Digital Latin America: Symposium

Video:

Indigenous Pop: Music and the Digital Presence of Sisa Toaquiza, Flor de los Andos

The internet and digital media have made music from different artists and cultures more attainable. In this presentation, UNM Professors Miguel Gandert and Enrique Lamadrid present the music and digital media of Sisa Toaquiza a Tiqua from the Ecuadorian Highlands, and examine how the digital age has effected her music, marketing and presentation, while maintaining fidelity to the narrative and politics of her native culture. Video by Benito Aragon, June 7, 2014.

KEYNOTE: Pablo Helguera: Three Chairs for Society

Special guest keynote speaker, Pablo Helguera (Mexico) speaks about artists bridging the self and the others through virtual and real space. He says “Henry David Thoreau famously wrote,’ I have three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.’ Thoreau was arguably referencing the equal importantce of being with the self, enacting conversation with another and being an integral member of society. While negotiating the self with the others is not any new issue in artistic practice, today’s artists face an interconnected world that can produce both immediacy and alienation. In Latin America in particular, a vast continent that is held together by language and strong cultural links, its geography poses great challenges of communication and interconnectedness. This keynote discusses the related realities and philosophical and practical dilemmas for artists working today in the context of Latin America.” Video by Benito Aragon, June 7, 2014.

Interactivity in Digital Art

Three Digital Latin America exhibition artists discuss the importance of the viewer’s role when it comes to developing their concepts and the presentation of their work, and explain how the viewer’s participation differs between different forms of digital, media-based artwork. They talk about how they consider the role of the viewer during their processes, as their individual pieces demonstrate some ways in which viewers may experience new media art. Featured artists: Jessica Angel (Colombia), Giselle Beiguelman (Brazil) and Javier Villegas (Colombia). Moderated by Andrea Polli, Mesa del Sol Endowed Chair of Digital Media & Director of the Social Media Workgroup at UNM. Video by Reinhard Lorenz, June 7, 2014.

STEM + Arts Education Forum

This education forum includes and is led by Agnes Chavez, Cuban/American artist and STEM + Arts specialist from Northern New Mexico, Sube, Inc.. Topics include the challenges the rapidly expanding technologically based professional world presents to 21st century students and the essential needs of strong grounding in both STEM and the arts. Teachers from the Digital Latin America STEM + Arts Education Program, including Marion Martinez and Matt Garcia, share their findings, workshop processes and experiences with high school students that address these challenges and reveal some possible solutions. Video by Reinhard Lorenz, June 7, 2014.

Exploring Language and Communication Through New Media

Digital Latin America exhibition artists speak about revitalizing lost/fading languages of Central America and the Southwestern U.S., challenges of speaking a foreign language in a new country, communication through auditory and tactile means, and communication between humans and machines. All of these artists utilize digital technology in their work, through presentation and/or research methods, to creatively demonstrate ways in which technology can preserve, revive, and recontstruct how languages are experienced between platforms, generations and cultures. Featured artists are Paula Gaetano-Adi (Argentina/Texas), Matt Garcia (USA), Paola Torres Nuñez del Prado (Peru) and Gabriel Vanegas (Colombia). Moderated by Shelle Sanchez. This session is made possible in part by a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Video by Benito Aragon, June 8, 2014.

Territory of the Imagination: Reimagining the Borders of Art and Space

Territory of the Imagination explores the work of artists engaging in disruptive, alternative and collective interactions with space and space technology. Nahum Mantra (Mexico) discuss the curatorial project Gravedad de los Asuntos, in which nine Mexican artists are developing and execute projects in zero gravity. Members of the Astrovandalistas collective, Rodrigo Frenk, Thiago Hersan, Andrés Padilla Domene and Leslie Garcia, will outline their contributions to the project, presenting images and ideas from their recent cross-border exploration of space in the Chihuahuan desert. Territory of the Imagination will take place at the U.S./Mexico border in the fall of 2015 and is organized by the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts in collaboration with Ballroom Marfa, Laboratorio Arte Alameda and Arts Catalyst. Video by Reinhard Lorenz, June 8, 2014.

KEYNOTE: Alex Rivera: Globalization of Information and Communities

Alex Rivera is a New York-based digital media artist and filmmaker. He was born to parents from Peru and New Jersey. Growing up in a bi-cultural, channel surgin, tract home led him to rethink assumptions about race, immigration, identity and the global economy. Rivera discusses how his work addresses transnational challenges in communities and the ways in which technology has played a role in the migration of communities. His work uses many different techniques to try to describe two massive and parallel realities: the globalization of information through the internet, and the globalization of families and communities through mass migration. Rivera’s work always skews towards discussing the surreal elements of political realities, and strives to be both accessible and critical. His work demonstrates that complex arguments can be made clear and simple through the audio/visual medium. Video by Benito Aragon, June 8, 2014.

Radio:
preview: DIGITAL LATIN AMERICA & “Florcita Andina” - KUNM Espejos de Aztlán
listen: Digital Latin America Explores Art and Technology - KUNM Women’s Focus
listen: Latin American Electroacoustic Art - KUNM Espejos de Aztlán