INTERVIEW (Focus on Santiago, Chile): The Mediated and Political. Troyano,
The Art of Creating Digital Communities by Lucrezia Cippitelli
http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=472
This interview is published in Italian, Spanish and English
Read Spanish version: http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=473
Read Italian Version: http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=474
Troyano is a collective of independent Chilean artists from Santiago, which
organizes cultural activities relative to art and technology.
The collective participated at the VII Video and New Media Biennial (18-27
November 2005) participating with a critical position in the section
dedicated to New Media and organizing an international symposium. Their
project is called Elena in the honor of the virus which installs itself in a
hard disk to then erase its data. This project aims to give a critical
picture of cultural, critical and artistic production which in the last ten
years has been consciously relying on emerging technologies.
They want to propose in the contemporary Chilean society a debate on the
³creative² use of media in opposition to a purely economic, utilitarian and
commercial vision of technology diffusion. Chile has been in close
commercial relationships with Japan, Taiwan (and now China) for decades,
itıs an important copper producer (the copper is a fundamental component to
produce technology) and it has been always projected to a reliable and
dynamic ³modernity² (but also neo-free trader and reassuring for Western
Countries) so the critical position of the Troyano group appears without a
foundation.
But taking sides with the critical and social use of Media is a resolute and
radical position to take in a Country which has just come out of ten years
of Pinochetıs Dictatorship. A Country which is still guided by the same
military dictatorial bureaucracy, it has spent the last ten years in a
pitiless privatization of the social state (like Argentina ), and it has not
legalized abortion yet (and it obtained divorce in 2004 only). In Chile
contrasts and conflicts are still radical and they are often simplistically
worked out in the dualism ³Official nature² vs. ³ militant revolutionary Pan
Americanism².
The interview of three of four members of this group (formed by Ignacio
Nieto, Italo Tello, Ricardo Vega ed Alejando Albornoz) can be described as a
collective reflection on Troyanoıs experience at the Biennial.
L.C. Why did you decide to participate as an artist collective by proposing
a curatorial project?
Ignacio Nieto: It was an emergency: since now there is no New Media
geography in Chile. Everything started at Rosario , Argentina , where we
participated at a festival dedicated to new media. We became aware that in
our Country there were no specific interests on this subject. We
participated in the Biennial as a collective to show some contemporary
cultural practices related to new technologies.
Ricardo Vega: In this Country despite a huge commercialization of electronic
and digital instruments there is no awareness of the possibilities these new
technologies offer. On the side of the government one finds the idea of
innovation and progress ( Chile is the Latin American state with the biggest
number of internet connections, more than Mexico ) the reality is that this
country doesnıt produce technology, it just consumes it. What kind of
dialogue can we have with technology if we just consume it?
Italo Tello: In our Universities there are multimedia labs but we do not
have a great technological awareness. Nobody wants to know how a machine is
built and developed, thereıre no academic courses about it. In addition
there are no local cultural references to new media. Students of art study
Picasso and Duchamp, but they are not interested in studying technologies
because - unlike Argentina - artistic academic courses donıt consider Net
Art, Hacking
L.C. Do you know something about the international debate during the last
years on these ³new² artistic practices?
Italo Tello: here in Chile artistic referents are mainly theorists and
artists who worked during the 70s and the 80s.
Ricardo Vega: There are some well prepared theorists but they are ³isles².
Itıs difficult to incorporate and spread the theme of technologies in the
contemporary art debate and its critics. Iıd like to underline also our
interest goes beyond art: Iım a designer but Iım interested in these
practices, in these new hermeneutic models and communicative paradigms in
the society. At the collective level not only at the individual level.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: you said Chile is investing a lot of money in
technology. Some stops of the Santiago ıs subway have a Wi-Fi free internet
access (not even Paris has it). You also have a New Media Biennial which has
come to its 7th edition (14 years of activity!). So whatıs the matter?
Italo Tello: There is no will to go beyond consumption. As a collective weıd
like to show that even with minimal economic investment, if itıs a logical
investment and you really want to communicate something, you can make
incredible things happen.
Ricardo Vega: We are Latin America ıs pioneers regarding connectivity but we
donıt know how to use it. The New Media Biennial is an example of this. It
has been a Video Biennial since last year and even now it remains a kermis
dedicated to video. Thereıs no adequate content on the container. The
official infrastructure proposes a technological improvement without
substance, itıs just a commercial method to advertise the idea of a
³developed² and ³advanced² Chile which doesnıt exist.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: and even ³democratic² and ³trustworthy²
Ricardo Vega: and on the other side thereıs the society that doesnıt take
advantage of this ³development².
Ignacio Nieto: People want to buy the super expensive last mobile model and
then they donıt know how to use it. Itıs just a status. Touching back on our
initial comments, historically Chile has developed an important avant-garde
musical production. Electro acoustic music in Chile has a fifty year
history. Itıs a circuit which is very close to technology production and
engineering studies but itıs a very exclusive circuit: pioneers of these
experimentations built up themselves the machines they work with. Computers
with a 7kb memory
Italo Tello: As Ignacio was saying here if you visit a very poor house in a
very humble area youıll find they have a huge TV or the last mobile model.
The problem is they donıt use it as a means of expression and to critic the
system. Chile is divided into two parts. Thereıs a Chile that has developed
a critical and expressive language deriving from Pinochetıs dictatorship and
they resort to the aesthetics of barricades, to the themes of
counter-culture , desaparecidos , politic and suburb. On the other side
thereıs a generation whoıs grown up with Mtv, Nintendo and videogames.
This generation has no cultural models. In Chile there are no critical
referrents: people who analyze New Media cultural production.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: Is there a Hacker community?
Italo Tello: Yes, there is but itıs completely involved in hardware and
software development. Hackers, here, donıt deal with politics, they donıt
build communities.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: A definition of New Media.
Ignacio Nieto: Itıs not easy to give a definition of New Media. I find this
name very commercial, a melting-pot od different practices.
Italo Tello: Itıs a standard term, itıs wrong to connect it with computers
only. Every epoch has its new media, itıs not correct to give this term a
strict significance.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: Why did you chose to present yourself as a collective?
Where does the idea of a virus come from? How did you chose artists?
Italo Tello: At the Biennial we attended at everything concerning New Media.
We wrote an open call and we divided it into three themes: Net Art, Software
Art, Tactical Media. We also included some experiences of working with new
technologies from a social point of view. For instance the pirate television
channel Señal 3 that broadcasts from its quarter la Victoria or the Software
Libre Association.
Ignacio Nieto: As a collective we worked as archivists. At this moment a
critical work on new media would be too pretentious and complicated. As
regards virus, virus is a code entering a computer. We found its name in the
McAfee archive of virus definition: there were funnier names but we chose
³Elena² because it fitted our collective name Troyano and Helen of Troy. The
characteristic of Elenaıs virus is it installs itself on the hard-disk of a
computer erasing all its data. We wanted to install ourselves in the
Biennial erasing its presuppositions and re-writing a new story.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: I think the most interesting aspect of this experience
is the building up of a network among persons who had the possibility to
present their works, meet and share their ideas, skills and resources in a
much less academic way. How are you developing in the future the work you
started with this project?
Ignacio Nieto: First of all we got to put the editorial material we
developed during conferences online.
Italo Tello: We have to capitalize everything we said and heard and record
it in a catalogue or a DVD which will become the missing local New Media
point of referrence.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: What are in your opinion the best results of Elenaıs
project?
Ricardo Vega The existence of a practice, a way of acting which is shared
among persons with completely different origins. We know we use instruments
which arenıt stable yet but now we know we can work together. I also think
the concept of hard-disk re-writing was positive.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: I think the Elenaıs project had the positive effect to
connect at both local and international levels music, free software,
activism and cultural critics.
Italo Tello: Someone said weıre pretentious and too elitists, that our
proposals canıt get a wider audience. Now I can say we showed itıs not true.
Lucrezia Cippitelli: In your opinion is New Media an important form of
communication and expression with possible potential for the so-called
developing Countries?
Ricardo Vega: We only talked about very elitist practices in the ecosystem
of a Southern Country. Iıd be very interested in analysing the possibilities
beyond ³media centrism² elitism.
Italo Tello: The access theme is central. I work at a public school in a
very suburban area of Santiago , a very poor and problematic area, and I
teach music to children. A national project realized the set up of
multimedia labs: dozens of computers connected to the Internet. I realized
that the teacher who has to instruct the children is regularly outmoded by
them. They are incredible.
Ricardo Vega: in a Country where there is Wi Fi in the subway and the New
Media Biennial.
Ignacio Nieto: Hereıs a metaphor on Chile : at the Biennial they installed
on fake raw wood tables a very scenographical series of Sony Vaio Laptops.
This area was called Media Lounge. Here computer were chained to tables and
personal computers didnıt have internet connection. In a Biennial dedicated
to New Media
www.t-r-o-y-a-n-o.cl
www.bienaldevideo.cl
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