Historiographic exercise on Uruguayan Art and New Media
“Our Fine Arts and their types and uses were defined in a time very different from ours, and by men whose power for acting on things was insignificant compared to our power. But the surprising growth of our media, the flexibility and accuracy they attain and the ideas and habits they introduce us to can make us fell assured in relation to future and profound changes in what was the old industry of the Beautiful. All arts imply a physical aspect that cannot be treated as before and cannot be taken apart from the tackling of modern knowledge and forces. Neither matter, nor space or time have remained to be in the past twenty years what they have been in all times. It is necessary to count on such great novelties to transform all of art’s techniques and to operate upon inventiveness, modifying almost in a marvelous way the notion of art itself.”
PAUL VALÉRY, Pièces sur l’art (“La conquista de la ubicuidad”).Paris-1934
Introduction
The purpose of this note is to bring us closer to the historiographic fabric of “New Media” in our country, not from indexicalization but from a sensitive cartography carried out from the basis of stories told by the main characters involved. The idea is to contribute to the key moments in the artistic process that involves new media, and to bring us closer to the effects this has had in the field of art, and how this process overflows in an evolving manner.
In order to contextualize the origin of the term “New Media” I shall take an excerpt from: “El lenguaje de los Nuevos Medios”, Language of the New Media by Lev Manovich, ”How did the media become new? The most probable thing is that both the press in the 14th century and photography in the 19th century had a revolutionary effect on the development of modern society and culture. Today we are amidst a great revolution of the Media. The change underwent by all of our culture in what concerns production, distribution and communication methods, by means of computers imply a more profound revolution than ever before and we are just starting to perceive its initial effects. A revolution that affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage and distribution. This affects all types of media and formats: text, still images, moving images, sound and the construction of spaces.” .
That is to say that, with the arrival of computers, the signification method of cultural economy that brings along a newly configure thinking is inverted. This way of perceiving becomes a mutation in the object’s materialness, which reflects on the production of artists that take digital tools as their expressive support.
In our country, the digital scenario received the input of background elements relating to Experimental Cinema (Festival of Documentary and Experimental Cinema 1950 to 1970, followed by the festival organized by SODRE ), to the publications relative to theory (see interview with Clemente Padín) and to other expressions under way like the “happening”, “performance”, etc. Some of the artists interviewed and other artists they mentioned originate in this expressive environment.
They constitute the best narrators to describe this segment of history.
Entrevistas y ensayo
Por Ángela López Ruiz
To facilitate the reading of this essay has been divided into three parts. Here are the links to each part.
Index
Travelling. Introduction
Travelling (part 1). Chapter I y II
Travelling (part 2). Chapter III y IV
Travelling (part 3).Continued Chapter IV, V and links
