Syndicate: RHIZOME: Spanish New Media

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

RHIZOME DIGEST: November 21, 1997

Date: 11.14.97
From: José Luis Brea (jlbrea@aleph-arts.org)
Subject: Spanish New Media

Spanish New Media
by José Luis Brea (jlbrea@aleph-arts.org)
translated by Jon Tobey

Franco died--but surely you already knew that. Felipe González lost the
last elections--and that you also knew. Spain is no longer in fashion in
the international artistic circuit--the famous "movement" ended with the
spectacle of the Seville World's Fair of '92--and since then, nothing
has happened here. But that is only what the whole world already knew.
The national artistic circuit is formed now by a dense net of absurd
provincial museums, that look in on themselves, intending to ignore the
existence of the world.

New media art has been led, like the rest of the artistic community, by
the official checkbook.  A handfull of scarce initiatives always
promoted by public administration.  A few video festivals, a few museum
departments with a well-oriented program--especially the Queen Sofía, of
the IVAM and the MACBA--and a few art festivals each year. In 1998, it
seems like the most interesting will be SONAR, organized by the MACBA,
and the issue of Arco Electronico.

The most interesting art is at an independent level, following
particular initiatives and barely institutionalized. The only good thing
that the Franco era gave Spain was a certain habit of independent
self-organization, in a firmly rooted liberal tradition, that allows an
immediate resurgence of the underground and independence when the
official scene relaxes its obsessive presence. With a conservative
government that is neoliberal in power--even though it is still
interventionist in political cultures--this same thing is what is
beginning to happen. And of course the Net is increasingly becoming a
space territorialized by the politics of independence.

In the world of video, a group with a very solid theoretical and
critical background--Gabriel Villota, Eugeni Bonet, and Marcelo Expósito
among them--is developing a very interesting new independent scene. For
example, in Valencia the IVAM has inaugurated a magnificent thematic
collective. And the Narvarra Festival, under the title "From Television
to Multimedia," presents a well-oriented theoretical base. We will see.

The most interesting uses of the computer in art (for the most part
those being produced by neoconceptualist artists) are those who use
computers to create a photomontage of strong narrative components. This
type of work is being done by artists like Txomin Badiola, Montserrat
Soto, Juan Urrios, Ricardo Echevarría or Jesús Segura.

In what "Net-Art" specifically refers to, the scene is hardly born, but
it seems like there is a certain active characteristic, the sort of
effervescence that precedes revolutions and earthquakes, an electricity
in the skin that announces a bolt of lightning.

The best known artist linked to Spain - apart from Jodi - is Muntadas.
Yes, he is from Spain, but he also lives almost continually abroad.  His
influence is without a doubt important, and has created numerous
workshops and seminars in our country. Some of his projects, like "on
translation" put a critical spin on the condition of the colonized
country that, even though it is only for linguistic reasons, corresponds
to ours (like so many others) in a scene almost universally obliged to
use english.

The most interesting thing that is beginning to happen is a
proliferation of small but very active art webs. Among them, Mestizo,
that organizes an annual festival of 24 hours in the Web. SitioWeb, that
has recently begun to host good art projects, and Conexión Madrid, which
maintains one of the most radical and open bets.

I left until the end to speak about Aleph, one of the best projects, and
one that has recently developed the most intense activity. They host a
wide spectrum of their own web creations, the newspaper "Acción
Paralela" (parallel action), and a debate and THOUGHT section with their
own texts and Castillian translations of some of the more important
theoretical articles from Virilio, Derrida, and Monvich, among others.
But I've said enough, and I apologize, because I am the editor of that
section of thoughts--and I seem obligated, according to to the Kantian
precept, to pass over it. De nobis ipsi silemus...

To finish, I will propose three of the works that seem to me to be the
most interesting of the Spanish Net-artists--if that is possible. Like
one of the most interesting artists of Navarre said in an occasion in
which they asked his opinion about the most interesting Navarrese
thought: "thought... and Navarre? Impossible"

Jokes aside, I have here an interesting proposition to check out:

Ricardo Echevarría. http://aleph-arts.org/art/echev/wan/centro.htm
Daniel García Andújar. http://www.irrational.org/daniel/primera.html
La Société Anonyme. http://aleph-arts.org/art/lsa/lsa37/

http://aleph-arts.org/art/echev/wan/centro.htm
http://www.irrational.org/daniel/primera.html
http://aleph-arts.org/art/lsa/lsa37/

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