[ISEA2017] Round Table: Yto Aranda, Lucía Egaña Rojas, Pedro Soler, Daniela Moreno Wray, Gabriel Vanegas, Katharina Klemm, Valentina Montero, Vanessa Gocksch, Omar Gatica & Rachel Rosalen — Proyectos Rurales ANT (Art Nature Technology) in Latin America

Round Table Statement

Keywords: Art, Nature, Technology and Society. Rural Areas, Education, Network, Environment, Peace. Residences, Interculturality, Community

“Proyectos rurales ANT: Art, Nature & Technology in Latin America” brings together creators, teachers and researchers involved in art, digital culture and the development of rural spaces, in the shared conviction that, to face the environmental and social challenges that confront us all, it is necessary to engage with rural areas and other forms of “postextractivist” relationships, technologies and sensibilities.
The challenge lies in how to apply our knowledge of the arts, our experience in collaborative networking skills and digital culture to the healing of ecosystems and their respective communities, with indigenous people and local farmers as guides and companions. Together we are organizing spaces, gardens and houses that nourish experimental practices, new autonomies and investigations in common. We hope that many more will join us in this act of love and survival.
The projects represented are Upayakuwasi and Pujinostro (Ecuador), Manga Libre and Selvatorium (Colombia), Nuvem and Ruralscapes (Brasil), Rao Caya (Chile) and Goctalab (Peru). Valentina Montero (PAM – Plataforma de Artes Mediales) and Lucia Egaña have made theoretical and cartographic contributions.

  • Yto Aranda, artist, Chile. Moving between artistic disciplines, particularly painting, electronics and sound, she has researched and developed a diverse body of work. Since 1997 she has used the Internet as a platform for action, developing a strong interest in issues related to communication, collaboration and community development. Painting mention Bachelor of Arts, University of Chile. In 1999 she founded the “Escáner Cultural” magazine, the reference for digital art in Chile. She continually participates in international electronic arts events, such as the Bienal Artes Mediales Santiago (2005 and 2009), FILE (2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009, Brazil), Festival Montréal en Lumière (2008, Canadá), LabSurLab (Ecuador 2012), Isea2012 (USA), Isea2013 (Australia), Asimtria/Once (Perú 2015), Kiebre (Bolivia, 2015) or BunB, Festival de la Imagen, (Colombia 2016). In 2015 she co-founded the rural project “Rao Caya” for Art, Nature and Technology and in 2016 was awarded the Fondart 2016 prize for the project (((KO))), a visual & acoustic electronic mural in the Subway of Santiago (Metro), Chile. yto.cl
  • Pedro Soler: Trained in digital arts in Barcelona, Spain (UPF 1997-1998), Pedro Soler was co-founder of the fiftyfifty collective in Barcelona (1999), curator in Sónar festival (2000 – 2006), artist-programmer for theater in  Paris ( 2003-2006) and director of Hangar, production
    center for visual arts in Barcelona (2006-2009). After leaving Hangar he curated exhibitions in Barcelona and Cairo and initiated Plataforma Cero, a space for production and investigation in LABoral art centre, Gijón, Spain. From 2012 he travelled widely, arriving in Medellín in 2014 where he worked with Platohedro, Casa Tres Patios and Parque Explora. In 2015 he co-curated the exhibition “Art in Orbit” in the CAC, Quito, and collaborated in the process of Jardineria Cultural in Ambato. Currently he is involved in the Upayakuwasi project in Ecuador and is the artistic director of the Transitio_MX 07 bienal to be held in 2017 in Mexico City.  word.root.ps
  • Gabriel Vanegas (Colombia 1982) His research in the areas of American history, media sociology and relational aesthetics have influenced his creative production, working mostly with video installations, sound sculptures and written theoretical publications. In 2004 he co-founded the magazine El Niuton, one of the first publications in Latin America exploring the relations between art, science and technology. In 2011 he founded Botaniq, a platform for conservation and archive of contemporary art, and in 2013 joined a collective developing a rural lab in Colombia. He is currently finishing a fellowship at the Institute of Timebased Media at the Berlin University of the Arts with Professor Siegfried Zielinski, working in the area of Media Archeology in pre-Columbian America.
  • Katharina Klemm (Germany 1981) Studied painting and arts in Alfter, Alanus Hochschule 2007. In 2015 she graduated as a Media artist from the KHM (Medien Hochschule Koeln). One aspect of her artistic work deals with various characteristics of the sun as a source of energy, star, symbol, myth as well as mathematical parameters. Another aspect is the visualization of time structures, working with video installations, video animations and printed illustrations.
  • Valentina Montero Ph.D in Advanced Studies on Digital Art from University of Barcelona, Spain; Masters Degree in Curatorial and Cultural Practices in Art and New Media (Mecad), Journalist, graduated in Aesthetics. She has worked as an art curator both independently and in institutions in Chile and internationally. Her writings have been published in indexed magazines and sections of books such “Red Art: New Utopias in Data Capitalism” (Leonardo Electronic Almanac, London, 2014); Cinemas Experimentais (Luminarias, Sao Paulo, 2016); Technochamanism (Goethe Institut, Sao Paulo,2016), among others; in 2012 she published the book “By Reason or By Force, The Chilean Neoliberal Model and its Implications for Education and Culture” (Errant Bodies, Berlin/London, 2013). Currently she teaches in several institutions and carries out research on matters related to photography and media arts, from gender and decolonial approaches.
  • Yuliana Rodríguez Student of Psychology and facilitator of solution focused brief therapy with children and young people (Terre des Hommes Schweiz). She is coordinator of the educational program at Corporation Platohedro in Medellín, Colombia. She researches and produces experimental activities in alternative pedagogical spaces. She is one of the leaders in the urban intervention Manga Libre, a free garden in the city of Medellín, and is member of the Jaquer Noise a collective for audio experimentation with free software tools and DIY electronic instruments.
  • Luciana Fleischman holds a B.A. in Social Communication from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (Argentina) and a Master in Communication, image and Information from the UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil). She researches and produces experimental activities in art and free technology such as Tropixel Festival – Art, Science, Technology and Society (Ubatuba, Brazil); Rede//Labs network, where she researches experimental digital culture in Brazil and Latin America. She currently lives in Medellin (Colombia), where she coordinates the residency program of Platohedro Community Lab.
  • Bruno Vianna studied cinema and has a master from the ITP program in New York University, USA. He directed 4 prize winning short films between 1994 and 2003 and in 2006 released his first feature. In 2008 he launched “Resaca”, an interactive fiction feature film edited live in each viewing, which was shown more than 70 times internationally and received 4 prizes. He has created works for digital platforms such as PoemApp, interactive poetry for mobile phones, and Devorondina, an apparatus which makes images from electromagnetic fields. In 2010 he made the documental film “Satélite Bolinha” about Brasilian satellite hackers. He won a Vida 11.0 prize for his “Fountain for Satellite Fishing” shown in ISEA, Residencia Rio Occupation London, Olympic Games of London 2012 and Chambre Blanche, Canada 2013. Since 2011 he has co-organized Nuvem, a rural space for art and technology. He is currently preparing a feature about MST (Movement of the Landless), teachingin Oi Kabum!, a free school for art and technology in Rio de Janeiro and programming video filters.
  • Lucía Egaña Rojas has worked as an independent artist and freelance feminist activist. She studied Fine Arts in PUC (Chile), a Master in Creative Documentary in UAB (Barcelona, Spain), and has a PhD in Media Studies from the same institution. Most of her work is based on collaborative productions that interrogate the construction of social imaginary in popular culture, technology, free software, feminism, gender and body representation. Since 2000 she has been working in independent media projects, as a creator, producer, doing workshops and promoting the creation of new alternative platforms in Chile and Spain. She has developed many of her projects working on independent platforms of alternative, independent and popular modes of media communication as well as with collectives such as prisoners, women and immigrants. Since 2008, she is a member of minipimer.tv , a collective and laboratory of real time video, streaming, research and free technologies based in Barcelona. Since 2014 is part of cooptecniques.net , a feminist media cooperative. Her work has been presented in Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, México, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Finland and Germany.
  • Omar Gatica Rivera, is a graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Chile and an emblematic national painter, known for his abstract neo-expressionism. He is part of the “Group of the 80’s”, a movement which advocated the reappraisal of painting in art. Irreverent in his drawing and strongly expressive with his materials, his work marries expressionism and abstraction, using powerful colors, a limited chromatic range, intense gestuality, strong lines and dense layers of paint. His principal themes are humanity, daily life and the meaning of existence. Winner of the 2010 Altazor prize for “Yo Pintor” 2009 (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes). Winner of the competition MOP2014 which commissioned him to create the mural “Ciudadanos del Medio Día” in the Moneda Bicentenario Building. In
    2015 he founded, with Yto Aranda, the Art Nature and Technology (ANT) project “Rao Cayo”. Since 2002 he has taught in the Visual Arts Faculty of the Finis Terrae University.  omargatica.cl
  • Vanessa Gocksch (aka: Pata de Perro) originally from Belgium, is a woman of many trades residing in the tropical jungle of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia where she runs the Selvatorium, a community based cultural and ecological project. In 2000 she co- founded Intermundos, a grass roots entity dedicated to culture and communication that, amongst other achievements, co-founded Systema Solar in 2006, currently one of the most important musical groups in Colombia. In 2005 and 2006 she was involved in the organization of Bogotrax in Bogotá and, in 2007, two Pixelazo (Pixelache Network) events in Medellin as well as kickstarting the Colombian vj scene with a series of workshops in Colombia’s major cities. In 2006 Intermundos released “Frekuensia Kolombiana”, an audiovisual testimony of Colombian hiphop from that decade; Vanessa is also a pioneer in documenting ecological construction in Spanish through her blog about Casa Biyuka.  intermundos.org/en
  • Daniela Moreno Wray (Ecuador) studied cinema at the Centro de Investigación Cinematográfica (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and was awarded an Ibermedia grant to study creative documentary at the Univalle (Cali, Colombia). She has participated in various documentary projects such as “Ojos bien abiertos” by Gonzalo Arijón, “The Challenge” by Leticia Moreau and organized workshops in the afro area of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, with the team of Fátima Toledo, for the film “Los Ángeles no tienen alas”. Since 2014 she has been creating collective actions like “El Árbol en Movimiento”, interactive installations like “Transmestizx” y documentaries like “Aquí estoy otra vez” or “El Elefante Dormido”, currently in development. She has developed her interest in food and artesanal practises in the grant winning “Las Cocinas de los Pueblos”, an investigation of Ecuatorian culinary traditions, and currently in her family workshop “La Divina Papaya”, located in Upayakuwasi, a rural cultural and productive laboratory near Cayambe, Ecuador.  dmw.hotglue.me
  • Rachel Rosalen ’s works focus on the construction of spaces using multimedia and concepts drawn from architecture. The artist mixes electronic media like videos, programmings and performances to make interactive video installations and live cinema performances. Rosalen has had exhibitions and projects in renowned cultural centers such as Centre Pompidou (Paris, FR), Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Basel, CH), Image Forum (Tokyo), Videoformes (Clermont-Ferrand, FR), Kunstraum Walcheturm (Zurich, CH), Palazzio Nuovo (Naples, IT), Paço das Artes (São Paulo, BR), VIDEOZONE IV – 4th International Video Art Biennial (Israel), among others. She has won awards like PAC New Media Prize (São Paulo, Secretaria da Cultura 2014 and 2015) or the Sergio Motta Art and Technology Prize, São Paulo (2007) and was selected for artist in residence programs by The Japan Foundation/ Nanjo and Associates, Werkraum Warteck PP/ Warteck Fonds – Basel and Bain::Connective, Brussels. In collaboration with Rafael Marchetti, with whom she has collaborated since 2007 in developing interactive installations and hybrid spaces, she co-created and co-coordinated rural.scapes-lab in residence from 2013 until 2016.

Full text (PDF) p. 809-820