Meet Over Lunch: Media insertion strategies and networked practices in Brazilian art, 1970–2019

Thursday, May 23, 2019
1pm (free and open to the public)
Residency Unlimited (RU)
360 Court Street (enter the Church through the main entrance)
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Media insertion strategies and networked practices in Brazilian art, 1970–2019. 

In the 1970s, Brazilian art witnessed the emergence of experimental practices engaging with technology and mass media. Artists engaged with new modalities of production and distribution of objects and messages via-a-vis the social and political reality of the country. These presentations seek to examine artists’ engagement with technology through case studies that shed light on artists’ strategies to circumvent government censorship of dissident messages and bodies, while creating new publics and modes of perception.

From these historical examples, a parallel will be drawn with contemporary practices in which Brazilian artists are similarly engaged with web media insertion as a strategy of activism. With the rise of a conservative reactionary discourse against minority groups and cultural institutions, along with several budget cut that deeply affected the cultural sector, the social networks have been used as an alternative space for the production and circulation of artworks. Some case studies will be discussed considering the notion of agency and the possibilities of working under the hierarchical structure of the server and the lack of transparency of these platforms because of their control by algorithms.

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Currently in residency at RU, Nathalia Lavigne is a journalist, art researcher and curator as well as a contributor to Artforum International Magazine, Contemporary And (C&), Folha de São Paulo, among others. Her complete bio can be seen here.

Tie Jojima is a Ph.D. student in the Art History program at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where she is specializing in Modern and Contemporary Latin American art. Her research focuses on performance, pornography, and technology in Brazilian art of the late 1970s and early 1980s. She received dual M.A. degrees in Art History and Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She teaches art history classes at Baruch College in New York.

The Meet Over Lunch series is an ongoing invitation extended to local and visiting art practitioners to present their practice and projects over lunch to the RU community.