Spielberg in the film “Minority Report,” she observed. “In an experience that took place in Tijuana, Mexico, chips were implanted in children to monitor them, so as to avoid kidnappings,” she said. According to the professor, these actions mean that the bodies have changed their status in the new era and are now technologized, hybrid systems.

Suzette Venturelli, an artist and professor at the University of Brasília, UnB, Brasília, and Mario Maciel, who together are presenting F69 at Emoção Art.ficial 2.0, brought to the stage of the symposium, Robowww, an experiment of robotic art in progress developed by both of them. Distance learning, with software that simulates laboratories, and the creation of cell phone games were some of the topics addressed during the presentation.

Tags: Canada, Spain, internet, information society
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