Experiences of the present, images of the future
An initial reflection on art and technologies in times of pandemic
Within the collection of “Notebooks of Latin American critical thought”, CLACSO presents the research: “Experiences of the present, images of the future” by Lía Gómez and Bianca Racioppe.
Experiences of the present, images of the future
An initial reflection on art and technologies in times of pandemic
Lía Gómez* – Bianca Racioppe**
“If words alone are powerful, actions alone are sterile.
The image of the future is conceived between the two.”
Jesús Martín Barbero (2019)
This notebook presents a collection of dialogues and writings that emerged during this period of mandatory social isolation. In the context of a global pandemic, with altered daily routines and the use of digital technologies at the forefront, it becomes necessary to rethink communication and its languages in all their possible forms.
From the CLACSO Working Group on Art and Politics, we propose to reflect, on the one hand, on a scenario of redefinition of cultural consumption and artistic and cultural creations as elements of building political sensibilities and, on the other hand, on technological and digital sovereignty as a need that the pandemic puts back at the center of the stage.
Social isolation, times and spaces: a look from art
Isolation represents a state of exception that limits our time and space for daily activities within the architectural structure of our homes (which vary considerably across the geography of urban and rural cities, both central and peripheral). The home becomes a stage for action: the action of the everyday, the action of the public sphere, of work, of caregiving, of leisure.
The activities evolve, but the backdrop remains the same. Almost like a series of theatrical scenes, what changes is the point of view—the perspective from which we observe and inhabit that everyday space each hour of our day. It is also an articulation that involves diverse forms of embodiment. A body that becomes public through screens but is configured in the private sphere; a body that appears fragmented, coexisting with two dimensions of its perceptual universe: the screen and what lies beyond it.
Following Anne Bogart (2007), we could say that viewpoints are physical and spatial, related to the actor's body on stage and the texture of the surfaces we inhabit. Thus, houses change their forms symbolically, and our bodies find other ways of inhabiting them.
It is from this sense of belonging that we navigate the preventive and mandatory social isolation, but it is also from this view of the home as blurred in its temporal and spatial structure that we generate other various activities through technologies.
Primo Levi tells us, “I live in my house as I do inside my skin: I know of skins that are more beautiful, wider, more resistant, more picturesque, but it would not seem natural to me to exchange them for my own” (2011, p. 16)
In this work on perception, as that which allows us to approach or understand something from different perspectives, we are interested in reflecting on how we increasingly conceive of a view of the world through screens, but always in direct connection with our own aesthetic, cultural, and political history. It is from this perspective that thinking about cultural consumption implies thinking about the ways in which identity is constructed through artistic languages.
As early as the beginning of the 19th century, with the advent of photography, the relationship between art and technology began to be strained, a point of contention regarding the status of art and the technique that articulates it. The massive scale of the work and its aura in relation to its reproduction (Benjamin, [1936] 1989) began to indicate a dispute within the complex issues that connect these two fields.
On the one hand, the reproducibility of artistic works allows greater access these days to performances that would otherwise only have been possible through geographical proximity. The release of reproduction rights for theatrical works articulates a perspective on theatrical scenes that allows us to relive the stagings and settings, but not the here and now of that work. Thus, the perception of theater is under strain these days, and, much like the debate surrounding photography at the beginning of the pandemic, we don't access the originality of the brushstroke in a painted portrait (or the unique moment of the artist on stage) but rather the trace of that work, of that time and place. But that trace has become widespread, has become necessary, and above all, has become a hallmark of this pandemic.
This way of experiencing theater through digital platforms, already implemented through projects like Teatrix, intensifies in contexts where theaters are closed to the public. This raises the question of the device itself and its relationship to the genre. How can we generate the experience of theater as something unique and unrepeatable within the theater space? What narrative skills (Rincón, 2006) come into play in this reception? How do we confront the image of an original work that has already been, but which is simultaneously being created in the theatrical experience it projects? What happens to rituals when generating this alternative experience?
The work viewed across various platforms captures a scene that shapes a physicality and a theatrical staging as a unique language, with actors connected to an audience in real time; this audience now becomes the public dimension in another way of configuring that relationship. Filmed theater confronts us with the problem of archiving the ephemeral: How do we preserve the memory of a unique act? How do we create a record of the theatrical scene as part of our cultural heritage? This, which appears as a problem, is also a possibility. With the emergence of streaming theater, new and old questions arise, and other interpretations come into play that also contribute to the artistic process.
Paul Valéry tells us in “The Conquest of Ubiquity”:
“(…) there is in all the arts a physical part that can no longer be viewed or treated as before, that cannot be kept out of the enterprises of modern knowledge and power. Neither matter, nor space, nor time, are what they had always been in the last twenty years. We must expect that such great novelties will transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby influencing inventiveness itself, and perhaps even wonderfully modifying the very notion of art” (1999, p. 131)
The original and the reproduced, access to culture, to art as a field of expression, is possible for many of us thanks to our proximity to large urban centers, or through the internet, but for others it is more difficult due to the spatial, temporal, and even sociocultural constraints of very diverse regions of our continent. Of course, their conditions for cultural production are different, and their artistic actions also fail to reach us in this urban environment that separates us from the material conditions of a more rural Latin America.
Andreas Huyssen states: “Although the media and consumerism may spread throughout the world, albeit with varying intensities and highly divergent access, the imaginaries they produce are by no means homogeneous” (2011, p. 33). Nor are they homogeneous within a single geographically and economically defined territory (if we could define it as such).
What the pandemic made visible: The Internet and the right to access
The rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus forced various countries around the world to make decisions to confront the epidemic. Some countries opted to prioritize individual freedoms over collective ones, and therefore did not restrict movement. Other countries, including Argentina, prioritized the right to public health and established mandatory social isolation as the main measure to stop the spread of the virus. As a result of this isolation, people began accessing the internet more frequently for work, education, social activities, or entertainment.
This practice of connecting to the Internet to continue activities that were previously mostly carried out in the physical space of the offline Work, classes, social gatherings, and entertainment have highlighted the profound inequalities in access to both stable connectivity and decent devices. Many people cannot connect to the internet or can only do so through their mobile data. There are even areas completely outside the broadband network.
Access to connectivity is a problem that, although more acutely evident in this context of mandatory preventive social isolation, has always exacerbated the inequalities inherent in the capitalist system. The deployment of communication networks and media ownership have been debated in Latin America since the 70s. We know that this distribution is unequal and that it perpetuates a legitimized power structure. Armand Mattelart (1996) already explained this when referring to the laying of underwater telegraph cables that connected imperialist countries with their colonies.
The deployment of networks reveals how power is distributed, and the global rollout of fiber optics is no exception. As Natalia Zuazo (2015) explains, far from being a cloudThe internet is a dense network of submarine and underground cables that connect the world. But this network is not distributed equitably; cables are laid in large numbers in so-called first-world countries, but in much smaller numbers in Latin American countries. This puts us at a disadvantage, forcing the state to negotiate with companies headquartered in other countries. Therefore, states must create laws and policies that contribute to building technological and digital sovereignty. It is important to have a public fiber optic network connecting all points, not just those profitable for the market; a satellite development program; secure public servers to host citizens' sensitive information; and to be independent of the internet. cloud from a few companies.
In this context, in 2010 the Argentine government, considering internet access a human right, launched the Argentina Conectada Plan, which aimed to establish a fiber optic network with public investment and linked to ARSAT, the state-owned telecommunications company. It was a comprehensive plan that included research and technological development; internet access in educational institutions, in conjunction with the Conectar Igualdad program; the creation of Knowledge Access Centers; and the establishment of the National Data Center to provide access and storage to public entities such as ANSES and AFIP.
This public policy recognized the importance of technological and digital sovereignty, and the relevance of having a public fiber optic network reaching areas deemed unprofitable by the market. It also envisioned collaboration with private companies through last-mile networks, aiming to support small and medium-sized licensees.
However, with the change of government in December 2015, this public policy, like others, was transformed. The State went from being led by a government positioned within a national-popular framework to being led by a government with a neoconservative political orientation and a neoliberal economic orientation that favored private companies. As Baladrón (2019) explains, the Cambiemos Alliance's administration was characterized by the defunding of Arsat and the opening up of the sector to the market. This author emphasizes, however, that
“The Argentina Conectada Plan introduced a novel approach by proposing a federal infrastructure design to address the existing imbalance in connectivity networks and availability across the country, with a central role for the State, through public investment and its participation as a wholesale operator in the market. While not all sections of the REFEFO network were completed and commissioning was delayed, significant progress has been made in the deployed infrastructure works.” (Baladrón, 2019, p. 10)
Currently, and despite the underfunding experienced between 2016 and 2019, the Federal Fiber Optic Network reaches 1300 locations and connects Tierra del Fuego with Santa Cruz using ARSAT's own network. Clearly, much remains to be done to create equitable access. These shortcomings became evident during the pandemic, but the government managed to coordinate a series of actions that—while not resolving the underlying problem—have served as a temporary solution and bode well for the continued development of a public internet infrastructure. These actions include negotiations with private sector companies such as Movistar and Telecom to allow free data access to the Educ.ar website, the Argentine government's educational platform that facilitates continued learning during periods of isolation. ARSAT also developed Conference, a free videoconferencing platform powered by the open-source software Jitsi.[1] This videoconferencing application is enabled only for use in hospitals, health centers and some State agencies; but although it is not accessible to the general population, it constitutes an interesting development in relation to public software made with open source code.
While these actions are mitigating, they demonstrate that internet access should be considered a right and, therefore, guaranteed by the state. Many countries with liberal governments, which for years left the right to and access to healthcare to the market, have, since the COVID-19 health crisis, reconsidered the importance of public policies and state investment in this sector.
In this context, the sovereignty of nation-states, which had been strained by the formation of transnational organizations during globalization, regained relevance in the efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic. It was the states that defined border closures and modes of movement, even halting transnational capitalist flows. The territory of states, with its boundaries established during the modern era, acquired centrality in a world that proved to be global in the spread of viruses, but not so global when it came to building networks of solidarity (consider the non-citizens, the non-residents stranded in the airports of cities that pride themselves on being cosmopolitan).
This resurgence, perhaps temporary, of states as the center of politics highlights that the global village (McLuhan, 1969) was always an unattainable panacea and that this process of transnational capital produces fragmentation and exclusion (Martín Barbero, 2005). The internet, as a metaphor for this global network, is also under strain when profound inequalities in access and use become evident. Faced with this, the construction of technological and digital sovereignty becomes necessary, one that strengthens public investment and ensures equitable access not only to hardware and software, but also to the skills and knowledge necessary for the development and use of these technologies (Williams, 1992). The crisis generated by the pandemic should become an opportunity to understand that we cannot leave policies regarding access to rights in the hands of the market. Therefore, access to and use of the internet, understood as human rights, must be considered a “matter of state.”
Recaps
This essay unfolds in a context where the public sphere, intertwined with the private in the textures of our computers and cell phones (always with an off-screen presence: our homes), is once again being called into question. Preventive and mandatory social isolation invites us to reflect on many of our practices in a world where not only Covid-19 threatens us, but, primarily, the danger lies in an increasingly aberrant form of capitalism. Digital audiovisual cultures are taking center stage, and it is our responsibility to consider, use, and critically examine them as techniques and languages, as narratives and ways of telling our stories, as a space of the online intertwined with the offline, and as a discussion about the scenic territoriality of the arts, technology, and its sovereignty.
We understand the artistic field as a space of contestation that encompasses political and cultural sensibilities through diverse forms of expression. From this perspective, we recognize art as both a necessity and a right throughout our history and in our ways of telling our story—past, present, and future. The right to culture is essential for the development of humanity, and in the context of a pandemic, our rights as citizens are also being challenged. The right to freedom of movement is strained by the greater collective right to health. The right to work (some of us have the privilege of being able to work remotely, despite all the difficulties it entails), but others don't even have that option. This is why some countries, like Argentina, have implemented public policies to guarantee wages for informal workers; however, even with these measures, the tension surrounding identities tied to work as a structuring element of daily life still emerges. This contingency plan also includes the right to education, a concern for all educational institutions that adapted their structures to guarantee minimum content at all levels; even printing a paper booklet for those without internet access. And also the right to communication, to digital inclusion, and to technological literacy.
The role of the state, as we see every day, is being redefined in this context. It's no longer just Europe, but France, Italy, Spain; it's not even just Latin America, but Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina. Almost like a game of Risk, we're witnessing a live broadcast of how many countries are being taken over by the virus, imagined as an amorphous and alien entity, and in what way. It seems that there's a competition for the image of a protective state, a safeguard of human lives that, in the best-case scenario, is rebuilding a healthcare system that had been appropriated by the logic of the much-criticized capitalism.
However, capitalism is neither uniform nor homogeneous, not even in the “capture of subjectivity” that many theorists advocate as a crisis of our time. Subjectivity is historical, as is the naming of the concept, as are the cultural conditions of one people or another. In this context, the idea of sovereignty reappears forcefully at the center of the discussion. On the internet, we have the sensation of free movement, of infinite choice, of unlimited exploration; however, the internet is not a free space. Just as this pandemic has shown us that the response to globally circulating ills lies in the local level of the state, it should also highlight the importance of building sovereignty in the territory of the internet. And we are not thinking about this in terms of closing borders or blocking movement, as is happening now in the physical world, but rather in terms of the importance of building policies and laws that guarantee the rights of citizens rooted in a specific territory. We wish to emphasize that debating technological and digital sovereignty also implies considering the relationship between identity and culture through access to the artistic field online.
In this regard, we want to emphasize the centrality of thinking about communication in this context, not only in terms of a possible infodemic, but also to guarantee one of the essential rights that the working class won in its labor struggles: the right to leisure as a guarantee of its well-being.
It is also necessary to analyze imaginaries as a condition of human communication, where access to technologies is not only a danger of hyperconnectivity, but primarily a privilege as a condition for accessing possible rights. Radio no longer speaks with the voice of Hitler. The digital conditions in which we are currently experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic are structured along a timeline where the modes of and access to communication through technology are historical, cultural, commercial, political, and social constructs.
Sergio Caletti says, “the notion of support is reduced to a certain way of conceiving technological development, and leaves without weight the contextualization of the contexts, in which these technologies not only appear and expand, but above all to their contexts of use” (Caletti, 2019, p. 107, in Gómez, 2020,n/p).
These days we find ourselves navigating the digital routes, where isolation is physical, it is the impossibility of contact with the body of the other; but also where imagination is part of the construction of multiple sensibilities that will remain in the perpetuity of the future.
Bibliography
Barbero Jesús Martin (2019) The word and the action. For a dialectic of liberation. UNQ Publishing House and Pontifical Javeriana University Publishing House.
Baladrón, Mariela (2019) “The Argentina Conectada Plan: a State policy based on communications infrastructure” in Science, Technology and Politics Magazine. Year 2, No. 2 January-June 2019.
Benjamin, Walter (1989 [1936]) “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Interrupted Speeches I, Taurus. CABA.
Bogart, Anne (ed.) (2007) Scenic viewpoints. Publications of the Association of Stage Directors (Debates Series, No. 14), Madrid.
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Commission for Strategic Planning and Coordination (2010) “National Telecommunications Plan Argentina Connected” available at https://www.siteal.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sit_accion_files/siteal_argentina_4014.pdf
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Williams, Raymond (1992) Chapter 4 “Communication Technologies and Social Institutions” in History of Communication, vol. 2Bosch. Barcelona.
Xhardez, Verónica (2014) “Contributions of free software to technological sovereignty and future challenges” in Voces en el Fénix, year 5, number 40. Faculty of Economic Sciences, UBA. CABA.
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* National University of La Plata and National University of Quilmes, Argentina. Co-coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group on Art and Politics.
** National University of La Plata and National University of Quilmes, Argentina. Member of the CLACSO Working Group on Art and Politics.
[1] Regarding the importance of using free or open-source software in government agencies, see Xhardez, Verónica (2014) “Contributions of free software to technological sovereignty and future challenges” in Voces en el Fénix, year 5, number 40. Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Buenos Aires. Autonomous City of Buenos Aires
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