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Theme: One closer to the other |
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What is meant by the somewhat cryptic-sounding title is outlined here in a few short excerpts from Nelson Herrera's catalogue text "Communication in Difficult Times: One Closer to the Other". Let it be emphasized that these extracts are taken from a far more complex argumentation which, alongside the new communication media and other topics, also deals with negative cultural effects of globalization. You will find further comments of the organizers on the theme of the 7th Havana Biennial in the press releases published in advance by the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, available in English and Spanish.
[ ... ] The computer virus contaminates us all. It substitutes the easiest and most complex human experiences with the use and manipulation of the keyboard and the hypnotic observation of the screen. It proposes a new form of knowledge. You're on the net, therefore you exist... The usual forms of communication and human relations appear to coexist, but they seem to be aged: the party or gild assemblies, radio, written press, posters, and community meetings. Society emerging from the information network pushes these forms to one side, because the present networks are sufficient for a society that is becoming more individualist than all the previous ones. It is the individual connected in the office, the car, the plane, at the café and at home. And all this is done on his or her own, terribly alone. [ ... ] After the experience of the previous Biennial, in which the individual and collective memory acted as protagonist in a set of works that, in some way, give us back part of our lost image in social and familiar eventualities, we consider it necessary for man to encounter with man, to contribute in the search for natural forms of human exchange, which are rather marginal due to the exaggerated explosion of electronic mediators. [ ... ] As a work in progress, as an unfinished project and that can be improved, the Biennial in Havana fosters a come-back to the world of reality (not boosting the virtual one) where poetry has always nestled and enigma, myth and aura as sources nurturing our ancestral cultures, as active agents of our memories and collective imagination, which today suffer this globalization trend.
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Find more about the theme in a press release from the Wifredo Lam Centre. |
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