Autonomies of Disagreement

The third edition of the Electronic Arts and Video Festival Transitio_mx 03, attempts to acknowledge differences in a transparent and straightforward context. We aim to offer an event that is representative of current trends in new media art and video, and to show how artists use that technology in their creative pursuits.

While global space eliminates the geographical locations wherein these proposals take place by homogenizing them; technological appropriation is seen as a disagreement, and as such, artistic practices emerge as autonomous. How would our mindset allow us to recognize the facet of every appropriation? Which tendencies are generated through artistic practices taking place in technologically advanced countries, and which ones occur in those that are not? Where can critical thinking lead us in terms of planning, performance, production and exhibition of media art? Moreover, would this ultimately redefine such terms as “global” versus “local” where countries are interconnected through commercial, informational and technological links?

By conceiving a platform where disagreement serves as our standpoint, we want to set off a series of events whereby we can discuss the implications and scope of this viewpoint in a variety of contexts. Thus, when we refer to a certain region (Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe), we are not automatically thinking of the construction or remaking of identities, but rather, of a localized space that allows us to analyze the practices and paradoxes of globalization By juxtaposing these regions, we intend to question the uses of technology, the concepts dominating its discourses, and its artistic outcome. Specifically, our concern is to bring the issue of culture into a world context.

Autonomies of Disagreement express, on the one hand, the multiplicity of artistic forms and their relationship to politics. On the other, they help us understand that it is diversity what ultimately allows us to grasp, exercise and appreciate autonomy. Transitio_mx 03 intends to broaden the image of contemporary electronic art by not confining it to a specific thematic framework but rather presenting a wide range of critical perspectives. In considering disagreement as a desirable condition that tolerates autonomy and acknowledges difference, we trace a variety of routes that allow us to encounter zones of cultural interaction. Overall, this amounts to identifying convergences and building up dialogues.

Karla Villegas
Artistic Director