Daniel García Andújar en IED Máster – Observatorio Cultural 2010 from IED Madrid on Vimeo.

El artista multimedia y teórico del arte García Andújar impartió la conferencia “Estructuras de la imagen, hurgando el código” en el IED Madrid, dentro del Observatorio Cultural, un espacio creado por el Master of European Design Labs para examinar las derivas contemporáneas del mundo de la creación. García Andújar (Almoradí, 1966) centra su trabajo en los campos del videoarte y el net.art, siendo uno de los creadores más críticos e irónicos del panorama artístico actual. Sus piezas son una invitación a reflexionar sobre el uso actual de los medios tecnológicos y de comunicación para desmontar el sistema de jerarquía dominante en éstos mediante la libre circulación de información, redes de cooperación y nuevos conceptos como el hacktivismo.

www.iedmadrid.com

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Sobre Grid_Spinoza

Hangar y el Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Barcelona inician un proceso de exploración sobre procesos de investigación (artística y científica), basándose en las dinámicas de los colaboratorios. Generando herramientas de investigación cruzada, Grid_Spinoza se extiende entre dos ámbitos sin respetar los compartimentos estancos que el desarrollo profesional tiende a construir.

Entrevista Daniel G. Andújar . Nos citamos con el artista Daniel G. Andújar (Almoradí, 1966) en Hangar.

Muchos de sus proyectos recientes se muestran bajo el paraguas de la marca-estrategia TTTP (Technologies to the People) que hace uso de las tácticas de marketing de los productos de las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación para desvelar el uso utilitario por parte de éstas de narrativas que prometen igualdad y democracia

Así lo comenta en su blog: ” Partiendo de la constatación que las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación están transformando nuestra experiencia cotidiana, creo una ficción (TTTP, 1996) con el fin de hacernos tomar conciencia de la realidad que nos rodea y del engaño de unas promesas de libre elección que se convierten, irremisiblemente, en nuevas formas de control y desigualdad.”

Andújar es también miembro desde los inicios de Irational.org, un sistema que da soporte a artistas y organizaciones cuya necesidad de autonomía respecto a los sistemas de información que utilizan es crítica. Esta necesidad queda patente en proyectos como E-Valencia o E-Barcelona, impulsados por Andújar, que se presentan como espacios abiertos a la  discusión sobre políticas culturales en nuestro país.

Recientemente ha puesto en marcha el proyecto Archivo Postcapital 1989-2001 (http://www.postcapital.org), una serie de actuaciones, talleres e instalaciones en torno a una base de datos de documentos recopilados de Internet por el artista a lo largo de los últimos diez años. Postcapital gira en torno a los cambios profundos que han tenido lugar a nivel mundial en el ámbito social, político, económico y cultural durante las dos últimas décadas, siendo las dos orillas de este momento histórico las emblematizadas por la caída del muro de Berlín en 1989, por un lado, y los ataques del 11 de setiembre de 2001, por el otro.

En la entrevista, Daniel nos habla de la importancia de generar espacios autónomos que posibiliten libertad de movimientos e independencia en la toma de decisiones y de tomar las riendas de las estructuras. Esta necesidad nace de la consciencia de que la práctica artística se inserta en un contexto más general (político, social, económico) y de que éste afecta a las condiciones del artista y a su trabajo.

Se detiene también de manera especial en el concepto de comunidad, por cómo toda investigación artística se inserta en un concepto de lo público- el contemporáneo- que está en plena transformación. Desde la práctica artística puede darse respuesta a las tensiones más privatizadoras que actúan sobre este espacio público en retirada mediante la creación de espacios autónomos. Éstos serían habitados por comunidades formadas por participantes activos, unidos por intereses comunes y regidos por unas reglas que son negociadas en tiempo real.

Identificamos, así, una metodología de investigación artística especialmente consciente de su contexto y caracterizada por su carácter colectivo y por manifestarse como proceso abierto, en el sentido de abierto al dominio y escrutinio públicos, pero también en el sentido de algo que continúa en proceso, susceptible de redefinirse en cualquier momento.

Puede verse un extracto de la entrevista en video en el siguiente enlace:

http://www.gridspinoza.net/mediabase/783

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NOUS CREADORS

Artistes amb noves mirades, noves maneres d’entendre el món

Anem a l’estudi de Daniel G. Andújar, un dels artistes espanyols amb una trajectòria internacional molt important. Pioner en l’ús d’internet i les noves tecnologies com a eines de creació. Andújar fa pocs dies exposava al Bòlit, el museu d’art contemporarni de girona, part del seu arxiu postcapitalista. Una reflexió sobre la cultura de l’arxiu en què vivim des de l’irrupció de la tecnologia.

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Lucia Lijtmaer, dijous 19 d’agost deL 2010

12 ( 01 ) (PUBLICO – CAT 19082010) FOTOS BAJA – PUBLI BAJA

L’artista Daniel García Andújar analitza els efectes de la digitalització en la manera de percebre la realitat

L’artista Daniel García Andújar em cita al seu estudi, un espai diàfan, clar i tranquil al carrer Bergara, on es respira producció per totes les cantonades. Un parell de col·laboradors treballen en silenci mentre García Andújar em mostra fullets i llibres dels seus últims projectes. Bremen, Seül, Noruega i el pavelló català de la Biennal de Venècia figuren en el seu impressionant currículum només de l’últim any.

L’últim treball de García Andújar, Objetos de deseo, presentat a l’exposició col·lectiva Barcelona-València-Palma, ha tingut molta repercussió. L’artista mostra, entre altres peces, un palauet-maqueta de la casa de Fèlix Millet fet amb bitllets de 100 i 500 euros, o l’escombreta del vàter del palauet de Jaume Matas. “Mai saps quin serà el nivell d’interpretació de la gent, perquè l’art sembla con- tenir un llenguatge molt específic de l’obra”, diu, una mica sorprès davant la reacció de la premsa. “En el fons es tracta d’una reflexió entorn a la vida i a la riquesa. La meva intenció era retratar com Espanya va passar a formar part d’un club de nous rics i com un clan de corruptes roba per coses molt superficials, la qual cosa és gairebé còmica”, apunta.

Però és Archivo Postcapital 1989- 2001 el que centra ara la completa atenció de García Andújar. El projecte, que va començar a La Virreina, s’ha convertit ja en una sèrie d’intervencions que formen part d’un enorme arxiu que l’han portat a recórrer tot el món. El projecte cobreix des de “l’any de les caigudes del mur de Berlín i els fets de Tiananmen, com una involució intel·lectual”, explica, el 2001, amb la caiguda de les Torres Bessones. Entre aquestes dues da- tes, García Andújar situa el pas de l’economia de producció a l’economia d’informació, que ell ha radiografiat per mostrar les transformacions socials i polítiques a través de la compilació de més de 250.000 documents d’internet, que inclouen vídeos, àudios i publicacions. “Vivim en un procés de digitalització que ha començat, però no ha acabat. Hem passat de visitar un arxiu a viure-hi a dins”, explica.

L’interès de García Andújar per glossar i interpretar les trans- formacions mundials l’ha portat a estudiar el mapatge d’última generació. “Google Earth forma part de les noves cartografies, és un nou mapa polític”, explica. “Ara un nen pot veure les fron- teres d’una altra manera i on viuen els seus companys, i pot exa- minar com és casa seva”. Arran d’això, reflexiona: “Els canvis en els darrers anys s’han produït extremadament ràpid. Hem perdut l’espai públic”.

Tenint en compte que García Andújar té com a base d’operacions Barcelona, la seva visió de la gestió d’espai urbà local és afila- da: “L’anomenat model Barcelona és molt sofisticat, de fet s’estudia arreu del món. És una ciutat molt dissenyada, molt manipulada”.
Però és un model ja superat. Hi ha les noves ciutats postcapital, que “estan sent creades pels nous déus del moment: els arquitectes”. Aquestes megalòpolis, com Seül, per exemple, “tenen zones dissenyades per allotjar fins a tres milions d’habitants, amb les seves zones d’oci i les seves barreres”. Cap aquí dirigeix el seu interès ara. Promet, la cosa.

PER conTAcTAR Amb L’AUToRA:
lucia.lijtmaer@gmail.com

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Daniel G. Andújar -Iris Dressler

Umělec 1/2010 / cz en de

Iris Dressler: V jednom ze svých posledních rozhovorů jste popsal, jak praxe velkých uměleckých institucí odcizuje autora jeho dílu. Samotný umělec, který přijede do galerie instalovat své práce, je poslán do luxusního hotelu, zatímco armáda profesionálů se stará o to, aby jeho dílo bylo „správně“ prezentováno. Tou dobou jsou již kurátor a vzdělávací a PR oddělení dávno domluveni, jak bude umělcovo dílo zprostředkováno veřejnosti. Když tedy umělec nakonec přijde na výstavu, své dílo nepoznává.
Daniel G. Andújar: Kulturní průmysl opustil uměleckou produkci i vytváření nových obsahů již před desítkami let. Umělci byli zatlačeni do pozadí, aby ustoupili nové elitě kulturních manažerů pořádajících bienále ve věžích ze slonoviny, pojímajících je jako mausolea.
V kulturním průmyslu, který zaměstnává stále více a více lidí, jsou umělci umístěni až na nejnižším stupni ekonomické aktivity. Mnoho lidí se v našem světě slušně uživí, ale umělci „riskují své životy“. Může tento systém umění přežít bez současných umělců? Zdálo by se, že mnoho institucí bez nich přežít může.
Umění, stejně jako jakýkoli kulturní proces, je především procesem předávání a přenosu, nepřetržitý, trvalý a nezbytný dialog. Nesmíme však zapomínat, že umění je také překračováním pravidel, roztržkou, ironií, parodií, přivlastňováním si, zpronevěřováním, konfrontací, pátráním, objevováním, tázáním se a konfliktem. Umění může a musí hledat nová území a rozvíjet v nich nové myšlenky. A pokud neexistují, musíme se pokusit je vytvořit.
Umělecká praxe musí být proměněna ve vzdor proti stále globalizovanějšímu, hierarchizovanějšímu, rozptýlenějšímu a standardizovanějšímu světu. Umělecká praxe musí odhalit rozložení moci a vytvořit mechanismy, které mohou zaručit její dlouhodobý vliv a rozšířit daný diskurz i za hranice světa milovníků umění a uměleckých institucí.
I.D.: Připomeneme-li váš pojem „do-it-together“ a vaše aktivity spojené s freewarem a open-source softwarem, do jaké míry nabízejí (nebo dokonce vyžadují) nové komunikační a informační technologie také nové způsoby umělecké práce?
D.G.A.: Slogan firmy Ikea „do-it-yourself“ byl od poloviny devadesátých let přejímán mnoha umělci. Bohužel, nevybrali si ten správný.
Část mé práce využívá několik prvků, které více či méně přímo souvisejí s volně dostupným softwarem. Tím, že od základu popírá práva intelektuálního vlastnictví, mi poskytuje šanci na strukturální a konceptuální „přeprogramování“ společnosti na společnost lepší.
Nové technologie postupně odstraňují potřebu uměleckého managementu, který fungoval jako prostředník mezi umělci a těmi, kteří ovládali uměleckou produkci, distribuci a komercializaci. Tyto nové nástroje a prostředky jsou také pevně svázány s elementární proměnou způsobu našeho myšlení, jednání s druhými, spotřeby, produkce a obchodu.
I.D.: Všechny vaše umělecké projekty jsou založeny na společném výzkumu, který kriticky zkoumá nejrůznější jevy a jejich mediální obrazy. Navíc fungujete i jako kurátor, vedete workshopy, píšete články, jste zapojený do protestních aktivit, vydáváte magazíny a publikujete webová fóra. Ve způsobu, jakým pracujete, vidím všechny tyto různé, vzájemně propojené role. Chápete je jako oddělené, avšak související aspekty umělecké produkce založené na spolupráci a vedoucí k znovuzískání svobodného prostoru pro akci.
D.G.A.: Nerozlišuji mezi jednou činností a činností jinou. Umění se nemůže omezovat na pouhé formulování velkých otázek o lidském a duchovním, ani na pouhé přizpůsobení se estetickým či tržním požadavkům. Musí být zaujaté a zapojené do společenských a politických procesů.
Je třeba znovu definovat úlohu umělce ve společnosti. Nesnaží se snad profesionálové jiných oborů — pedagogové, žurnalisté či vědci — přehodnotit svá společenská postavení, postupně se přizpůsobit změnám a najít nové místo ve společnosti? Klasické pojetí umělce by mělo být přirozeně zaměřené na procesy, podobně jako u analytiků a kritiků. Umělci musejí nabízet alternativní činnosti, otevřená pole pro konfrontaci a kritiku.
I.D.: Jak chápete rozdíly a souvislosti mezi městem, internetem, muzeem a „starými médii“?
D.G.A.: Základní sférou, ve které já jako umělec pracuji, je veřejný prostor. Musíme se mít na pozoru před pokusy omezit užívání a požitek z těchto volných prostor. Město je referenčním bodem veřejného prostoru takového, jak jsme jej znali až donedávna. Internet jako veřejný prostor je také vymezen sociálními vztahy, rozložením moci a systémem vyjednávání docela podobným prostoru města.
Oproti tomu prostory, které jsou vyhrazeny umělecké činnosti, jsou speciálně upraveny a jsou výsledkem historického vývoje. Jde o specifický, vymezený a chráněný prostor pro přesně formulovaný kulturní proces. Jako umělci bychom se měli více věnovat jeho správě, vývoji a proměnám, nebo bychom ho měli zavrhnout jednou provždy. V druhém případě zůstane jeho funkce omezená a podřízená odvětví služeb a zábavního průmyslu.
Co se týká médií, tradiční média (tisk, rádio, televize) jsou základním pilířem systému, který se už nějaký čas hroutí. Jednosměrný, uzavřený, pevně stanovený diskurz, který nenabízí možnost odpovědí, spolupráce či kolektivního managementu, není již dále přijímán.
I.D.: Jedním východiskem pro projekt Postcapital byla diskuse, kterou jste vedl s kubánským spisovatelem Ivánem de la Nuez o tom, jaké to je být narozen zhruba ve stejnou dobu (v polovině 60. let), ale v docela jiných poměrech: vy na kapitalistickém západě a on na komunistickém jihu. Když v roce 2006 Postcapital otevřel, jako spolupráce vás, de la Nueze a kubánského umělce Carlose Garacoiy, velmi zdůrazňoval protiklad „pravice“ a „levice“. Divák se musel rozhodnout, zda vstoupí na výstavu zprava nebo zleva, nemohl nikdy vstoupit přímo (střední cestou).
D.G.A.: Ta diskuse byla zaměřena na otázku specifického kontextu. Nemůžete si vybrat, kde se narodíte, obvykle ani to, kde chcete žít. Některé faktory závisí na náhodě. Jiné závisí přímo na sociálních, kulturních, politických a ekonomických podmínkách. Na začátku projektu stál dialog, který prezentoval osobní situaci jedince jako soubor dvojznačností, protimluvů, potvrzování a popírání. Z tohoto pojetí jsme pak přijali jisté strategie, když jsme se rozhodovali o prostoru, směřování a interpretaci projektu. Prostorové uspořádání přinutilo návštěvníky, aby učinili rozhodnutí, které pak ovlivnilo konkrétní čtení celého projektu. Hráli jsme si s velmi jednoduchými metaforami pravé a levé strany, směrů, tras a barev spojených s politickými představami. Výsledkem bylo, že individuální rozhodnutí, náhoda, štěstí či shoda okolností determinovala interpretaci celého projektu — stejně jako v životě samotném.
I.D.: Často se setkáváme s dotazem, proč není archiv Postcapitalu dostupný na internetu. Z mého pohledu nejde o zveřejnění otevřené online databáze, ale spíše o komplexní problém interpretace a chápání informací v době internetu. Konfrontace vaší prostorové (a prostorově zakusitelné) interpretace s archivem, který je také výsledkem rozhodnutí a výběru, je zásadní. A jedna část nemůže existovat bez druhé.
D.G.A.: V dnešní informační společnosti je základním zdrojem znalost. Vůle využívat znalosti k tomu, abychom získali další, by pak měla být zakotvena ve zvýšeném úsilí o jejich systematizaci a organizaci, což ovšem vyžaduje celoživotní vzdělávání. To byla hlavní změna vedle pouhých formálních otázek týkajících se médií.
V krátkém časovém úseku jsme pokročili od navštěvování muzeí, knihoven či archivů k životu uvnitř archivu. Vědci nám říkají, že kapacita lidské paměti je omezená. Jak tedy zpracujeme to obrovské množství dokumentů, informací, obrazů a dalšího? Musíme vyvinout mechanismy, které nám umožní přetvořit tento rušivý zmatek ve specifickou znalost, abychom byli schopni zdokonalovat každý jednotlivý odstín vlastní osobnosti. A musíme tak činit kolektivně, napříč disciplínami a obory, a samozřejmě začít vzděláváním. Navrhuji stvořit opravdový kulturní a kultivovaný archiv, osvojit si schopnost učit se ze souvislostí mezi množstvím voleb — život uvnitř archivu ve společnosti, která staví na vědění, poskytuje možnosti a požaduje, abychom se stále znovu rozhodovali, učili se bez omezení, cenili si nových možností a čelili mnoha výzvám a problémům. Společnost vědění, která není obeznámena s rozlišováním žánrů, společnost, která zpochybňuje staré klasifikace, kontrolní systémy, hierarchie, zákonitosti a hodnoty.

It‘s everybody‘s business, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ae6TZba4ag

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Con el título La exposición: nuevas prácticas, viejos contenedores el dossier de nuestro primer número del año reflexiona –a través de las firmas de José Manuel Costa, Christiane Paul, Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes y Mónica Núñez Luis– sobre las exigencias de las nuevas formulaciones artísticas y su difícil encaje en modelos expositivos y estructuras museales que se sustentan en esquemas tradicionales tanto en lo funcional como en lo ideológico, más allá de que su arquitectura adopte fórmulas novedosas. Mientras, Daniel G. Andújar, en una entrevista con Alicia Murría, analiza el panorama que han abierto las tecnologías señalando la responsabilidad del artista ante estos cambios.

En páginas centrales, Juan S. Cárdenas conversa con Mieke Bal sobre su último libro y su obra cinematográfica, y la escena artística de Los Ángeles, ciudad invitada en ARCO 2010, se refleja a través de la firma de Micol Hebron.

Además, artículos y reseñas sobre cine, música y libros; la sección CiberContexto y nuestras habituales críticas de exposiciones que recorren importantes muestras internacionales, como la de Gabriel Orozco, Jorge Barbi, Lawrence Weiner, Jimmie Durham, Mario García Torres, León Ferrari y Mira Schendel, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle y muchas más.

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The Unavowable Community

Iris Dressler: In one of our recent conversations, you described how the machinery of the bigger art institutions alienates the artists from their work to a certain extent. You put it more or less in the following way: the artist, arriving at the museum to install his or her works, is sent to luxury hotels, restaurants and bars, while an armada of professionals—technicians, restorers, architects, designers, coordinators, assistants and so forth—care for the ‘proper’ presentation and communication of his of her work, following the standards of the respective institution. This is not to mention that at this moment the curator and the PR and education departments have long since defined—again in line with the conventions of the respective house—the ways of mediating the artist’s works. The artist, finally arriving at the ‘ready-to-go’ exhibition, might be shocked, as he or she no longer recognises his or her work the way it is embodied in and absorbed by the corporate setting. But it is too late: the press, board, VIPs and the like are already standing by. These attitudes and workflows of the institutional machinery are of course not a new phenomenon if you just remember the cartoon-like diagram Average Day at the Museum by the MoMA from the 1940s. But it seems that until now museums in particular are largely ignoring over 40 years of ongoing and quite diverse practices as well as discourses of institutional critique. They instead basically submit themselves far too voluntarily to almost phantasmal political pressures regarding the museum’s city marketing and tourist impact, fixating on irrational growth in visitor numbers and pulling in lucrative and glamorous private corporations. In my view, these politically indoctrinated ‘missions’ of the museum (which go hand in hand with corporate demands) have nothing to do—as is often claimed—with the financial needs of museum maintenance. They are solely about putting the museum on a prestigious stage for business and politics. By this logic, the artist seems to be a sort of alien, a disruptive factor that needs to be sedated to fit in with the museum’s rhetoric.

Daniel G. Andújar: Artistic practice, as I conceive it, must be transformed into a form of ‘resistance’ against a model obstinately aimed at prevailing in a space of relations that is becoming more and more confused, normalised, globalised, hierarchical, diffused, standardised and so on. Our society, economy and culture are founded upon interests, values, institutions, and systems of representation that, in general terms, limit creativity, confiscate and manipulate the artist’s work and divert his energy toward sterile confrontation and discouragement.

The practice of art must reveal the configurations of power, establish mechanisms of relating socially that ensure its long-term impact and extend its discourse beyond the restricted confines of art lovers, occasional tourists and of the institution itself. Those who direct the framework of cultural industries and the management of cultural institutions abandoned, decades ago, the processes of creating new content and cultural production as a collective construction. Most of the professionals who run this framework are simply developing a personal power structure, climbing up the ladder to the most visible and media-friendly part of the public and private art institutions. They flaunt their power and reign over the reality of their little empire. The art institution has been absorbed as just another mechanism in the process of servicing production. It is an active part of the ‘touristification’ process in the urban context and participates in the complex re-adaptation of the new city’s infrastructures. Artists have been pushed to the sidelines to make room for a new elite of cultural managers who work on biennial events in ivory towers conceived more like mausoleums.

The museum institution is undoubtedly facing a challenge with all its paradoxes and contradictions: existing as a physical space that promotes cultural initiatives which are increasingly part of a more diffuse representation where systems of representation and dissemination pass through intangible networks that, in turn, inevitably require a physical container, a real space to produce and deliver from.

Things will become increasingly difficult in the permanent and most likely also in the temporary and hybrid zones where people can meet, talk, work, even celebrate and dissolve as social groups, move and/or form new groups. The contradiction of a cultural process necessarily faces a slow pace of technological development and social frenzy.

In Spain, for example, where most art institutions have been in operation for less than a decade, we are living a misconception, a professionalisation effect that transforms the practice of art into a professional area, a kind of factory, with little connection to the artist’s procedures.

Because we have these ‘professionals’, our costs for production and installation are the most expensive in Europe, and we lack options for improvisation but have a very dangerous process of standardisation. Professionalisation here is a perilous process that transforms every employee in the museum into a true ‘professional of the highest integrity and competence’, excluding the artists from any decision about their own work.

The professionalisation process in museums tends to establish norms of conduct and qualifications for museum workers and also insists that they ‘conform to the norms of the museum’ and with the established procedures and code of conduct, enforced by the hierarchy, since ‘accreditation assures conformity to general expectations of the institution.’ And this is totally incompatible with any kind of artistic practice.

Clearly, this model implies a conflict of interests with artists, and this radicalisation of positions is used in a very opportune way by those in power and highly placed in these visible spaces. In the new configuration of cultural industries that employ more and more people, artists are found at the lowest level of this hierarchy and are at the tail end of the economic rewards.

As a matter of fact, there are a lot of people earning a living in this world, but it seems like artists are rather ‘risking their lives’. And I ask myself, can the art system support itself without contemporary artists? It seems that many institutions can. Fortunately the practice of art is not only confined to the boundaries of the institution or the marketplace; it can and must find new territories to develop new proposals, and if we can’t find them, we have to invent them. Art, like any cultural process, is basically a process of transmission, transference, of a continuous, permanent and necessary dialogue. But we must not forget that it is also transgression, rupture, irony, parody, appropriation, misappropriation, confrontation, investigation, exploration, interrogation and opposition. Therefore we search for ideal contexts to allow this idea to develop in the best conditions. And if they don’t exist, we have to try to create them.

Iris Dressler: Since the mid-90s we have discussed, experienced and developed through many joint as well as individual projects and processes, critical, collaborative and independent ways of working. One aspect, speaking from the angle of the institution as a place of knowledge production, is how we can understand the institution not only as a place for education but as a learning structure, in the sense of sharing knowledge rather than only distributing it.

Daniel G. Andújar: Social cooperation reveals its power to innovate and create, understood as the best way of supporting a model that permits distribution and expansion of content for participants, users and audiences. Art also has a political role requiring ethical positions; aesthetics are not enough. Those who follow exclusively commercial and institutional models and practices may deem all of this irrelevant, but they must learn to accept being anchored to traditional models that differ radically from those most likely to prevail. For me, artistic practice and the processes involved in generating knowledge are very closely entwined with processes of information transmission, as part of a single collective cultural process.

A tremendously complex world like the one we face that is at the same time profoundly interconnected requires complex procedures of collaboration and education in the collective concept. We need a change, and that change must begin with a redefinition of the artist’s role in society, and even within his or her specific circumstances. I believe this process has to be communicated and shared, and as a result I do not understand the idea of an artistic practice whose formal aspects can be distinguished from supposedly educational ones.

The original concept must become a part of a single idea of a whole, where the workshop and the public exhibition are part of a single goal. The artist’s working space is in turn a set of spaces, not necessarily physical or joined, where he or she works, investigates, celebrates, listens, visits, consults and exchanges, meets and/or argues as part of a complex system. A process prevails which breaks down the classic concept of artistic education, ushering in another concept which is processual, analytical, informative, critical and activist in a reality and a logic which respond to the situation we now live in—an open experience where we share, learn or contribute, where the idea of open social space and collective experience is possible, with a special emphasis on that horizontal idea of exchange, collaboration and de-hierarchised experience.
Iris Dressler: Referring to your ‘Do It Together’ requirement (a reinterpretation of the Web 2.0 generation’s promising slogan “Do-It-Yourself”) as well as to your broad activities in the context of free and open source software, to what extent do the new communication and information technologies offer and demand specific ways of working?

Daniel G. Andújar: The “Do It Yourself” slogan was the Ikea slogan adopted by many artists from the mid-90s on. But it was the wrong one.

As a part of this representational and conceptual development, part of my work uses a number of components that are more or less directly related to free software as a thematic field. The model and the ethical positions of the movement can inspire contemporary art to take new directions in relation to general problems in society. To me, free software’s fundamental abolishment of intellectual property rights represents a chance to structurally and conceptually ‘re-programme’ society for the better, something I used like a metaphor which is shared with much of contemporary art in my opinion.

Information and communication technology and the consequences of globalisation have unquestionably had a transforming influence, dismantling old ways of thinking and operating.

There can be no doubt that this represents a reformulation of the processes of the production, transmission and appropriation of symbolic goods, which forces us to re-examine the models of constructing subjectivity and social organisation. We can see a clear break in the linear guidelines of experiencing time and space, as well as in concepts such as authorship or intellectual and industrial property. We are witnessing a re-examination of individual and collective identities, based on the new multicultural context and the context of diversity, resulting in a crisis in the classic systems of representation and the model of cultural reproduction associated with the nation-state.

We have seen a change in certain processes of collective working and learning, with the emergence of a kind of meritocratic hierarchy based on individual effort working for the collective good and person-to-person relations which are helping to create one of the greatest collective areas for exchange, innovation and creation ever seen in the history of humankind outside the sphere of the public institutions.

While management societies became intermediaries between creators and those in control of production, distribution and commercialisation, new technologies are gradually eliminating the need for these intermediaries and management services. The digital gap, generational clash and many other similar phenomena are challenging our traditional ways of working with, understanding and managing information—and they are also changing our view with regard to negotiating, trading, in short, to living in and understanding the world we inhabit. The tools and resources presented by new information and communication technologies are indissolubly linked to the processes of structural change and to the fundamental transformation taking place in our society. Furthermore, the ways we think, relate to one another, consume, produce and trade are undoubtedly being modified.

The models are continually being defined. Fortunately, current information and communication technologies have created a new framework for action, in which previous situations as well as new scenarios develop, and artists can also take advantage of this. I believe that these changes are creating a crisis in the dominant cultural models of distribution and management.

Iris Dressler: Regarding your various e-projects, I have the impression that especially those connected to the broad involvement of local communities are functioning very well. What have the various experiences with e-valencia, e-barcelona and e-sevilla been with regards to communities?

Daniel G. Andújar: And recently there is e-madrid, which was very well received but also very complex because of its size and the make-up of Madrid’s administration. These e-projects are platforms that approach and question society’s capacity for self-regulation in contexts of discussion and critique when the mechanisms for social control and the regulations imposed by traditional means are de-activated.

This is a tool conceived for collective use and to be implanted locally. Its aim is to exert an influence in certain contexts through the force created by the collective involvement of numerous individual mechanisms, by people or by collectives that are dispersed yet have the capacity to operate, speculate and develop a level of collective knowledge. The Internet’s digital space did not simply emerge as a means of enabling communication, as the public forum that it undoubtedly is. It also emerged as a new theatre for operations defined by social and power relationships.

Thus the e-projects were born in 2001, and a long list of platforms have been developed by or have emerged from social processes or practical workshops, seeking the social participation of collectives and local movements involved in critical processes concerning cultural policies and processes; generating new dynamics, breaking control mechanisms.

The forum responds to the growing instrumentalisation of public processes and is for open, transparent discussion. It gives a voice to that which is not a voice; it gives a voice to cutting criticism and expressive language. Some voices are more justified than others. Some have better manners than others. Some are more morally demanding than others. Such forums have more than what we usually hear or read in other media. They are always pushing the limits, because this is still an artistic project and not a social tool.

Iris Dressler: Your artistic practice connects art and knowledge production, and of course the sharing of knowledge, in a far-reaching sense—even if I think back to a project like the Manfred and Wilhelm Beutel Photo Collection from 1998 that was on show at the Reservate der Sehnsucht exhibition in the former Union Brewery in Dortmund. In inventing a locally focused photo collection, in manipulating images from the city of Dortmund, in constructing a real and at the same time fictitious narrative about Manfred and Wilhelm Beutel (both citizens of Dortmund) and using a high-tech tool for falsifying, the project treated the history of Dortmund, especially those periods for which a certain common awareness was lacking, in quite a complex way. It was a project that addressed the memory of the local public to a great degree.

All of your art projects are based on collaborative research that explores different political, historical, social and cultural phenomena and their media representations in a critical way: body politics, corruption, censorship, xenophobia, urban developments, the cultural industries and the inclusion and exclusion of technologies to name just a few. Moreover you act as curator, conduct many workshops, write articles, are involved in protest activities (for example against the Valencia Biennial or the closing of the IVAM Centre del Carme), publish magazines and web forums, keep up the irational.org project and maintain its server and advise museums as well as initiatives. Since December 2008 you have been the vice president of the Visual Artists Association of Catalonia. In how you work, I see all these different roles related to each other, in the sense that you understand them as separate but connected territories of the collaborative production of art and knowledge and for reclaiming free spaces of action.

Daniel G. Andújar: I do not distinguish between one activity and the other. Art also has a political function and needs to take a clear ethical stance. As I understand it, art cannot limit itself to simply airing great questions about the human and the divine, nor to obeying strategies which are purely aesthetic or marketplace driven; it must rather be committed to and involved in social and political processes.

I think that these are the kinds of territories where visual artists can show signs of commitment and set examples with their work; without them, their ability to act becomes very limited. Historically, their work has been associated with visions that are too egocentric and hyper-individualistic, focusing on the vision of the one-of-a-kind object as the sole material reference to their work. It is something that is transformed into mere exchange value in a market that is also evolving at the same time in its own economic context. As we mentioned earlier, we are caught up in a sweeping process of change which is creating attitudes that allow for the management, on a global level, of different movements in favour of the development of new forms of innovating and creating collectively. These attitudes are also in favour of freely sharing the acquired knowledge and the right to use it. It is a complex global process of cooperation and development that is constantly expanding its interests and growing in participants. They are ways of organising work that have been declared more productive and which are tremendously able to direct these innovations towards the goal of communal interest. Social cooperation reveals its powers of innovation and creation, understood as the best way to support a model that allows for the distribution and expansion of the contents for the participants, the users and the audience. Obviously, artists must belong to the process of change, and it will not be easy to adapt.

We have to demonstrate our ethical commitment with the work we do, incorporating it into the part of the process that develops the various aspects that constitute our social, political and cultural context. We are living through a re-formulation of the processes of the production, transmission and appropriation of symbolic goods that makes us reconsider the models for constructing subjectivity and social organisation.

Walter Benjamin had already written about producers in 1934: “A writer who does not teach other writers teaches nobody. The crucial point, therefore, is that a writer’s production must have the character of a model: it must be able to instruct other writers in their production and, secondly, it must be able to place an improved apparatus at their disposal. This apparatus will be all the better, the more consumers it brings into contact with the production process—in short, the more readers or spectators it turns into collaborators.”

We must begin redefining the role of the artist in this society, even within its specificity, and there is nothing wrong with that—or is this the only field that cannot have a crisis or be in a state of constant change? Aren’t professionals in other disciplines—educators, journalists, scientists—trying to redefine or rethink their role in society, to gradually adapt to change, to find their place in society? A process must be started to break with the classic conception of the artist in order to create a different one which should be processual in nature, akin to the character of an analyst, informer or critic, within a reality of logical answers to the current situation of the exclusionist, bourgeois art institution—the museum, the market, the academic world, the conservative concept of the artist. Artists must offer alternative actions, open spaces of confrontation and criticism.

This implies going into the arena, questioning the structure as a whole and convincing others that we can restructure the entire system using different parameters, processes other than the ones proposed by the current court artists, official portraitists, roundabout artists and decorators in cahoots with the powers that be. We cannot resign ourselves to turning back to the cathedral, painting vaulted ceilings in theatres and decorating the apartments of the construction business’s nouveau riche. Obviously we’re pushing the issue one step further, reformulating a thorough rereading, but I don’t believe that we are doing anything more than observing what is going on around us and questioning it, questioning it all the time, learning to read the reverse of images. It is nothing new.

Iris Dressler: In 1996 you created Technologies To The People® (TTTP) as a vehicle—in the form of a licensed corporation—for reflecting the promises and cynicism towards but also the potential of new technologies in an ironic and at the same time critical way. For a long time TTTP served as a sort of stage and masquerade (I wouldn’t say ‘fake’) that you used to enact double-blind and ambiguous situations: through the TTTP Video Collection in 1997, for example, an online project that pretended to provide download access to a hundred videos from the foremost artists. Whoever tried to download a video went through a never-ending series of error prompts instructing the user to update their browser software, get a faster Internet connection, add memory, install plug-ins and so forth. Finally you received hundreds of angry emails, full of complaints that, for example, the project required overly sophisticated technology and in doing so excluded most of the users. Some enraged artists claimed their copyrights; other people were interested in getting the software—but none of them ever experienced the promised service, since there was of course nothing to download. Basically the project reflected a certain naiveté with respect to the seeming omnipotence and accessibility of new technologies.

I also remember quite well that the TTTP Street Access Machine from 1996, which only existed in an advertising campaign, supposedly gave homeless people access to plastic cash. Apple contacted you, because they were interested in producing the machine. You of course declined, since at that time TTTP—at least as I understand it—was basically a tool or environment for generating gossip and misunderstandings, including with regard to the role of the artist. What function does TTTP serve, or better, how would you describe it today?

Daniel G. Andújar: Technologies To The People came about as a project precisely with the Street Access Machine for the Discord. Sabotage of Realities exhibition that took place at the Kunstverein and the Kunsthaus in Hamburg in 1996. It was the moment when the Internet was being introduced into the domestic sphere and just when the technology bubble was beginning to take shape. It aimed to stress the fact that this new utopia of freedom and global access to information and knowledge that floated in the atmosphere could vanish. The idea of a liberating technology and the Internet as a more democratic space was nothing more than the optimistic vision of a dream that appears unattainable. We surely have little historic ground for an objective perspective of some of the changes, but what was evident was that we were witnessing the flowering of a new conception of power—a power that had become immaterial in the loss of its grounding in material resources. And what was clear was the confirmation that we were witnessing a battle for control of knowledge—above all of information—a fight for it to be managed as a lucrative monopoly on distribution and circulation. We can see this more clearly now. The current crisis is yet another consequence of the state of general mobilisation in the battle for markets, resources and spheres of influence. This new episode reveals the power and repercussions of the new economy. We stand before a digitally connected market whose control mechanisms have contributed to designing a new geography of power, to diminishing state authority and citizens’ rights. And we go on conducting business there, we adapt, we rectify, but essentially we go on working with the same parameters. We work between the small spaces of liberty that we are allowed, using the system’s failures, sneaking through the gaps in it before they are closed up for good. Artistic practice too should become a show of ‘resistance’ to a model that seeks to stubbornly remain in an excessively hierarchised, diffuse, globalised and standardised space of relationships, attempting to pierce through the current structure to clear the way for transformations we understand are necessary. We continue to be interested in exposing the configurations of power, convinced that the practice of art should establish mechanisms for social relations that help to insure its impact in the long term and allow the discourse to be moved beyond restricted confines to the art audience and the institution itself.

Iris Dressler: Since 1996, when we first met in Dortmund during your residency at the Künstlerhaus, there has been a certain kind of transition observable in your work: it went from intervention in the urban public space to interventions in the virtual spaces of the Internet. Of course, you still deal with and act within various ‘realities’. But how do you understand the differences and connections between environments like the city, the Internet, the museum and the ‘old media’?

Daniel G. Andújar: The public space forms the basis on which I operate as an artist and so I reflect on it and formulate questions about it. Reclaiming the public space is a historical constant that is continually being redefined; we are currently working within a very confined space, subject to constant pressures. It is necessary to expand this space, and to do so we must be very alert to proceedings directed towards limiting the use and enjoyment of these free spaces. Every working context is conditioned in different ways. The conditions for reading the situations are different, and as such expressing which practices to follow is also different for each case. The city is the point of reference for the public space as we have known it until very recently; it is subject to a complex system of relationships and ongoing negotiation. The Web, as a public space, is also determined by social and power relationships and by a system of negotiation quite similar to that of the city. By contrast, the spaces marked off for developing artistic practices are specially designed and the result of a historical evolution with the aim of creating a base for structuring artistic language. It is a specific, restricted, protected space for a highly defined cultural process. As artists we should invest much more in its management, evolution and transformation, or we should abandon it once and for all, in which case its function will remain limited and subservient to the service and entertainment industries. As regards the media, the traditional media, i.e., radio, television and the print media can no longer continue to support themselves as a fundamental pillar of a structure that has been foundering for some time—it has already had its turn and its methods are being contended. Unilateral, closed, defined discourses that do not offer an opportunity for responding, participating or being managed collectively are no longer accepted.

Iris Dressler: One aspect that characterises your work is that it constantly moves between a polemic/ironic simplification and complexity. Your presentation of Postcapital in Stuttgart suggested a clear, somehow dualistic and chronological structure at first sight: left/right, 1989-2001, communism/capitalism and so forth. But one was immediately ensnared just in constantly being forced to decide where to go, since despite all of the exhibition’s architecturally clear structures, it had no obvious course. It was clear and unclear at the same time. And the more you entered the space the more you found yourself in a labyrinthine situation, gradually surrounded by more and more materials, opening up more and more aspects.

To me, art has a specific potential to generate complexity, in the sense that it allows things to appear in their multiple, contradictory realities: they become readable in one direction and another at the same time.

Daniel G. Andújar: My intention thereby was to create a system of complex relationships with the audience, a dialogue that allowed the viewer to establish an interactive relationship with the project itself, constructing contradictory, even antagonistic relations requiring that all the visual grammar on display be called into doubt.

Taking decisions, deciding, is an aspect I am interested in exploring as part of the process of interacting. It compels you to take breaks during the viewing, to evaluate the different aspects and to study the assorted options presented before choosing. It’s a process of construction that prompts you to solve something, to doubt or respond, to be critical about what you see and question its structure.

Iris Dressler: In another conversation you mentioned that one point of departure for the Postcapital project was a discussion you had with Iván de La Nuez about the consequences of being born at more or less the same time (in the mid-60s, that is) but in quite different situations: you in the capitalist conditions of ‘the West’, and he in the communist conditions of ‘the South’. When Postcapital—as an exhibition project—opened in 2006 at Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona with the additional title Politics, the city, money, as a collaboration between you, the Cuban writer and director of Palau de la Virreina, Iván de La Nuez, and the Cuban artist Carlos Garacoia, it was basically organised along the lines of the opposition between the ideologies of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. At the entrance, visitors already had to decide whether to go left or right, that is, to experience the course—following the symmetrical spatial order of Palau de la Virreina—from left to right or from right to left. There was no option to enter the exhibition straight ahead (from midway), as this option was blocked by a large table hosting dripping candles in the shape of architectural icons, a work by Carlos Garacoia.

Daniel G. Andújar: The discussion was centred on questions of specific contexts. You cannot choose where you are born and how, nor normally where you want to live. There are elements that depend on chance and which we cannot control; others, conversely, depend directly on the social, cultural, political and economic conditions that define our context. A dialogue envisaging personal circumstances as a set of dichotomies, contradictions, affirmations and negations was proposed at the start of the project. From there we would adopt certain strategies when deciding on the project’s space, route and interpretation. The design obliged visitors to make decisions that influenced how the project was read in an objective way. We played with very simple metaphors of left and right, directions and routes, colours associated with the political imaginary. In this decision-making, chance, fortuitousness and coincidence also determine the reading of the project, as is true of life itself.

Iris Dressler: One interesting experience at Postcapital in Stuttgart was that it was perceived quite differently by the different generations of visitors. The so-called collective or common memory of media images—even of media icons—from the 1950s to the present varies greatly between those born in the 1940s and those born in the 1980s. It seems to me that media images, in spite of their impact, are somehow lost and forgotten very quickly. Furthermore, it seems that today the different generations are living in quite different environments in terms of images and information. It’s more parallel and ‘special-interest’ oriented than it is common knowledge and memory.

Daniel G. Andújar: We are still engaged in a process of digitisation that is transferring a good part of our visual legacy from its formal physical format. All of this information is being placed in containers located on a new plane near the public space with high visibility and accessibility. This circumstance generates a new saturated, ornate and noisy visual panorama, creating a new landscape that will modify the relationships with our imaginary. We can generate and consume content very quickly, but also modify and retrieve it with the same swiftness from an enormous archive continually being created and examined. The primary transformation in the era of the information society is the evolution of habits in public and as an audience, to the point that we can speak of a new era of participation and interpretation. The audience no longer wants to be limited to receiving information, loathes being the passive subject of cultural processes that exclude, and wants to interact with these new media, participating in the process of transmitting information and being an active part of this information’s evolution and transformation into knowledge.

Iris Dressler: Postcapital brings many layers into play. It’s an ongoing, process-based and collaborative project, consisting of different modules which are connected to each other but also work independently and which together do not form a closed entity, since every single module opens up multiple discourses that always refer beyond themselves. It reminds me a bit—in a positive sense—of a Hydra, which could of course also be the perfect metaphor for the ‘archive culture’ itself. In this vein, Postcapital also seems to me like a process that explores questions anew from step to step and in doing so generates new and unexpected questions.

Daniel G. Andújar: Formulating questions is a very important part of the artistic praxis. I wanted to get away from unilateral, closed, defined discourses affording no possibility for response, participation or interaction. The projects reproduce processes, and these processes normally imply a certain level of complexity that we should not seek to conceal.

Iris Dressler: Postcapital. Politics, the city, money intertwined spatial stagings of elements from your archive, works by Carlos Garacoia and Iván de La Nuez’s involvement on the theory side. In Chile (2007) it appeared as a poster which was distributed in the public space, showing—as a single item from the archive—a copy of a document containing nothing but the classification stamp used in Chile during the dictatorship. In Istanbul (2008) Postcapital took the shape of a workshop; in Dortmund (2008), one module of the project, the “Postcapital Library”, was part of a group exhibition on copyright issues, presented as the display of an enormous ‘conference table’ with a tower in the centre. In Montreal (2008) “Honor”, another module of the project, was part of the Mediating Conflict exhibition. In Stuttgart (2008) once again, Postcapital (Archive 1989-2001) was accompanied by two workshops (one conducted by you, another by Yvonne P. Doderer), a large number of lectures and a programme of films curated by Katrin Mundt. Regarding these various presentations and their ramifications, Postcapital basically works as a resource for different activities and is in this sense quite an ephemeral project—a resource and catalyst for ongoing communication and processes. Even now in Venice, Postcapital is part of the Catalan Pavilion as an installation and part of one of the Turkish Pavilion’s publications as a case study.

Daniel G. Andújar: There is neither a defined format nor a project in the strict sense. We speak of tools, platforms, archives and educational processes. The spaces are thought out in terms of their transformative capacity and not as merely functional structures. They are platforms for constructing meanings and producing significance, designed as a mechanism for criticising hierarchies and the possibility of enabling tools and means of production for modifying the reality that has come about and constructing new subjectivities. We are trying to define a specific context that allows us to learn to learn—managing knowledge through managing the performance space itself.

Iris Dressler: Your artistic practice has for years been based on the re-rereading, re-appropriation and re-contextualisation of existing audiovisual material. In this regard, you are a long-term archivist. With Postcapital you not only question the archive itself as a depository for knowledge production (namely a depository in transition), you also give public access to your way of working in a double sense: in the form of your audiovisual and spatial interpretation of the collected material, and in the form of your archive, which is of course related to selection and interpretation as well. Not even the search engines you use are neutral or non-intentional, since there is no neutral technology and no neutral use of it. In this sense, the status of interpretation is an important issue in the Postcapital project: as a more or less controlled/controlling filter, but also as the potential for a more open, complex and critical reading. Postcapital (Archive 1989-2001) in Stuttgart was dominated by a huge architectonic structure that shifted between a sculptural ensemble reminiscent of modernist aesthetics, the silhouette of a city, and elements of a stage. This structure was accompanied in the foreground by a low circular monitor installation and framed by a frieze of images covering the walls of the exhibition space. These three elements generated an initial sort of picture (or stage setting) of the exhibition. The architectural structure could be entered from two sides—one showing a video montage of people storming (or trying to storm) walls, the other a camera panning round and round a satellite image of Manhattan (ending at Ground Zero). Inside the ‘building ensemble’, visitors could explore various spaces with materials from the archive, revolving around different aspects. And finally the scenario behind the architectonic structure (or behind the picture) was organised like a workshop area and like the backstage of a city. In your contribution to the exhibition On Difference #1 you had already organised the presentation like two sides of a picture.

Daniel G. Andújar: Visual language is the most valuable tool in artistic practice, but ‘the visual’ is currently specifically associated with contemporary digital territory, digital recreation, publicity; we artists are no longer the only ones capable of influencing the visual imaginary, and not only that, but I think we have lost part of this capacity. Perhaps it is the moment to stop making more noise and to create more images. This doesn’t necessarily mean stopping working with images. We should join this battle and shoulder certain responsibilities: discover what is behind the images, teach how to decode them, help to open the code to the visual framework, showing the reverse side of all of this, laying bare its entrails. It is a language full of capabilities, but it is caught up in the struggle for control over it. Language can change the world, or it should.

Iris Dressler: Another element of the ‘backstage scenario’ in Stuttgart was a huge tower or podium, breaking through the ceiling and concealing the server.

Daniel G. Andújar: In playing with these aspects, I am interested in emphasising the audience’s inability to access the top of the podium, to climb up the tower and take the reins of the discourse. My work is about de-hierarchising these processes. No-one may raise their voice above others’ voices, and so I don’t let anyone do so. This is why I always position the server, the ‘archive’, beneath the tower, as a mechanism for distributing information that works at floor level, feeding the other elements that make up the installation. This is an attempt to indicate that what has held the tower upright for so long is precisely its hidden mechanisms. Let’s learn to use them.

Iris Dressler: We have often been asked why the Postcapital Archive is not available on the Internet. To me this aspect in fact has nothing to do with the project; it is not about having an open online database, but rather about the complex problems of reading and understanding information in the age of the Internet. The confrontation between your spatial (and spatially experienceable) interpretation of the material—constantly changing from site to site and context to context—and the archive as, again, the result of decisions and filters, is crucial. You cannot take away either one part or the other.

Daniel G. Andújar: In this information society, the basic resource will be knowledge, and the will to apply knowledge to generate more knowledge should be grounded in a heightened effort to systematise and organise it, demanding that learning be lifelong. This was the big change, beyond mere formal questions about the media.

In a short space of time we have gone from visiting the museum, the library, the archive, to living within the archive itself. We do not, as individuals, have the ability, time or memory to comprehend the entire system. Researchers tell us that the human being’s working memory capacity is limited to remembering four things and no more, although we can use tricks like repeating something many times or grouping and classifying things. How, then, are we going to manage this vast quantity of documents, information, images and so on? We have to generate mechanisms that allow us to transform all this noisy mess into specific knowledge to be able to develop any of the particular nuances of our personalities. And we have to undertake this in a collective way, seeking new mechanisms from a number of fields and disciplines, certainly beginning with education. I propose creating a true culture of the archive, learning to learn from the context of a wealth of choices—life within the archive, in a knowledge society that gives options and requires us to choose again and again, to learn without limits, to value new opportunities and confront numerous challenges and puzzles; a knowledge society that is unacquainted with genre work, that calls old classifications, control systems, hierarchies, legitimacies, values and so on into doubt.

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Daniel G. Andújar: The practice of art, as I understand it, must also become a show of “resistance,” a model that obstinately wants to remain in a space of relationships which are more and more hierarchical, diffused, globalised, standardised… Those who direct the framework of cultural industries and the management of cultural institutions abandoned, decades ago, the processes of creating new contents and cultural production as a collective construction. Most of the professionals who run this framework are simply developing a personal power structure, climbing up the ladder to the most visible and media-friendly part of the public and private art institutions. They flaunt their power and reign over the reality of their little empire. The Art Institution has been absorbed as just another mechanism in the process of service production. It is an active part of the touristisation process in the urban context and participates in the complex re-adaptation of the new city’s infrastructures. Artists have been pushed out of the court to make way for a new elite of cultural managers who work in ivory towers, conceived more like mausoleums, on biennial events.
Clearly, this model implies a conflict of interests and this radicalisation of positions is taken advantage of in a very opportune way by those in power and those highly placed in these visible spaces. A visibility which, up to now, has been given to them in the traditional media, that is, in Radio, Television and the written Press. Who are the owners or, at the very least, who control these media? And, what is even more important—who are their allies?
To us artists, it is clear—either we join this new management system, or we move on to architecture to recover good favour of the court. Anything else puts us in a permanent situation of loss. Of course, we can also put ourselves in a (permanent?) state of resistance. I choose this latter option. The models are continually being defined. Fortunately, current information and communication technologies have created a new framework for action, in which previous situations as well as new scenarios develop, and artists can also take advantage of this. I believe that these changes are creating a crisis in the dominant cultural models of distribution and management. The digital space did not emerge simply as a medium permitting communication, it also emerged as a new theatre for all kinds of operations. And this is clearly a disputed space in which the old hierarchies of its interests are threatened. Art also has a political function there which needs a clear ethical stance. Art, like any cultural process, is basically a process of transmission, transference, of a continuous, permanent and necessary dialogue… but we mustn’t forget, it is also transgression, rupture, irony, parody, appropriation, misappropriation, confrontation, investigation, exploration, interrogation, opposition. We therefore search for the ideal context which permits this idea to develop in the best conditions. And if they don’t exist, we have to try to create them.

ÁdlÁ: Let’s expand on the subject of social commitment. It seems almost unthinkable that the work of a specific artist, especially if his work is characterised by a battle with social themes, could not be on a par with his or her way of behaving when faced with certain political matters. And, nevertheless, history is full of intellectuals, poets, artists, philosophers… whose work has transcended their time and is considered outstanding, while their personal actions could be judged—and in fact have been judged—as inappropriate, not only in relation to their work but, from an ethical point of view, also in relation to everything else. This is still a very current topic.
Perhaps because of its intrinsic descriptive vocation, by making obvious and visible personal interpretations of important matters, art is always kept away from the making of decisions, not only in the realm of politics, but also in culture. In fact, cultural policies themselves are frequently planned by political offices defined by a marked cultural phobia or, at the very least, a reductionist vision of culture. Culture is understood as the accompaniment for a group of important and decisive matters and personages.
Is the artist’s public dimension what makes up the institutional art spaces, the galleries, the new spaces which provide technological tools hosted on the web… or is it rather a private space, which each person makes his own, becoming visible in a personal and almost unpredictable way? Can there be gestures, actions, itineraries… which emerge as a joint effort, or does the hyper-individualism of art only permit uni-personal acts?

DGA: In the new configuration of cultural industries, in which more and more people are employed, artists are found at the lowest level of this hierarchy and are at the rear end of the economic rewards the system produces. In other words, there are a lot of people earning a living in this world, but it seems like the artists are rather “risking their lives.” And I ask myself, can the Art system support itself without contemporary artists? It seems that many institutions can. Fortunately the practice of art is not only confined to the boundaries of the institution or the marketplace, it can and must find new territories to develop new proposals—and if we can’t find them, then we have to invent them.
One of the territories we can operate from is the notion of intellectual property, whose prevailing system is certainly in urgent need of revision and reformulation, as it should be evolving towards a new, freer cultural context. The laws implemented by our political leaders under the new Intellectual Property Law, such as the right to make personal copies—now reduced to the bare minimum—are anachronistic for the Internet Age. I understand the current regulations as imposing a real burden on creating, on accessing information, and on the spreading of knowledge. I think that these are the kinds of territories where visual artists can show signs of commitment and make examples with their work; without them, their ability to act becomes very limited. Historically, their work has been associated with visions that are too egocentric, hyper-individualistic, focussing on the vision of the one-of-a-kind object as the sole material reference to their work. Transformed into mere exchange value in a market that, at the same time, is also evolving, in its own economic context.
As we mentioned earlier, we are immersed in a deep process of change which is creating attitudes permitting the management, on a global level, of different movements in favour of the development of new forms of innovation and collective creation, as well as being in favour of freely sharing the acquired knowledge and the right to use it. It is a complex, global process of co-operation and development that is constantly increasing its participants and interests. They are ways of organising work that have been declared more productive and which are tremendously able to direct these innovations towards the goal of communal interest. Social co-operation reveals its powers of innovation and creation, understood as the best way to support a model which allows for the distribution and expansion of the contents for the participants, the users and the audience. Obviously, artists must belong to the change process. And it will not be easy to adapt.

ÁdlÁ: According to what you say, and to what we have discussed on other occasions with Rogelio López Cuenca, it is safe to assume that the artist’s purpose can no longer be that of merely representing the world, understanding this representation as an action which allows him to create work proving the creative, different individuality of each artist. However, in all artistic forums, the artist’s creative particularity, his hallmark, continues to be what determines his quality. Is this a contradiction? If so, how can we come to terms with it, as artists who are active in the art world?

DGA: Well, there is still a lot of resistance to moving away from certain air-tight containers. In my opinion, it is extremely important to be able to abandon these traditional, limited sites that exist in the already narrow world of art. We make up part of a much wider cultural and social context which, in turn, is trying to digest one of the greatest cognitive changes of transformation in recent decades, if not the last few centuries. As I understand it, art can not limit itself to simply airing out the great questions about the human and the divine—nor obeying strategies which are purely aesthetic or of the marketplace—but rather it must be committed and involved in social and political processes.
We have to show our ethical commitment with the work we do, incorporating it into the part of the development process of the different aspects constituting our social, political and cultural context. We are living through a re-formulation of the processes of production, transmission and appropriation of symbolic goods that make us reconsider models of the construction of subjectivity and social organisation. Walter Benjamin, already in 1934, wrote this in regards to producers: “An author who does not teach writers, does not teach anyone. The model character of production is then decisive; in first place, it instructs other producers in the production and then, in second place, it is capable of putting an improved apparatus at their disposal. And when more consumers take this apparatus to production, the better it will be.”
We must begin redefining the role of the artist in this society, even within its specificity, and there is nothing wrong with that—or is this the only field that can not have a crisis or be in a state of constant change? Aren’t other disciplines—educators, journalists, scientists—trying to redefine or rethink their role in society, to gradually adapt to change, to find their position in society? A process must be started to break with the classic conception of the artist, in order to create a different one, which should be processual in nature, akin to the character of an analyst, informer or critic, within a reality of logical answers to the current situation of the exclusionist, bourgeois art institution—the museum, the market, the academic world, the conservative concept of the artist. Artists have to offer alternative actions, to open spaces of confrontation and criticism. This implies going into the arena, questioning the structure as a whole, and convincing others that we can restructure the entire system using different parameters, other processes, different from the ones proposed by the current courtier artists, official portraitists, roundabout artists, and decorators in cahoots with the powers that be. We can not resign ourselves to going back to the cathedral, to paint vaulted ceilings in theatres, and to decorate the apartments of the nouveau riche of the construction business. Obviously, we’re pushing the issue one step further, reformulating a thorough rereading, but I don’t believe that we are doing anything more than observing what is going on around us and questioning it, questioning it all the time, learning to read on the backside of images. It is nothing new.

ÁdlÁ: The question of survival is fundamental if we want to clarify what the artist’s task is and what his place within the artistic framework is. As we pointed out earlier, it seems that the artists are “risking their lives” doing what they do, rather than making a living like any other worker who does his job. Speaking of this, I would like to bring up one of Iván de la Nuez’s ideas from his text included in this publication, bearing the subtitle “Art, Politics and Survival.” In the last part of the text, which had already been published in the cultural supplement Babelia under the title Intelectuales en la era de la imagen [Intellectuals in the era of the image], Iván argues that visual culture is slowly but surely substituting written culture as the “transmitter of knowledge.” And he argues that artists are therefore faced with the task of becoming the intellectuals of the era of the image.
This idea, which is doubtlessly a key to understanding the more and more specific complexity of contemporary art, brings up, however, other doubts, among which, from my point of view, the term “intellectual” is foremost. We should question if this term, and everything it has meant historically, is helpful for the communication of new ways to understand art, or if it is weighed down by too much baggage. That is, if the word intellectual would also need redefining or a rereading within the cultural territory, where, as you have said, everything is in the process of transformation.

DGA: I don’t understand it so much as some taking the place of others, but rather as a situation in which we are moving closer to a stage where it will be difficult to identify cultural sectors that are completely autonomous. This might seem to contradict the fact that it is more and more difficult to grasp reality in an individual and autonomous way. We need to create, as a group, new ways of learning and collaborating to carry out any task. We are submerged in a world where the transmitter and the receiver act simultaneously. In a very short period of time, we have gone from visiting the museum, the library, archives, to physically living inside the Archive. As individuals, we do not have the capacity, or the memory, to take in the whole System. Researchers have warned us that the human being has a work memory capacity limited to remembering four things—no more—although we can use tricks like repeating something many times, or grouping things together. How then are we going to manage with this huge quantity of documents, information, images… We have to create mechanisms which would allow us to transform all of that noisy mess into specific knowledge to be able to develop any specific activity in our personality. We will have to embrace this collectively, and look for new mechanisms from the enormous variety of fields and disciplines. Surely beginning with education. Here, no one is superfluous, just as no territory is exclusive to any one person or group.
If we were speaking in traditional terms, like one speaks in museums, that is, of the public, the viewer—the audience the artist’s work will be aimed at—today, more than ever, they are used to very sophisticated representation techniques borrowed from the mass such as advertising or television, but especially from the recent change in consumer habits of the media, brought about by the extensive appearance of the Internet, personal telecommunication tools, such as the mobile phone (which is also a camera for both videos and photos) and the systematic introduction of the computer in the private sphere. The visual is specifically associated with the contemporary territory of the digital: digital entertainment, advertising… Artists are no longer the only ones with the ability to influence the visual imaginary. Moreover, I think we have lost part of that ability and perhaps it is time to stop making any more noise, to stop producing images. This does not necessarily mean to stop working with images, which is something us artists know quite a bit about, or at least we should. Let’s join that battle, but let’s value other points of view. We should discover what lies behind those images; indeed, teach how to decode; help crack the code of visual frameworks; show the backsides of all these images; expose their entrails. It is a language filled with potentials, but it is immersed in a battle to control it. “Language changes the world,” said Rogelio López Cuenca in a recent interview. This is one of our fundamental battlegrounds—Is that an intellectual stance? I don’t know. But we’re working on it.

Herramientas del arte. Relecturas
Un proyecto de Álvaro de los Ángeles con Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Rogelio López Cuenca y Daniel García Andújar
Sala Parpalló, junio-septiembre de 2008

Valencia, Calle Alboraia, 5, 46010, al lado del convento de la Trinidad
Tel: 34 963 614 415. Fax: 34 963 936 197
salaparpallo@xarxamuseus.com

Martes a sábado de 10 a 14 h. y de 16 a 20 h.
Domingos de 10 a 14 h.

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Albert Batlle

El 1996 crees Thecnologies to The People, una mena de corporació fictícia per publicitar tot tipus de serveis i productes vinculats a Internet d’accés lliure. Com va sorgir la creació d’aquesta corporació, a quins objectius responia?
Thecnologies to The People és una empresa virtual que jo utilitzo com a referent, com a cobertura paral·lela a allò que és i representa el món de l’art a fi de parlar de certs temes que en cada moment poden ser recurrents, per referir-me a la corporació com a sistema de gestió i representació molt més sofisticat que els que habitualment es desenvolupen en el món de l’art o en el mateix espai del museu.
Thecnologies to The People es crea l’any 1996 a Alemanya a partir d’un seguit de reflexions sobre el que estava passant en aquell moment arran de les transformacions derivades de l’ús de les noves tecnologies. A mitjan dels anys noranta es va produir una mena d’explosió del món de la tecnologia, del món d’Internet. Era el moment en què Internet irromp com una xarxa d’ús domèstic a través del navegador pla, quan comencen a proliferar les línies particulars i la gent comença a utilitzar de forma molt més evident serveis com el correu electrònic. També és veritat que en aquell moment hi havia un excessiu protagonisme, una confiança excessiva. S’estava creant un espectre, una visió del món que havia de canviar de manera absoluta les noves tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació. Nosaltres, a Thecnologies to The People, no creiem que aquell panorama seria tal com es dibuixava en aquell moment. Es parlava d’un accés més democràtic als mitjans, d’un major grau d’independència de l’individu com a tal, davant les institucions o l’estat i, sobretot, una transmissió i un accés a una informació ingent. Tot això, aquell moment, era una situació absolutament nova. Molta gent, també els mitjans, van tractar de dibuixar el panorama dient que allò portaria més llibertat i que proporcionaria un major grau de democràcia o desenvolupament a determinats països.

Es donava una visió triomfalista de les noves tecnologies…
Sí, exactament, es pintava una situació idíl·lica, en què qualsevol podia muntar-se el seu propi servidor convertint-se en emissor i receptor i, sobretot, en què l’accés a la informació seria més fàcil i assequible. Ens trobàvem davant d’una nova utopia de llibertat i distribució global de la informació i l’accés al coneixement. La informació és el que, en definitiva, ens permet generar coneixement. Per tant, accedir en cada moment a una transparència en la difusió de la informació permet que el propi fet de l’accés a la informació generi tota una part del nostre entramat cultural i enriqueixi la nostra acerbitat intel·lectual. Crèiem, al contrari que molts altres, que això podria crear un nou trencament social, que podrien generar-se noves diferències entre el que he denominat alguna vegada com “inforics” i “infopobres”, és a dir, entre els que tenen accés a tot el context en el qual es desenvolupen les noves tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació i els que no el tenen, bé perquè no disposen ni tan sols d’una línia elèctrica o accés telefònic, en conseqüència no podrien accedir a la infraestructura tecnològica mínima, o bé perquè les infraestructures amb què compten no són suficients. O perquè simplement no tenen un coneixement específic per poder manejar aquestes eines. Si no saps com funciona l’ordinador i no saps com funciona Internet, difícilment pots accedir als seus continguts, no pots descodificar-los. Els ordinadors i les connexions, en aquell moment, encara eren molts cars, i segueixen sent cars en determinats contextos.

En aquest sentit, Thecnologies to The People funciona com una imatge paral·lela que en ser un món simbòlic et permet desemmascarar situacions i ironitzar en determinats moments. El meu treball té una càrrega d’ironia i sobretot es desenvolupa en aquest món virtual poc precís. Quan un no té un coneixement extensiu del que realment està veient, eludeix l’anàlisi de les imatges que se li ofereixen i els seus significats i tendeix a crear incondicionalment. Hi ha casos molt semblants a la vida “real” de creació d’una imatge absolutament controlada “simulada”. Per exemple, al cap de poc temps d’estar treballant amb Thecnologies to The People, a Espanya va aparèixer la companyia Terra, que va sortir a borsa sense ser realment una companyia física, o sigui, una empresa amb empleats i amb continguts. Amb tot, per part de Telefónica es va fabricar una gran campanya de publicitat que va atorgar a Terra una credibilitat a la qual es van acollir milers d’estalviadors que sense tenir cap idea del que era Internet es van gastar el seus diners invertint en accions. La gent seguia comprant i la bombolla continuava inflant-se. I això va ser una situació que va durar anys i que es va repetir en molts exemples similars.

L’objectiu era desemmascarar l’associació entre les corporacions i les noves tecnologies?
Es va donar un context molt definit, que en aquell moment va ser paradigmàtic per crear Thecnologies to The People. Estàvem treballant en aquella època en un projecte internacional d’exposició, Discord. Sabotage of Realities, que va tenir lloc a la Kunstverein i la Kunsthaus d’Hamburg. Normalment, allà aquests tipus d’institucions solien estar esponsoritzades per grans companyies, que aleshores eren molt visibles, com per exemple Calvin Klein i Hugo Boss, d’ascendència alemanya, i altres que estaven en ple desenvolupament pel que fa al conglomerat tecnològic, com Sony i una mica més tard Nokia. Vam crear Thecnologies to The People, precisament, per tal que funcionés com el patrocinador principal d’aquell esdeveniment, vam fer tota la publicitat gràfica i vam desenvolupar tota la imatge corporativa de la companyia. Vam construir al mateix temps un producte, amb sortida publicitària a Internet, i que tots els que estaven a Hamburg podien trobar mitjançant una publicitat gràfica que es va distribuir durant el període de l’exposició. Era fonamentalment Street Access Machine (1999), una maquineta que permetia que tots els que estaven al carrer demanant almoina poguessin accedir al diner electrònic. És a dir, que els menys privilegiats poguessin participar activament en la societat de la informació que s’estava construint i que semblava haver-se oblidat de nombrosos aspectes socials.

És també a mitjan dels noranta quan comença una proliferació i una implantació massiva de l’ús de les targetes de crèdit, com Visa, American Express, etc. Vam fer una reflexió a l’entorn de quin caire podria tenir en el futur l’ús del diner i les seves conseqüències socials més immediates, ja que hi havia un interès cada vegada més creixent per part de la banca internacional a introduir el diner electrònic. D’una banda, per a la banca era una cosa absolutament raonable; com més utilitzes el diner electrònic o de plàstic utilitzes també, cada vegada més, dades electròniques fàcilment manejables i, d’aquesta manera, no és necessari tant personal manejant bitllets físics, cosa que és molt més barata per la banca. Però el que per a nosaltres era més problemàtic és que això donava a quatre o cinc corporacions internacionals, com American Express o Visa, el control absolut, per un costat, del sistema econòmic dels països autònoms i, per l’altre, permetia a totes aquestes corporacions fer-se amb el control de la informació dels ciutadans, com podria ser el perfil de consum. Llavors, qualsevol banc podia crear un perfil perfecte del mercat o un perfil teu com a consumidor, i això els permetia controlar una gran quantitat d’informació sensible a la qual abans no podien accedir. De l’altra, la majoria d’aquestes corporacions estan als Estats Units i escapen al control d’altres països sobirans, com per exemple el Parlament Europeu.

L’altre aspecte en el qual incidia aquest projecte era el de l’exclusió. Tot aquest sistema deixa fora a gran part de la societat: si no tens diners, si no guanyes diners, si estàs obligat a estar al carrer –no entrem en el fet del perquè la persona pot estar al carrer–, el sistema bancari basat en la transmissió electrònica trenca totalment la teva llibertat, perds la llibertat, fins i tot, de poder estar pidolant el que algú bonament et pot donar. Perquè si no tens cap tipus d’ingrés no pots tenir un compte bancari, i si no tens un compte bancari tampoc pots accedir a una targeta de crèdit i, per tant, no entres en aquest sistema. En definitiva, la Street Access Machine funcionava de manera que si algú volia donar diners a un indigent que demanava i només disposava de la seva American Express o Visa senzillament havia d’introduir la seva targeta de crèdit a la maquineta, de la qual disposava el propi indigent, i marcar la quantitat a lliurar. Al llarg del dia o la setmana, el posseïdor de la màquina podia recuperar tot el crèdit que havia obtingut amb una targeta (Recovery Card). Això va crear una gran controvèrsia aquell hivern i va donar peu a un debat molt interessant a la premsa.

El teu treball no només es desenvolupa a la xarxa?
Bé, el meu context de treball sempre ha estat l’espai públic. Però és veritat que a partir de 1996 es van crear un seguit de projectes desenvolupats a Internet sota la cobertura de Thecnologies To The People que van guanyar certa visibilitat. Simplement s’amplien els àmbits de treball. Com a exemple, el 1998, es crea Thecnologies to The People Foundation, que es dedica a col·leccionar aspectes del món de l’art que queden reflectits a la xarxa. Una de les propostes que va tenir cert ressò va ser la Col·lecció de Vídeo (Video Collection, 1998), una base de dades amb cent treballs d’imatge en moviment als quals es podia accedir des d’Internet, una col·lecció com la que pot tenir qualsevol museu d’art contemporani, i que havíem estat desenvolupant amb l’ajut d’especialistes com Eugeni Bonet. El rigor de l’elecció d’aquests cent treballs fonamentalment en vídeo i cinema podia donar peu que qualsevol entès en art contemporani pensés que aquella era una molt bona col·lecció i, sobretot, que es tractava d’una col·lecció real. Nosaltres vam utilitzar tot l’entramat de la xarxa i una revista electrònica que se segueix anomenant Rhizome d’Estats Units per fer un llançament de la col·lecció. La informació que es va difondre era que Thecnologies To The People havia desenvolupat una tecnologia que permetia veure vídeos, per fi, a temps real i en pantalla completa des del propi ordinador a través d’Internet. Una cosa que molts artistes i especialistes esperaven i que, fins a aquell moment, no s’havia aconseguit. El projecte, malgrat la sorpresa de molta gent, encara ha estat funcionant i va creant tot tipus de sensacions basades en l’engany. L’experiència és frustrant, ja que arriba un moment en què el sistema dóna tants problemes que tot el món el deixa creient que la seva connexió o el seu ordinador no són el suficientment bons, o bé que s’està fent alguna cosa malament, llavors s’acaba abandonant. L’efecte que es volia aconseguir era que si jo t’estic dient que puc donar-te una cosa que tu desitges, segurament tendeixes a creure-t’ho cegament fins a dubtar de tu mateix i, si no ho aconsegueixes, mai no poses en dubte del tot el procés, ja que realment és massa complex. Qui entén del tot com funciona un ordinador? Es crea un espai de dubtes en què les reaccions són sempre curioses. Les primeres reaccions van ser les denúncies de quasi totes les distribuïdores de vídeos d’art com Electronic Arts Intermix o Vídeo Data Bank contra Thecnologies To The People per posar vídeos sense pagar drets d’autor; d’altra banda, hi va haver tot un seguit de demandes d’escoles d’art i de llocs en els quals no s’havien pogut veure els vídeos, en què se sol·licitava com s’havien d’adaptar els ordinadors per tal que els alumnes poguessin accedir als vídeos i a tot un seguit de discussions que van durar quasi sis mesos, fins que –bé, el món de l’art és molt petit– la gent va anar filant coses i es va adonar que realment allà no hi havia res i que tampoc mai no hi va haver res, que eren quatre pàgines dissenyades en HTML i que darrere no hi havia cap maquinària, ni res realment sofisticat, tot i que encara hi ha gent que segueix creient que hi ha alguna cosa.

I el projecte The Famous Art Power Database for ARTIST?
Es va presentar en el context dels debats Post Governmental Organization, en el Next 5 Minutes 3 (Amsterdam, 1999) i s’engloba dins un seguit de projectes que proposen una reflexió sobre la llibertat i la seguretat en l’àmbit específic d’Internet. La xarxa és un espai públic en què es transmet informació d’un lloc a un altre. Preservar aquesta condició pública, no codificada ni excessivament intervinguda, ha estat una de les intencions principals per part dels teòrics i d’un gran nombre dels que treballen en aquest mitjà. No obstant, i sobretot des de l’11 de setembre, determinats governs han anat posant entrebancs, han anat limitant l’accés a la informació que circula a través d’Internet mitjançant estratègies de dissuasió relacionades amb la por, por a la seguretat personal, a la pornografia, a l’il·legal, etc. Aquest ha estat un dels referents del meu treball: saber on estan realment els límits d’allò a què es pot accedir. Crec que són qüestions legítimes per llançar-les des de la pràctica de l’artista.

Quins són els canals que pot utilitzar un artista? Com pot utilitzar la informació que hi ha a Internet?

En el cas de l’exposició d’Olot hi ha un treball que consisteix a compilar tot un seguit d’informacions que ja estaven a la xarxa, i que molts governs qualifiquen d’il·legals, però que en realitat estan en un espai públic i que qualsevol pot trobar: imagina’t que trobes un llibre al carrer o que trobes qualsevol tipus d’informació diguem-ne “sensible”. Per a mi la informació és absolutament necessària per al desenvolupament en tots els contextos, socials, polítics, científics, i jo sempre estaré en contra que algú, sigui l’estat o siguin determinats països, tingui la clau per dir el que a Internet pot ser públicament accessible i el que no pot ser-ho. Sobre això hi ha nombrosos referents, per exemple la criptografia, la informació encriptada amb determinats codis més alts de 128 bytes, una cosa tècnica i matemàtica, escriure d’una manera que ningú pugui obrir la informació, ningú més que tu, una altra vegada. Això ha estat il·legal en molts països, a Estats Units aquest tipus de software, que permet aquestes converses, ha estat qualificat com a material militar, una arma de guerra, i no es pot exportar a un grup determinat de països, ni tampoc utilitzar-se en molts altres, no pot sortir dels Estats Units.

Hi ha control gens democràtic de les noves tecnologies…
Exactament, ens trobem davant d’un panorama paradoxal, ja que el que es pretenia era avançar en el nostre sistema democràtic, i precisament el que s’està produint és una situació d’immobilitat. Lògicament, cada vegada els hàbits de consum han anat canviant: molta gent utilitza l’e-mail o altres canals “tecnològics”, però d’alguna manera seguim en el mateix lloc d’abans. Amb tot, he d’afegir que existeixen determinats usos de la tecnologia que podem utilitzar per avançar en nombrosos territoris. El software lliure, per exemple, en el qual el coneixement es presenta alliberat de qualsevol tipus de protocol de mercat, i que permet que molta més gent pugui accedir a aquests nous canals i utilitzar-los des d’unes posicions molt menys preconfigurades, eludint les limitacions i el control que exerceixen els governs i les corporacions sobre l’entramat tecnològic.

Perquè l’entramat tecnològic es regeix pel sistema de mercat i aquest, alhora, està dissenyat i controlat per corporacions…
Sí, però per un sistema de mercat molt dirigit políticament des de determinats sectors. Per exemple, les administracions de quasi tots els estats utilitzen i compren de forma massiva productes de Microsoft, quan sabem que es poden utilitzar eines paral·leles que són absolutament lliures, desenvolupades com a producte de processos d’implicació social en què participen col·lectius procedents d’àmbits més diversos, des d’universitats fins a grups humans absolutament voluntaris, que mai no han cobrat. És important assenyalar que tu pots fer-te el teu propi sistema controlant-ne els ressorts i establint les prioritats de seguretat, accés, democratització, etc. que consideris oportunes. Per exemple, això és essencial en qüestions com la llengua, en què has d’esperar que una corporació desenvolupi un software per a una minoria d’usuaris i això, si no és rendible, mai no es produirà. No obstant això, si una sola persona o una administració dedica un temps a traduir qualsevol eina està alliberant una infraestructura tecnològica i, d’alguna manera, està adquirint certa independència econòmica i cert control sobre la seva pròpia seguretat. Tots els estats estan deixant en mans d’una corporació com Microsoft el control de la distribució d’informació, quan nosaltres mateixos podem desenvolupar nous conceptes i moltes més eines que realment ens poden ajudar en la millora d’aspectes relacionats amb les nostres vides.

El website e-valencia.org fou creat amb la intenció d’oferir un espai de discussió sobre la política cultural valenciana. Per quines raons el servidor del website fou desconnectat? Podríem qualificar aquest fet de censura?
El website e-valencia.org és una plataforma d’utilització, però sobretot és una eina específica, plantejada per treballar en el context localitzat de la política cultural de la Comunitat Valenciana. E-valencia és una proposta de llibertat que es va constituir progressivament en un exercici de contestació davant l’actuació de determinades institucions públiques i contra la creixent instrumentalització política de la cultura. És una eina que es desenvolupa en paral·lel a la d’e-barcelona.org, creada com una part del projecte Hamaca, una iniciativa fallida, creada a Catalunya per fomentar la producció de projectes artístics que incloguessin l’ús de noves tecnologies. Allí es va començar a generar aquest tipus de reflexió sobre un espai que fos de discussió oberta, on lògicament no hi ha límits a les opinions ni tampoc jerarquies que hi intervinguin, on no existeix un sistema de control que digui en cada moment qui és el que està donant opinió. Això, per exemple, és una cosa que en determinats moments planteja una gran polèmica que penso que ha de fer que, novament, reflexionem sobre quins són els límits que s’estableixen per avaluar les diferents formes de participació ciutadanes. En les converses sempre hi ha fòrums oberts, hi ha una part d’insults, però l’experiència que tenim, durant el temps que va funcionar e-valencia.org i també e-barcelona.org, és que hi ha certes opinions que canvien la forma de debatre i que, sobretot, donen una informació que és molt necessària per entendre certs casos o aportar arguments a determinades polèmiques. I hi ha altres casos que s’articulen com a simples formes de protesta; hi ha casos que són sagnants, en què la gent es veu impotent enfront d’un article de diari, que és un sistema tancat i que, com a molt, l’únic que pots fer és enviar una carta al director, que pot o no publicar-se, però en aquest moment és automàtic i és immediat, i hi ha casos en què la gent es veu impotent davant un mitjà de comunicació, enfront el poder d’una corporació, o enfront de l’estat mateix com a sistema, i simplement va a la pàgina, potser que sigui a desfogar-se, però altres vegades a donar una opinió que pot ser absolutament necessària i clarificadora.

En quina mesura estaries d’acord amb l’afirmació de l’Associació d’Artistes Visuals de Catalunya (AAVC), que ve a dir que s’està produint “un evident retrocés pel que fa a les llibertats d’expressió i creació en l’Estat espanyol”?

Penso que en els darrers anys hi ha hagut certament una retallada d’algunes llibertats. Les formes de censura poden ser nombroses i molt sofisticades. Per exemple, el control per mitjà de subvencions, que s’exerceix sobre el món de la cultura o sobre determinats mitjans de comunicació, és una forma de pressió i control, més que no pas una aplicació de mètodes de censura clàssica. A València, on la cultura és un element de primer ordre utilitzat en les operacions de màrqueting polític, on proliferen els grans esdeveniments i la banalitat està servida, l’aparició d’e-valencia.org va suposar un cert malestar que va crispar una gran quantitat de gent, atès que es van posar sobre la taula temes com l’escandalosa administració de Barañano a l’IVAM o el malbaratament en determinades iniciatives com la Biennal de València. Aquesta situació va fer que alguns decidissin intervenir de forma molt directa, i la conclusió més evident fou el tancament de la pàgina. Conec, positivament, que hi van haver fortes pressions des d’instàncies molt altes. Es tracta d’una sibil·lina i preocupant forma de censura portada a la pràctica des de la prepotència i l’anonimat, un atemptat contra la llibertat d’expressió i de creació. Però aquí és on realment podem fer la nostra feina, una vegada que recuperes tota la informació i les bases de dades, simplement et mous de territori, perquè, realment, la xarxa no és un territori acotat, és a dir, que puc tenir un espai web no solament en un o altre país, sinó que puc estar fins i tot en diversos servidors de diferents països. Aquí és on nosaltres estem treballant, mantenint, diríem, una forma de protecció enfront a certes agressions o certes limitacions, on realment ni la justícia local pot operar perquè no té instruments ni legislació desenvolupada per això. Això no significa que d’aquí a dos anys no canviï tot i em vegi obligat a variar la forma de treballar.

En el treball que has presentat en la sala 01 d’Olot, anomenat Individual Citizen Republic Project, una vegada s’ha creuat la sala on es fa publicitat del producte X-Devian, s’entra en una espècie de laboratori-camp de batalla d’on és possible produir nova informació. En la creació d’aquest laboratori hi ha una metàfora sobre els usos de la informació?
Tal com s’ha creat a Olot, a Individual Citizen Republic Project –que després s’ha anomenat El Sistema perquè hem utilitzat la metàfora d’un sistema operatiu, però aprofundint en la complexitat del propi terme, en la idea dels sistemes polítics i socials essencials, etc.– intentem crear una imatge, que és la imatge del propi producte i que remet a un imaginari comercial. Quan passem de l’entrada a la sala següent un s’introdueix en el cervell d’aquesta mateixa imatge, un lloc on es treballa i es desenvolupa, un lloc que reprodueix d’alguna manera un laboratori amb manuals que descriuen activitats que poden ser il·legals, des de com fer-te una targeta pirata de Canal Plus fins a materials relacionats amb l’activisme, l’univers hacker o fins i tot el terrorisme i que es troben, tal qual, a Internet, però que hem imprès i col·locat en aquest espai. A partir d’aquest antagonisme entre la imatge comercial i allò que consideraríem les seves entranyes o el seu revers, segons es vulgui, es crea un sistema de relacions molt complexes, el significat de les quals possiblement resulta difícil d’entendre mitjançant els dispositius conceptuals del món de l’art, atès que la gent que entra en l’espai de l’exposició es troba amb altra gent que està consultant una pàgina web o intentant fer-se una determinada targeta o simplement està investigant com si d’un laboratori es tractés, i això suscita lectures molt diverses. Finalment, en l’última sala accedim a un lloc arquetípic de conferències, en què et veus obligat a oferir una informació preconfigurada a altres persones, i llavors es crea novament aquesta confrontació de veure realment el que has après i el que has proposat als altres, com una forma de tancar el cicle de l’accés a la informació i la generació del coneixement.

Tal com apareix en el títol, en aquest treball planteges el tema del paper de l’individu en la societat de la informació. Creus que un individu, amb ajuda de la xarxa, pot contribuir a l’enfortiment de la capacitat crítica de la societat civil i, per tant, a l’ampliació de la democràcia?
A Individual Citizen Republic Project, la idea és qüestionar l’individualisme egoista i, en contrapartida, parlar dels individus que posseeixen una consciència de la seva capacitat extensiva; és a dir, que han generat mecanismes a fi de crear-se la seva autonomia, que tenen una formació, que adquireixen la capacitat d’accedir a la informació, de generar-se un nivell de coneixement, quasi de protecció amb les seves pròpies eines, que poden compartir amb la resta de la societat, i això va creant una societat molt més sòlida. Per a mi és com una espècie d’utopia metafòrica d’una societat més desenvolupada, no a partir de l’educació de les masses, sinó a partir de l’educació individual, en què dos, tres o quatre individus entren en un procés de col·laboració que és necessari i que segurament, avui en dia, amb la complexitat que comporta qualsevol tipus de desenvolupament del coneixement, és, a més, absolutament inevitable. Crearem una societat millor si permetem l’accés a la formació, a l’educació; aquí és on estan els primers pilars del coneixement i on primer hem de començar a estructurar. En aquest sentit, part dels meus treballs, i això no és una excepció, es creen amb materials i equips que les institucions han rebutjat i que nosaltres recuperem o reciclem i tornem a instal·lar-hi sistemes operatius que ens permeten adquirir aquesta autonomia que deia abans, una autonomia a través dels mitjans, a través de les eines, a través del teu propi coneixement.

És una forma d’utilitzar les eines que ofereixen les noves tecnologies per mitjançant la cultura enfortir la societat civil?
Sí, es tracta de buscar aquesta incidència, tenir una societat que quan, realment, emet una opinió de forma personal sigui la seva opinió, i que no sigui una opinió que estigui determinada o dirigida per l’estat, per la massa acrítica, per un líder d’opinió i altres, sinó que cada persona pugui generar la seva pròpia opinió. Evidentment és utòpic, perquè hem d’entrar en el procés d’informació. Però l’art pot plantejar i qüestionar aquestes utopies, i jo crec que pot plantejar un territori realment pràctic, que és el que ha passat en aquest projecte, on ha vingut gent d’instituts i col·lectius per aprendre a muntar els seus propis sistemes, on han realitzat tot un seguit de tallers i on hi ha hagut una intenció, per part dels organitzadors i des del principi, d’aportar al projecte diverses dimensions que poguessin ser molt complexes algunes, però que altres fossin accessibles per a determinats sectors del públic al qual ens estàvem dirigint.

En aquest col·lectiu, de quina forma has buscat la participació de col·lectius de la ciutat relacionats amb la tecnologia però aliens al món de l’art?
Des del principi vam fer una espècie d’anàlisi de quina era la situació del context local. Portem força temps treballant en això i vam veure, per exemple, en quines condicions la gent accedeix a Internet i quin tipus de coneixements té de determinades eines o sistemes. Aleshores vam establir contactes amb gent que està desenvolupant qüestions relacionades amb les comunitats que estan utilitzant xarxes inalàmbriques, concretament l’associació Olot Wireless, que desenvolupa una xarxa paral·lela a Internet comercial i que té una forma d’actuar molt coordinada en xarxa, on pots connectar-te sense fils, en un espai d’intercanvi amb forts components socials. I també vam estar veient quins altres tipus d’espais socials hi ha a Olot, en els quals es reuneix la gent per fer determinades activitats, i en aquest sentit hem operat quasi creant una nova infraestructura que podria ser que tingués continuïtat en algun moment, en el mateix edifici o en un altre lloc. La gent ha anat apropiant-se d’aquest espai de forma molt diversa; per exemple, molts alumnes del IES (Institut d’Educació Secundària Bosc de la Coma) han participat en aquest espai a partir d’un taller que el seu professor, Xavier Puerto, va plantejar com una tasca docent més, traslladant la classe d’informàtica al context de la sala d’exposicions i organitzant nombroses activitats. Ells són els que han fet una utilització pràctica de l’exposició-laboratori. Un alumne, Jaume Soler, va organitzar una xerrada sobre GNU-Linux, mentre que la resta del públic ha anat accedint a un espai d’art com a tal, en què qualsevol element té una lectura, un significat, segurament diferent.

És la xarxa un context suficientment complex per generar noves dinàmiques o segueix essent necessària la relació directa amb altres col·lectius, associacions o moviments socials?
Jo crec que cada vegada és més important. Internet com a tal és una xarxa i precisament quan estem parlant de l’espai públic de la xarxa ens estem referint a connexions entre molts móns, a intercanvi. Quantes més connexions establim crearem molta més estabilitat i riquesa en el sistema, quants menys centres de poder existeixen millor. En la xarxa els mecanismes de control són molt diferents de les estructures físiques clàssiques; el panòptic ja no és un centre de poder físic en el qual hi ha un observador i els altres estan essent observats i controlats, sinó que en el panòptic electrònic el centre està dispers i pot ser atacat i controlat de la mateixa manera que tu pots ser atacat pel centre.
Crec que, si hi ha una nova forma de poder influir en determinats contextos a través de la força que crea la implicació col·lectiva de nombroses maquinàries individuals, de persones o col·lectius que es troben dispersos però que, en un moment determinat, poden operar, especular o desenvolupar eines conjuntes, en l’economia global qualsevol organització, per petita que sigui la seva fracció de representació en l’estructura, pot tenir una influència decisiva en la comunitat global.

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