Bernardo Piñero - Inter change action, agenda, desires, roles and space

As Jean François said, IQLab is an Argentinian artist collective that produces installations and interventions and a company that develops interactive and multimedia products in Argentina and South America. Since 2006 its members are Natalia Pajariño, Gerardo Della Vecchia and me. I'd like to mention some of the main impressions that guide our way of thinking and creative processes. I want to share with you (in the next minutes) some thoughts and images about them, by addressing three of our projects. First, we daily face a constant influence of a second hand reality, mediated by technology, well, you know, smart TVs, computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. and sculpted by the powerful groups, such as media, economic and political corporations. At the same time, we're subjected to an overwhelming data.... I relate data with different levels of information, and also with ideas and desires. And additionally, we think that public space (or spaces for public use) is increasingly controlled and restricted to and for our body displacement and for consuming processes. These insights structure our artistic production through the following questions: How are our projects inserted in this context? When can we have time and space to ponder on our individual and group status? Are we responding to the overwhelming data? Can we suggest our own ideas? Which public spaces can we take on for ourselves? (for a sort of 'appropriation'?) Which public spaces (or spaces for public use) can we take on to communicate, share and collectively build? How can we react and respond to the control and to the power? Can we exert power and control in order to keep the adequate balances? From 2006 to 2010, we presented our work "Graffiti", several wall interventions in public spaces in Buenos Aires and Cusco, through writing and projection of digital graffiti. This work allows passersby make a signature or digitally drawing on the walls of a public space. Each entry made, were projected in real time, giving the interactor the possibility of making a legitimate Graffiti, of expressing, communicating with people and to involving himself with the space, his space. Nowadays, artistic installations and interventions, and other group actions too, have the capacity to reaffirm the shared physical space as a legitimate place of collective experiences for the exchange of ideas and desires. The public space usage, involves to defend the value and importance of our bodies and the voice's physical presences, and the essential wealth of our corporal and gestural communication. IQLab considers the public space as a place for discovery (all kind of discoveries, of things, of others, of myself), therefore we think the public space as a place for social and cultural development. In 2011 we developed "Papeles". It was an interactive installation that proposed to the public to reflect on some of the roles assumed by the people, the revolutionary groups and the intelligence of military dictatorships in the 1970s in Argentina and Chile. The democratic government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet on September 1973. Thousands of Chilean residents crossed the border to Argentina in search of political asylum. In "Papeles" the room walls were papered with reproductions of posters and pamphlets that showed solidarity of Argentine groups with the political exiles from Chile. Documents and identification cards used as instruments of control by the intelligence forces of Argentina, were projected over the pamphlets and posters. It is important to mention that the word "Papeles" in Spanish means both "paper" as well as "roles". It is possible to harness the multimedia technologies and electronic interfaces attraction. We know that large-scale projections, amplified sound, touchscreens, sensors, and many others interfaces like mobile phones are extremely attractive. The combinations of these electronic media with the artistic languages and strategies have an enormous potential in the promotion of collective engagement and exchange. In "Papeles" each person might move free around the installation. An hybrid object mimeograph-photocopier allowed to make a photocopy of one hand. Then the interactor was able to paste that copy on one of the transparent panels in the room, leaving a footprint, as an interposed barrier between the papers and the projection, which protected pamphlets of identifications. To do or not to do, that's a choice. Any choice implies a stance, as in this case. Participating is inevitable. In 2010, The MediaLab of the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires called us to design (with NGOs dedicated to combating various aspects of poverty), an artistic activity, which could be a change agent for facing this problem. We developed a preliminary draft about an intervention called "La Fuente de los Sueños". But the proposal couldn't be materialized due to the economic crisis in Spain, because the funds to materialize it, would come from the Spanish state. So... ... they said "let's fight against poverty" But, is Spain a poor country? What is poverty? It could be important to consider how our proposals are inserted into the agendas imposed by powerful groups (the state, mass media, sciences, the market, academia, and other corporations). It is important to consider they impose ideas and desires. Therefore, we must consider whether We are taking a topic from the agenda of a powerfull group, and in this case, if we are, affirming within these agenda (the case of "Papeles", I think), refocussing: proposing a counterproposal ("La Fuente de los Sueños") The other possibility, we are taking a topic outside of these agenda. I think all options are valid, but we must know clearly, what we are doing in each situation. I think a refocusing process, from inside a powerful group agenda, allows hierarchizing an idea based on its own relevance. It gives the idea a greater entity and an own gravity. Opens the game, that prioritizes certain topics, or approaches to these topics. It tends to be freer. It is released from conditionings and constraints. And it tends to question the basis of the established. The work "La Fuente de los Sueños", proposed an itinerant interactive installation for public spaces, consisting of two objects: a wishing cabine and a wishing fountain. I must say, the word "Fuente" in Spanish means "source" as well as "power source" and "fountain" too. Therefore, the name refers to the origin of dreams, the potentiality of dreams and how dreams are like water or liquid, which flow and blend. In the cabine, the public could write down a wish, which would be projected onto the water. From the cabine and the fountain, we intended to reflect on the wishes, such a learning experience for everyone. This exercise is not only a challenge for anyone who has not noticed his needs and desires, but also for those who believes to know them clearly. Far from being able to solve the unfairness, we decided to encourage reflection, self-knowledgement, and the affirmation of hope and overcoming. Not prejudging an adobe house, but reflecting on the different types of poverty / wealth and different kind of needs and necessities. In this case, the proposal of reflection / action, operates under an established framework, which we value, so we decide to continue. However this project would generate reflections on the agenda itself, where it is contained. It is worth mentioning that in this case, a museum dependent on the national state called us for developing a work on human rights, a very sensitive subject in our country, due to successive military dictatorships that we suffered in the twentieth century, until 1983. Suggest a topic outside of that agenda. "The public space as a place of experiences and expressions" is not a priority on the agenda of the government. Graffiti in the city express desires, opinions, individual and collective footprints that manifest identities, saying "here we are", "we are this way". In "Graffiti", we deal with the ban, with the prohibition, proposing a way for the space appropriation and the free communication, avoiding punishment, I think this is important. Finally, I insist on some questions. What agenda moves us? What is the relationship between our desires and the environment? What is our role in the public spaces? How do we express over there?