Chapter I
Prelude Interview with Clemente Padín
— Clemente, let’s talk about your experiences in the 60s and how you think this decade influenced the advent of new media in Uruguay.
— The 60s were a melting pot for the awakening of new expressive forms and possibilities throughout the fields of art, dance, sculpture, music, plastic arts, etc
It was the emergence of new genres like action art, “performance”, the so-called “happening”, the mail art, experimental poetry, and the beginning of Conceptualism in its two modes: the Anglo-Saxon on one side and Latin American Conceptualism
The case of mail art implied a disruptive burst. It was a radical proposal to work apart from and regardless of the market, to leave the mainstream and privilege communication.
The beginning of mail art goes back to the 60s as a consequence of the activity of the artist Fluxus Ray Johnson in New York. By the mid 60s the movement already included an integrated Latin American circuit, formed particularly by the same artists that provided input to the alternative magazines and publications of the time, like Guillermo Deisler, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Dámaso Ogaz and many others, including myself. Nowadays we talk of “interactivity” as a conquest of digital art, but actually originates in Ray Johnson’s initial experiences with his mailings known as “Add-to and Pass-on”. This art has remained beyond all changes, even today that we have more direct communications like electronic mail, mail art continues to be alive.
I consider it a means, maybe not revolutionary because it does not imply radical changes in any areas of human activity, but indeed “disruptive” because it managed to have the arts system on the rack, forcing it to review its own objectives in front of society and the surrounding system. Mail art owes a lot to artists like Dick Higgins or Ken Friedman, who made it possible to expand it by demanding that all catalogues include the mailing addresses of participants. That was how regional networks – the basis of great networking – came to be.
- You mentioned experimental poetry.
—
Sure! That was an interesting evolution that probably originated in a generational issue. I remember that in the 60s young people had a hard time managing to publish their work because of the heavy influence of the generation of ‘45 in the media. We couldn’t publish our work anywhere because they had control of publishing houses, literature pages, fairs, and so on. So we had no choice but to create our own media. That was how a group of students of literature got together to publish a magazine that we called “Los Huevos del Plata” [Eggs of the River Plate] (we wanted a title to act in opposition to the prestigious and significant one-word names of publications by the generation of ’45, like Arca, Marcha, Diálogo, Lumen, etc. We wanted to break away from tradition, and that was “Los Huevos del Plata”. Thanks to subscribers we managed to publish 17 issues, and that came to show the support we had.
This experience was intended mainly for claiming the rights of our generation and is based exactly on that: creating an alternative for the literary expression of the previous generation which was mainly on the side of Literary Realism. Our interests were different, and not so restricted. Most of all, we were very much interested in putting our culture up to date, which was alien to, for example, French Structuralism. We also recovered poets that had been buried by the generation of ’45, like Alfredo Mario Ferrerio, Casaravilla Lemos, etc., as well as others more recent like Aparicio Vignoli and the artist Ernesto Cristiani, who authored “Estructuras” [Structures], one of the first works on experimental poetry, which was published in our country in 1960. In sum, we were willing to create any form of art that would oppose all this, and that led us to discover experimental poetry and other experimental forms of art like “performance”, installation and mail art.
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— ¿Y la Poesía Visual?
— - And what about Visual Poetry?
- Through the exchange of our magazines (“Los Huevos” at first and “OVUM10” later) we got to know the experiences that were taking place worldwide in regards to language. And that made our position evolve and go into experimenting, and more specifically into certain forms of visual poetry. Back then, language was considered a system for controlling society, and, based on that, a strategy was trying to “write” without the verbal meaning favoring the intentions of the ruling system that imposed truth by “the elegance of expression”, or “the power of who expressed” or “the truth revealed by authorities”.
And because we didn’t want to stop writing, we were attracted by semantic poetry, that is: poetry without verbal meaning (what is known in our days as “asemic”). That was an ephemeral stage, for poetry without verbal meaning can not go very far. By 1972 we were no longer producing and went back to semantics, at least in verses, and worked on the visual aspect of expressive possibilities of one or two words at the most.
- What artist would you mention from that period, who worked with that format?
- From those times, I would like to praise a great Uruguayan poet: Jorge Caraballo, who created one of the most moving visual poems I ever saw, entitled
“Patria” [Homeland]
By that time, this type of poetry was also being produced in other Latin American countries. Edgardo Antonio Vigo, director of the magazines “Diagonal Cero”, W.C.”, “Hexágono 70” and other in the city of La Plata, Argentina, came up with his “Proposiciones a Realizar” [Proposals to be made] with which he intended to get readers to participate in the creation. The Chileans Guillermo Deisler and Dámaso Ogaz, among others, like the movement Poem/process in Rio de Janeiro, were all along the same line.
We also had contact with European artists, particularly from France. It was the editor of “DOC(K)S” magazine in France who published one of my books (“De la Representation a l´Action” [From representation to action]) in 1975, where I promoted an art “without objects”. It so happened that, because I was imprisoned, I didn’t have the chance to be out there spreading those ideas and my proposal sank into oblivion. When I was finally able to do it, by late 1984, the year when the military dictatorship came to an end, it was too late.
In the mid 80’s I had the chance to make those ideas come true through the endless urban participations I had in Montevideo and other cities, which I called “artistic-social events”. Also, after my trip to Berlin, I finished my first video and became consolidated as a “performer”. By the end of that decade I organized the First Latin American Street Art Meeting (“Primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Arte en la Calle”) which took place in Montevideo in 1990. This event is part of the more recent stages in my career.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2076715235198731499Chapter II
The inside story – A chat with Enrique Aguerre
- When we think of an article on the Story of New Media in Uruguay, we cannot avoid resorting to your comments. And that is the idea of this interview (more of a chat than an interview) where I hope you will tell me in a simple and easy way about your experience in this area.
- The expression “New Media” is in fact a changing concept which currently refers to something already old so we talk about ”old new media”… But we will see that later on, let’s start at the beginning.
Until 1981-82 in Uruguay we used to work with Super 8, in what was called experimental or fiction. And that was shown in an interesting place promoted by SODRE, as well as at Cinemateca, where we presented several pieces of this type.
In 1983 I attended a workshop of JJ Mugni at a theater that was in the basement of MAC. He had invited filmmakers from Argentina, like Narcisa Hirsch and Marie Louise Alemann and showed us work by Claudio Caldini (I had already heard of these authors before). I’m a movie-goer of all times but had never been interested in commercial cinema. So I thought this was a good opportunity to get to know from up close how movies were made, but with an approach that was closer to what I expected from movies.
Then came videos (which could be considered as the first new medium), to a country where no one had access to other media for experimenting. And videos brought along a circuit for doing things we could call “alternative”, like authored television, economic cinema, and video clips, among other things. We could say that production existed but there was nowhere to show it. We had to set up the place ourselves, with our own jeans, in order to show your work. Art halls were not available for this type of expressions (they were not equipped for this either).
So, I think that it would be correct to say that the first “new medium” was video, to the extent that it was new in relation to the old, which in this case would be photography. And luckily this is nothing more than a chronological setting since all the elements end up mixing and contaminating one another.
In 1985 I exhibited my first video. There were few members in the field of art who resorted to it. I was interested in the Group Octaedro, Fernando Álvarez Cozzi, (http://fronteraincierta.blogspot.com/2007/02/la-condicin-video-iv.html ), Clemente Padìn. They were all people who had been working on it for some time and I was interested in their link with “Fluxus”, and in the look to the dematerialization of objects, and that was where they were into. .
After 1990 I had experimented a turn because I felt that I was repeating myself, and I like to work from a situation of uncomfortableness. That caused me to make a halt and take up again by applying the digital tools that were still quite primitive at the time.
- Who else worked with that type of tools back then?
- Well, at that time, computers were a sort of tool for design, and it not art but rather something creative. There were some experiences of infographic drawing that simulated art but did not create on the basis of that support. The thing is that, in the early 90s, many who repeatedly refused to work with computers started accepting it for reasons relative to working needs. One example was Fernando Álvarez Cozzi who worked at Posdata and had to learn to use computers from the start of design, but as this took place involving a group of artists (Fidel Sclavo, Ariel Seoane, Martìn Mendizábal) a nest of idea referent to art came up. I had computer equipment installed at home and Ronald Metzel came to propose me a job of subtitling so we (my partner and I) saw the need to acquire a Commodore that would enable us to experiment and work (make a living). That equipment had very low resolution and that made us understand that we were bound to work that way all along, depending on low-resolution machines. To us, low fi was not an option but rather the only way possible to work. We started working with our friend the Commodore, which we subjected to extreme experiences (laughs) and there I prepared a work for the Goethe institute which satisfied me. In the 90s I started working on video at the multi-media scale.
In 1993, the Burguez’s and Edu Lamas opened their pub, Amarillo, for which I made some visual elements. So I would wrap the Commodore in a towel, and from there we would project videos on a huge white wall (the building was al old factory).
That was a space (and a time) of free expression, where I interacted with live bands, and with a line of audio I would mix images from my dear. And 15 years have already gone by since then. That was the first creative application I had with machines. By those years I met Alcides Martínez Portillo, whose performances included neon tubes. I was interested in his work not only because of his Fluxus roots but also because I adhered to his way of thinking art. I think that a special chapter should be focused on this amazing artist.
- What is in your opinion about the baseline of New Media?
—I think that when we speak of New Media we are referring to computers, because the use of this system implies a change of paradigm. Computers are the only generative machines and that marks the difference with other “media”. I think that is the baseline. So, New Media plain and simply imply the use of computers, the only generating machine, a machine that does what you tell it to do, from guiding a satellite to beating eggs, and that’s where the story changes.
http://enriqueaguerre.osvaldocibils.com/
But beyond this, I believe they originate in the mid 19th century, with the beginnings of photography, where we can talk of images produced by machines or devices.
The difference lies in the change of paradigm I mentioned. Technical images are text, applied scientific text (though invisible, it is there). When you film you are loading a series of algorithms in the machine that are later decodified. And I am interested in that, in entering that process, not only aiming at … but also finding out if I can do things opposed to that to generate another sense. Why? Because in some cases these media are intended for control and submission. So if, as Debord said, “polished shiny images are not true”, then we might have to think of the inverse engineering done on things.
And this is the reason why I have always been fascinated by little machines. They are for the use recommended by the manufacturer, and for other uses that we invent for it, so the actual artistic use is not if we make pretty or ugly things but your possibility of appropriation of the object to apply it to a different use.
The arrival of the Internet in Uruguay was limited and expensive, but there were some who started working on it from the very beginning anyway, like Brian and Alcides.
That is why I always mention them as historical references. Brian has a musical background and that’s where he started working from. Alcides had a different approach to it. He was an artist who generated a great number of things and was strongly connected with Fluxus. His own life related to his work, and he did not acknowledge that, maybe because went for dematerialization… though sometimes it seemed that he sabotaged his own projects. What was shown (or what is known) of his work are in a way shards of a great collection of workpieces that still have to be compiled and subject to a historiographic study to convey a profound sense to it.
When in 2000 I got hold of software that enabled me to do certain things, I told Alcides that I wanted to go into programming (my totally analogic mind would not allow me to move to the opposite side of the mirror) and he gave me book full of formulas and text. Very difficult!!
That software allowed you to write a language that you could manage on your own, and that showed me how concepts worked (which I now understand, 10 years later). As I tell you this a book comes to my mind. It was entitled “Learn to program in 10 years” … (laughs). That is the minimum time necessary to get things done, understand the laws of algorithm thinking. Computer science is something much too important to leave it only to programmers … (laughs).
- Is there any other Uruguayan artist whom you look up to? Someone who worked with generative art?
- Costigliolo and Maria Freire, with whom I spend many afternoons in my life, and with whom I learnt a lot of art. Costigliolo has an analogous algorithmic thinking. He comes from minimal art and conceptualism and everything geometric. All this is expressed in his book. Also Osvaldo Cibils, with whom I shared the famous Lezlan Keplost, which would later become a fundamental space for exhibiting this type of art.
- For closing, I would like you to tell me about the present situation.
- I would like to end by referring to a situation that happens every now and then. I mean that intentions become real every now and then. An artist who worked in 2000, Daniel Argente, traveled to Spain and is now back, in charge of the New Media at IENBA. He is interested in robotics for creating interactive interfaces. He develops projects founded on computerized bases. In 2008, Tomás Laurenzo and I, at the MNAV, put together a processing workshop where we expected 10 to 15 attendants and 150 people showed up, of which we could take in 90. That gave us an idea of the will of others for working on the subject. Tomás traveled to Japan and meets Álvaro Cassinelli there. They decide to set up a workshop at IENBA, open to the general public. We had the presence of architects, musicians, artists, etc. A group of around twenty from different origins got together to generate a product in common called “La pelota de los Dioses” (The ball of the Gods).
This was the context that saw the Taller de Computación Física (Physical Computer Workshop) come to life, where the work included light sensors, movement, forces, and modification of textures, objects, distance. But the idea is to work with the participation of all areas and approach not only free software but also free hardware and make changes to audio and video inputs and outputs, among other things. The name is that, but the content is broader because it includes projects of animation, projection, mapping, etc. as part of a grand change that takes into consideration the different interests of all, It is a place for generating projects all the time. This year, all this was aligned with Dorkbot, an instance for knowledge and exchange with nodes that are not activated, but when one is activated all other are triggered.
http://fronteraincierta.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/palermitus
