"New Imagery" Participants

ABSTRACT
The development of communication systems with mobile features that enable access to virtual contents and allow for exchange of information while in movement, has reinforced the concept of information webs. The structure of cellular networks along with their rhizomatic character, have been considered by social movements and artists as a fertile ground for promoting social changes, citizen participation and people’s union. Thus, mobile web structures provide an experimental framework for articulating public actors in a trans-local context. On the other hand, the nascent reticular structures of free and citizen character (e.g. Guifi.net), have furnished the contemporary artists with the possibility to build projects that are fully unattached to oligopolistic communication corporations, whose politico-ideological practices very often interfere with the creative and participative processes. Thus, this paper aims to describe the influence of mobile communication networks (both free and corporative webs) on participatory art proposals. Moreover, it is the object of this work to investigate to what extent the use of free webs in the development of software art is an alternative for the creation of artistic projects in activism and citizen participation, out of the corporative boundaries. To that end, we will analyze different case studies from Brazil, Chile and Mexico between 2000 and 2012, thereby identifying effective proposals and their similarities, but also pointing out differences and mutual challenges.

BIO

Ana da Cunha (Brazil, 1977) PhD student in Advanced Studies in Artistic
Productions at the University of Barcelona (UB), Spain. Master in Communication
and Semiotics at Pontifícia Universidade Católica in São Paulo (PUC/SP) and
graduated in Visual Arts from the State University of Londrina (UEL), Brazil. Artist
and researcher in the field of Arts, with emphasis on studies in Art and Technology,
acting on the following research lines: digital, mobile and fixed networks,
cyberculture, relational aesthetics and collaborative art. Researcher and collaborator
of GIIP (International and Interinstitutional Research Group) at UNESP, São Paulo,
Brazil. Currently is a beneficiary researcher of the Scholarship Program for Studies
Abroad, CAPES (Brazil) and works as a redactor to the electronic newspaper,
TecnoArteNews. Has her art works exhibited in cities how São Paulo and Rio de
Janeiro and her theoretical studies published in countries how Argentina, Spain,
United Kingdom and Brazil.