Karenina.it Express - Architecture of Information |
"Museum
of the essential and beyond that", Architecture of Information or
Creative Interface? |
Regina Célia Pinto |
|
1. The
Essential |
"We
believe that within the creation of a new style there lurks the sublime
possibility of making life bearable."[1] In the modern city, the value of the individual is constantly falling. The
city that was once essentially a safe haven has become a place of despair,
loneliness, the struggle for survival. The city as a cultural hub has become
a privilege of few. The
metropolis is found throughout the world, an economically passive and
politically ungovernable organism, dangerous to the physical and mental health
of its inhabitants. The great disparity between the standard of living of the
economic classes has come to exclude the underprivileged from the enjoyment
of the cultural asset the city represents.[2] Sociologists
such as Michel Maffesoli [3] have studied the phenomenon of tribalism in
contemporary societies as a possible response to the experience of loss and
loneliness that people undergo in large cities, where mass culture and
individualism predominate. "From more than one point of view, social
existence is alienated, subjected to the injunctions of a multifarious Power.
However, it is also true that there is an affirmative Potency that, in spite
of everything, (always) plays the game over, beginning with solidarity and
reciprocity." [4] The
emergence of virtual communities is reaffirming that potency. In them, as the
great French thinker Marcel Mauss [5] has stated, everyone seems to be
interested in an alternatively shared and solitary project; in accumulated
and redistributed knowledge; in the mutual respect and reciprocal generosity
taught by good breeding. Therefore, it is easy to understand the success of a
project like the "Museum of the Essential and Beyond That," which
is not connected to an institution and does not rely on any kind of financial
support or sponsorship. It is being undertaken on a home computer in the city
of Rio de Janeiro but has a dynamic digital model, a constant state of
becoming, and for that reason receives contributions from different latitudes
and longitudes of this geography without borders created by information
technologies. A world that seems to be turning to virtual communities as a
way of building a better future. Cyberspace
can eliminate distances between its occupants, although it is merely
canceling out a symbolic distance through digital communication. What does
cyberspace look like? What does a museum with all its galleries and libraries
look like out in cyberspace? A "cyber-museum" is a spatial-temporal
shape built up through movement: transportation and communication. During the
process of creating a virtual museum, we cannot overlook the paths people
follow through information and that this must be a place where information is
shared intensively by all its visitors and participants. 2. What
exactly is a "Museum of the Essential and Beyond That"? This
project consists of the creation of virtual architectures: a museum with its
libraries and galleries that have no brick-and-mortar counterparts. It is
common for real museums and libraries to have websites, but the process
underway in our "museum" is rather uncommon. A museum that does not
exist in the real world, and whose architecture and collections are formed by
a string of digits: 01010101. Is it just an electronic clearinghouse for bits
and bytes? The
museum started out as a "work in progress": so is it information
architecture? But it is also an imaginary two-story pixel-building with a
basement… The building's architectural design can be changed at any time,
whether by constructing another story or changing part of its shape - a
Niemeyer design [6], constellation, space station, Piranesi engraving [7]:
creative interface?… This museum was conceived as an open structure in which
information is spread out in a number of spaces; a machine that can travel
infinitely in all directions. For
example, the Library of Marvels is located on the first (ground) floor of the
building and contains some of the artist's e-books, a list that will
gradually lengthen. It currently contains The White and the Black,
Reflections on Fog; Book of Sand, The Alienist, net . art / web . art and
other stories (this book contains a different virtual architecture: the animated
series Green House, which not only presents an image of cyberspace but an
image of itself, and aims at being a cyber-region for artists who work with
net or web.art). The objective of this project within the Museum project is
to take a closer look at the cultural impact and possibilities created by
computers as machines that can produce books and libraries and the boundary
between traditional books and electronic books. All the
books in the Library of Marvels are based on masterworks from the universal
literature and ancient games, and are also multimedia/hypertexts by this
author. The desire to broaden this space led me to invite other authors to
participate. The first resident writer was Joel Weishaus (Center for
Excellence in Writing, Portland State University Portland, Oregon) who
contributed Traces of the Catacombes, which takes its name from the
"hollow (hallowed) ground" of Early Christianity, excavated in what
was then the suburbs of Rome. But there are other catacombs, such as those
beneath Paris, and other issues to be uncovered; so that the title plays on
the name of French artist Mireille W. Descombes.
As
regards digital poetry, we could not fail to mention the Spam Room, where we
find Spams Trashes by the Uruguayan poet Clemente Padín. Is this poetry? Is
this art? Visit the room and send a friend something of this climate of
creation, reflection, humor, irony and the desire for a better world… The
following is a list of the Museum's active galleries and the artists found in
each:
V -
Browsing:
The fact
is that this project, justifying the beyond that in its name, is fast
becoming a cultural center where a mouse click offers both a museum and a
place for creation and communication where the visual arts are joined by
music, filmmaking (animation), poetry, books and audiovisual research. "This
characteristic is related to the aim of modern-day art, which is to embody in
its works certain new forms of beauty that could only emerge through the
reconvergence of all techniques" [8] and technologies... Since its
inception, at the Museum of the Essential and Beyond That, this reconvergence
has been present in its watchwords: communication, information,
multidisciplinarity, multiculturalism and mobility. Science and technology
embracing art to protect it and give it the necessary conditions for life and
growth. 4- References: [1] In MAFFESOLLI, Michel (1995). A contemplação
do mundo. Porto Alegre: Artes e Ofícios. 5-
Bibliography BACHELARD,
Gaston. A poética
do espaço. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Eldorado Tijuca Ltda, s.d. Websites: LEMOS,
André. Ciber-cidades.
http://www.facom.ufba.br/ciberpesquisa/lemos/cibercidade.html LEMOS,
André. Ciber-tribus. FLOETING
, Holger . Virtual Cities?! - Telematics and Spatial Development |
Regina
Célia Pinto Born in Rio de Janeiro, Regina Célia Pinto is a researcher, visual
artist and teacher. She earned a teaching certificate in Drawing and Art at
the Escola de Belas Artes of the Universidade Federal in Rio de Janeiro, 1974
- 1977. She has a Master's degree in Art History, specializing in the
Anthropology of Art / EBA, UFRJ, 1994. Her Master's thesis is titled:
"Four views in search of a reader, important women, art and
identity," 1994, EBA, UFRJ. She has written a variety of academic works, including published
scientific essays (("Celeida de
Barro", In Arte & Ensaios, Revista do Mestrado em História da Arte,
EBA, UFRJ, vol. II, no. 2, 1995 and "Imagens do Rio: diário mínimo sobre
duas rodas", In Cadernos de Pós-Graduação 3, EBA / UFRJ, 1996).
As a visual artist, she has participated in several exhibitions and curated
several. |