Disruptive, Expandable and Planetarian:Technology in Arts and Culture in Latin America

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Disruptive, Expandable and Planetarian:
Technology in Arts and Culture in Latin America
José-Carlos Mariátegui
Reflections 2012 / 1Prince Claus Fund

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We are witnessing a brusque change in the way we
perceive art and culture due to essential changes
prompted by the way we use technology. At the same
time, an even more disruptive effect is taking place:
the creative influx of art, culture and technology is no
longer being imported from the western world, but
is being created in non-western regions. It does not
come through the usual techno-aesthetic realm,
however, but with a social-cultural imprint.
In this short article I will illustrate my argument by
addressing a few of the new patterns that are developing
in the fields of art, culture and technology. First, I will
review the most significant grants and funds for new
media in the last decade and their impact in the non-
western regions. I will place a particular emphasis on
Latin America to illustrate the influence these funding
mechanisms had in the re-composition of art and
culture. Then, I will present some possible spaces for
interaction in Latin American new media culture which
are an evidence of these new phenomena. In short,
I will try to elicit how technology, contrary to common
belief, is in itself a powerful motivator to address plane-
tarian problems (i.e., global warming, financial turmoil,
bio-diversity, political power) and is not exclusive of
a particular view or knowledge, but can be driven
as a powerful tool for inclusiveness.
Disruptive, Expandable and
Planetarian: Technology in Arts
and Culture in Latin America
José-Carlos Mariátegui
Left page: Aymara speaking children during an Amtawi Digital workshop
in a primary school in Lacachi, a small town two hours from Puno, Peru

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Supporting New Media
in Non-Western Regions:
The First Decade
It was in 2000 when the Montreal-based Daniel Langlois
Foundation (FDL) for Art, Science, and Technology
(www.fondation-langlois.org), whose mission was to
encourage the intersection between art and science
in the field of technology, started a program for organi-
sations from emerging countries which focused on
a few regions outside Western Europe and North
America. The program’s aim was to support artists’
and scholars’ projects in areas where the technological
contexts were non-existent or difficult to access in
order to promote the integration of knowledge and
cultural practices with the use of technology. The main
emphasis was to provide knowledge transfer and
technical infrastructure, both perceived as being the
main facet lacking in the non-western regions.
The initiative was successful in setting up pioneering
media labs projects in India (Sarai Media Lab, 2000) and
Latin America (ATA/Lab, 2002) as well as establishing
undertakings in documentation, such as the Latin
American Electroacoustic Music Collection (a selection
of 231 compositions created using electroacoustic
media by Latin American composers between 1957 and
2007, available for listening online). The FDL supported
projects until 2008. In all, 2601 project applications
were received and 258 were funded (through grants
to both individuals and to organisations).

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One year later, in 2001, the 4th edition of the VIDA
Prize (www.fundacion.telefonica.com/en/que_hacemos/
conocimiento/concursos/certamen_vida/index.htm)
organized by Telefonica Foundation, conceived the
Incentive for New Productions category focused on
Latin America, Spain and Portugal. In contrast to the
main VIDA prize, its aim was to stimulate research,
development and production in Ibero-American
countries. The new category increased its reach more
than ten-fold in less than a decade, from roughly 10
submissions in 2003 to nearly 130 in 2010. More
significant, in nearly a decade, the submitted proposals
also improved in terms of quality during that period
and the prize money quadrupled since it was intro duced.
By being consistent over time, the VIDA Incentive
generated a support platform, which caused it to become
the most important new media research and production
grant for the Latin American region. Most notably,
as I will explain later, its effects have enabled the pursuit
of new trends in art and technology throughout Latin
America during the last decade. The transdisciplinary
approach of the VIDA Incentive stipend (a research
budget in contrast to solely financing technical needs),
has paved the way for artists and creators to stand
on the edge, freeing themselves from the mainstream
complacencies of the art world and developing their
own spaces for collaboration and knowledge. The VIDA
Incentive also marks a clear shift in funding schemes
for new media in non-western regions: from supporting
knowledge transfer, technical infrastructure and

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documentation, towards an emphasis on creative
production and research in arts and culture that
is infused with technology
In 2004, the long established Prix Ars Electronica
created a new category, called “Digital Communities”
(www.aec.at/prix/en/kategorien/digital-communities).
The new category aimed at reaching into spaces that
were already occupied by technology but did not have
a clear categorical definition in the fields of art and
culture. These ranged from social software, citizen involve-
ment initiatives, eDemocracy, eGovernment to social
self-support groups. Since the first call it received
nearly 2000 submissions and 129 projects received
awards (including honorary mentions). It is interesting
to know that since its inception an important range
of the winners came from non-western countries: small
initiatives that might have gone unnoticed for a “develop-
ment grant” or were “unqualified” for a cultural or art
prize stipend. Digital Communities gave the first signs
of a re-articulation of the worldview: technology was
permeating every social practice. Used in so many dif-
ferent ways and contexts, technology was an inevi table
tool for development. Technology generated a variety
of thoughts where there was a homogeneity, which made
it possible to address problems in a much broader,
planetarian scale.
This variety brought the institutionalization of incu bators
and startup accelerators, such as Wayra, created in

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2011 by Telefonica Digital. Telefonica is a major tele-
communications operator in Latin America, but now
Wayra has also expanded to Europe. By addressing
both local and global problems, Wayra attempts to
significantly impact the economies of the countries
where it operates. Furthermore, Wayra’s investment
model does not only prioritize profit-driven projects,
but also social ventures. It places a selected group
of startups in a space together for one year. The Wayra
initiative has become one of the main global accel-
erators for technology ideas. Thanks to the expandable
nature of technology, ideas that might initially seem
limited to the local might transcend to a regional
or global level.
After more than a decade of funding new media projects
in non-western regions, it is evident that one of the
most invigorating things about the digital is not only its
expansive reach, but also how it could mutate into
different forms, starting from a variety of initial sources
to evolve into previously unknown and powerful
endeavours. In this respect the recent Prince Claus
Fund (PCF) Digital Call, confirms this trend: there are
several amazing projects that are focused in micro-
realities, but their innovativeness goes beyond a local
solution and has the potential to make an impact on
the national, regional or even planetarian level. Most of
the initiatives that are trying to transform society are
coming neither from the West, nor from government
or official organizations, but from local independent

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people and grassroots organisations; from small com-
munities that have a vision that could translocate to
a wider realm. Furthermore, more than fifty percent
of the total number of proposals for the PCF Digital
Call came from Latin America. This confirms a particular
regional tendency toward linking the technological and
the cultural, which I will now try to explain in detail.
New Spaces for Interaction:
Latin American New Media Culture
In contrast to Western countries, in Latin America
there is a more participative view of ICT’s use:
the initial individual knowledge of a technical arte-
fact becomes the motif to expand its use and
share it with other people. In the specific case of
Latin America, I suggest that the potential of contem-
porary art and cultural practices is not based
solely on their cultural value, but that the use of
technology can foster a second stage based on
participatory practice. Furthermore, some of these
participatory practices might be able to reach
a third phase that can lead to a process of social
interaction in which new techno-social trans for ma-
tions are shaped. The following figure explains
the three phases I just mentioned:
artistic
practices
cultural focus
new media
practices
participatory focus
techno-
social
practices
social focus

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The global is no longer about size, but is mainly about
the scale and potentiality of new planetarian forces.
Geography still matters but is no longer the main deter-
minant for participation and collaboration. To assert
this, however, does not mean that most projects could
be scaled to fit regional ambitions. However, I strongly
suggest that there are more projects prompted by the
potentialities of social production as a means for regional
and planetarian collaborations that may impact the social
fabric and have a significant socio-economic impact.
Based in part on the fact that there is a maturity on the
development of new media being supported in non-
western regions (as previously mentioned) and after
extensive research in Latin America in recent years
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we have identified seven spaces for interaction in media
practice that are nourishing social production:
Nurturing Civic Software (h)Ac(k)tivism; Promoting New
Media Alphabetization and Education; Enabling Opportunities
for Techno-Cultural Entrepreneurs; Establishing Latin-
American Meetings and Workgroups that Rescue Local
Traditions and Memories with the Use of New Technologies;
Enabling Institutional and Governmental Support,
Partnership and Sponsoring; Empowering Media Labs as
Techno-Cultural Accelerators; and, Collaborating and
Transferring Knowledge in the Age of the Internet. I will
briefly describe each of these initiatives.

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Nurturing Civic
Software (h)Ac(k)tivism
Social media and blogs are a new force in social com-
muni cation, which offers a format and content that
is more relatable to young audiences than the traditional
media. In polarized political situations, socio-civic
mobilizations through new media may seem to be a way
of incorporating popular demands into the system.
Tech camps and hackathons that involve communities
of software and web developers along with Internet
and cultural activists provide successful and innovative
ways of addressing problems. This is done not simply
by discussing possible solutions or divagating on socio-
cultural aspects, but by taking a hands-on approach
to the problem by means of intensive software develop-
ment sessions. This type of work requires the commit-
ment of different actors; for example, the state or local
governments provide the right to access public data
(what is called “open data”), which could be used to
create innovative hybrid mashups or web-based apps.
Initiatives such as Desarrollando America Latina
(desarrollandoamerica.org) are good examples of
technological and cultural entrepreneurs working
together in solving real problems in short spans of time
through collaboration. In this way a natural and fair-
minded collaboration between different actors takes
place. This also changes our vision about training;
from teaching how write, blog or share information
to training people to programme code. This shift in
pedagogy offers a wide range of new possibilities.

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Promoting New Media
Alphabetization and Education
New media education is not just teaching students how
to use computers; it has to be understood as a catalyst
for change in the way teaching is being executed and
the manner in which it takes into consideration both
the local resources and the production of digital
content. Using new media in education is significantly
changing existing teaching methods. The challenge
is quite complex, since today’s teaching techniques are
brought into question and contrasted with more open
and flexible environments that promote creativity and
innovativeness, which are much closer to the forward-
thinking hyper-informed world. There are two key sub-
trends here: First, digital alphabetization, which is more
connected to teaching in schools and ICTs (e.g, the
OLPC2 movement in Uruguay or Peru, which not only
involves the government, but an ecosystem of organi-
zations and collaborators that are instrumental to the
success of such an endeavour). Second, the develop ment
of programs of new media education at a specialized
or advanced level, mostly in universities through under-
graduate courses, diplomas and other post-graduate
courses could generate a sufficient number of well-
trained professionals. Non-governmental and educa
tional
institutions should establish agreements with the public
sector to foster and facilitate specialized careers
in new media.

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Enabling Opportunities for
Techno-Cultural Entrepreneurs
Techno-cultural entrepreneurs are socially-driven people
that think about a cultural initiative as a sort of startup
or sustainable enterprise. Recent studies indicate
that in Latin America there are five different types of
innovators (i.e., large companies, small and medium
companies, corporate social responsibility, social entre-
preneurs and public institutions), which confirms that
most of the different types of innovations (except the ones
that come from large and medium companies) are
connected either to social impact and/or entrepreneur-
ship (Casanova, Dayton-Johnson et al., 2011). Though
there are many entrepreneurial and social responsibility-
mentoring initiatives in the region, as is the case with
Wayra, few are focusing on culture and technology.
Establishing Meetings and Work groups
that Rescue Local Traditions and Memories
through the Use of New Technologies
Truth and reconciliation will never be achieved if we
do not give people the tools to rescue and protect
their memory. In many cases, governments have been
unable to understand this and silenced the problems
of their past, by preferring the “cultural clearance”
of those memories.
Previous page: GPS and electronically guided robot used in the land art, urban design and technology project Ciudad Nazca
inspired by the ancient Nazca lines in Peru (Prince Claus Fund supported and “Vida 11” Award, Telefónica Foundation)

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There are many projects that try to rescue local tradi-
tions that act as cultural and memory repositories
by using new media. In many cases these initiatives act
as dynamic repositories and revitalize the local (i.e.,
indigenous) languages and oral traditions through digital
platforms, a mission that governments failed to do
through massive but pointless physical infrastruc ture.
There are several projects in the region that supple-
ment the scarcity of institutional support in terms
of memory building, memory reconciliation and rescue
of local traditions.
The Internet has become a common language to mediate
and transact information, which builds on top of
interoperable software services. Hence, an aspect that
has expansive possibilities in interoperable technolo-
gies is the conservation of the immaterial heritage.
For many decades, organizations tried unsuccessfully
to develop national or multi-lateral initiatives to safe-
guard unstable heritage from oblivion using digital
technologies. Most of the immaterial heritage has an
economic and transactional value only when it lives
by being spoken or used on a regular basis. However
when “saved” or “collected” it usually dies. Immaterial
heritage is as dynamic as culture, and might only have
high value for the community that created it if the
preservation empowers its sustained use. For example,
in projects that try to sustain heritage, such as the
preservation of oral traditions, music, local languages,
and other valuable immaterial artefacts, it may have

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a surprising potential when codified into a computa-
tional platform that is used by the community which
value those traditions. As we start to codify and
manage immateriality using digital platforms, we will
become involved in innovative expanses, such as
ambient sound, which is part of immaterial heritage,
but was usually not taken into consideration.
Enabling Institutional and
Governmental Support, Partnership
and Sponsoring for Wider Impact
Few initiatives and organizations have become institution-
alized and have sustained financial support. The few
that have support are connected to cultural spaces,
either locally funded by cities, universities, foundations
or international cooperation. Such is the case of the
Red de Centros Culturales de España, which fosters
interaction between local actors in Latin American
countries. There are other smaller initiatives, such as
the FabLab network of digital fabrication laboratories.
The Ministry of Culture in Ecuador has a concrete
long-term vision for artistic and cultural practices and
focuses part of its financial schemes on both local
initiatives and nationwide scale projects. However, it
does not necessarily mean that these initiatives pursue
scalability or will be able to be reproduced in another
city or context. As the long-term vision usually seeks
deeper social understanding of local necessities,

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it makes sense that there are at least these two
types of grants. In Argentina and Brazil governmental
organizations liaise fluidly with their counterparts in
the third sector (NGOs and private foundations such
as the Instituto Sergio Motta or Oi Futuro) to develop
national projects with a new media perspective,
implemented by the state.
Empowering Media Labs as
Techno-Cultural Accelerators
Another example are the programs of scholarships,
grants and production support for projects that combine
creativity, culture and technology in media labs or
digital incubators. In some countries such as Colombia,
Peru, Chile, Argentina or Brazil, these practices are
well institutionalized. Nevertheless these programs are
not easily scalable to other countries. There is the
possibility that this type of project would fail in another
location in spite of adequate financing due to a lack
of agents involved in the field of art and technology or
a lack of accessible advice or production space. Besides
the combination of creativity, culture and technology,
it is fundamental that media labs focus on digital
literacy and web 2.0 tools, initiating more socially-
driven practices.

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Collaborating and Transferring Knowledge
in the Age of the Internet
Few countries (with the exception of Brazil) are strong
in terms of knowledge transfer by means of education,
support for research and cultural production. As I
mentioned before, it may be difficult to find regional
articulations and scalable projects. However there are
topics, such as the work with groups of indigenous
populations in countries or zones with the most of
these populations in Latin America (Peru, Bolivia,
Guatemala, Ecuador) in which collaboration is not
something that could be managed easily on a regional
scale. In this case, particular knowledge could be
shared by these communities and might require a
setting in which knowledge can pass from one country
to the other. Social production through technological re-
appropriation might be the best way to define the use
of ICT’s, from specific applications to very local or
quotidian practices. They do not need to be focused on
planetarian issues, but problems that are mostly
connected to local or national matters. In some
instances solutions could potentially be developed
through network models or communities of practice in
order to develop solutions to a particular local
problematic. Face-to-face interaction enables people to
address problems as well as to establish trust among
each other, while network collaborations are better in
generating systematized best practices. Once this
model is up and running, the state may participate as an

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actor involved in the initiative and not as the
main supporter.
Digital radio is an example of a powerful vehicle for
communication but also for the sustainment of native
languages. Native languages not only died out because
they were not being used, but also because the means
to communicate with them had been lost. If we work
on standardized communication systems based in the
most powerful languages, the native ones will secure
their disappearance. Instead, if we promote ways to use
native languages through local radio, we will not only
save them but expand and modernise them. Multilingual
interface platforms can also help us unite people that
live together in multicultural territories, by sharing a
common virtual space free of mediated or real conflicts.
So Simple and Yet So Powerful:
Disruption in Context
Some researchers estimate that by 2025 the digital
economy will be as large as the 1995 physical economy
(Arthur, 2011). This prompted a focus, particularly
in non-western countries, on developing telecom muni-
cations infrastructure to catch up with the forthcoming
digital economy. The question now is no longer about
infrastructure, but what to move through it in order
to promote the economic and social prosperity of the
population. It is by developing skills and generating

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services that promote innovative answers to local
problems that these societies will participate in the
long run and transact in the plane tarian knowledge
market and the digital economy.
For most of the 20th century the notion of art has
been incorporated as a distinctive and individual
endeavour, making it closer to aesthetics and more
distant from society. Culture, on the other hand,
has become an over-functionalized quasi-engineering
practice. In this context the challenge for art and
cultural entrepreneurs is to search for new properties
outside the box, by questioning the way in which
social problems are being handled. Some might argue
that this has always been the function of art, especially
since the 1960’s at the inception of conceptualism.
However, what is different now is that most conceptual
endeavours could have the potential to be brought
to the realm of reality and active participation. The only
way to do this is to foster a socio-cultural stance that
reinforces workgroup (community-based) productivity
in times of the Internet by participating actively in the
creation and practice of context-specific content. Many
people, particularly when discussing policies, only see
the Internet as a mere enabler of international connec-
tivity. The challenge is to generate content that is not
set for passive consumption, but for active and pertinent
engagement, which builds on local criteria and effec-
tively has the potential for long-term planetarian
expansion and consumption.

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It is not easy to say what the future of art and culture
will look like. However, from my perspective as a techno-
cultural researcher, there has been clear evidence of
a change in the way technology is influencing art and
culture throughout the evolution of more than a decade
of funding initiatives on new media in Latin America.
Most of the initiatives mentioned in this paper come
from art and culture, but evolved in a way that developed
activities that took on a new social role. The more dis-
ruptive ones will promote the new, hence, the unknown.
Furthermore, technology has an additional virtue: its
expansive planetarian significance. An idea conceived
in Congo might also apply to the situation in Nicaragua
and could have the potential of developing a trans-
regional platform, which may evolve into authentic
“south-south collaborations”, which are usually complex
and difficult to implement. Transregional delocalized
platforms in which we can embed the good systematized
practices learnt in varied realities are sustainable and
might have a far-reaching planetarian potential.
The virtue of technology is that is expandable: editable,
findable and shareable. Transregional platforms could
apply these characteristics to local reality and expand
them; obtaining the knowledge that is being developed
and putting it back for the service of the planetarian
society. Latin America’s contribution to new media might
come from connecting these futuristic endeavours with
more grounded socio-cultural considerations of how
technologies might have an impact on people’s social

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lives. The evolution in the use of technology is evi-
denced by the way sophisticated ideas will challenge
established paragons. This is a culture that is clearly
based on practices that are generating new content
and establishing links and platforms that expand the
concepts of art and culture into planetarian socio-
technical endeavours.
Endnotes
1 Most of the following work research is part of
“Insulares Divergentes, towards a new technological
culture in Latin America”, a regional study on the
creation and production of art, science technology
and new media in Latin America comprised of 131
cases. Of these, 116 case studies were identified
to take advantage of the specific conceptualizations
for Information and Communications Technologies
(ICT’s) associated with the use of art and culture.
This project was conducted by ATA and supported
by Hivos and AECID. For more information:
insularesdivergentes.org.
2 The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) star ted as
a western led project that looks for the creation of
affordable educational devices for use in the so-called
“developing world”.
References
Arthur, W. B. (2011). “The second economy.”
McKinsey Quarterly October: 1–9.
Casanova, L., J. Dayton-Johnson, et al. (2011). Innovation
in Latin America: Recent Insights. The Global Innovation
Index 2011: Accelerating Growth and Development. S. Dutta.
Fontainebleau, INSEAD: 358.

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Reflections 2012 / 1Prince Claus Fund
This booklet is part of the Reflections series published annually by the Prince Claus Fund
# 1 José-Carlos Mariátegui: Disruptive, Expandable and Planetarian: Technology in Arts and Culture in Latin America
# 2 Charlotte Huygens: dOCUMENTA (13) and its inspiration on exhibitions of cultural heritage
# 3 Kanak Mani Dixit: Culturalism and Multiculturalism
# 4 Yto Barrada: Pink, Pirates and Dinosaurs
# 5 Salah Hassan: Rethinking Cosmopolitanism: Is ‘Afropolitan’ The Answer?