The Formation of the Centro de Arte y Comunicación: A Forgotten Global Network of Systems Art
Saturday, February 15, 2020: 2:00 PM
Astoria Room (Hilton Chicago)
In 1968, Buenos Aires, Luis Fernando Benedit, architect and founder of the Buenos Aires Cybernetic Group and curator Jorge Glusberg established the Centro de Estudios de Arte y Comunicación; a centre for artistic production and education in Buenos Aires. Their inaugural exhibition, Arte y Cibernetica (1969), although technophilic and rooted in the control mechanisms of cybernetics, began a ten-year collaborative investigation into the role of systems thinking and information theory in the production of art in the “Global South”. This investigation produced international collaboration both within and outside of hegemonic Western institutions, evidencing a forgotten global network of artistic production, exhibition and academic research.
This paper outlines the theoretical and artistic changes in the way the Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC) used cybernetics, systems theory and information theory between their exhibitions Arte y Cibernetica (1969) and Arte e Ideología (1972). It demonstrates that the CAyC moved away from cybernetics and towards a socially engaged systems theory as the basis for their artistic and political praxis and that this shift happened within a complex global communication network of artists, curators and academics. Furthermore, their theoretical praxis altered to allow for systems-art to address what Glusberg describes as the ‘shared problems’ of the global South, most notably, oppressive political systems and ecological crises. Bringing to light the ways in which the CAyC developed their engagement with cybernetics to address these problems reveals an alternative trajectory of systems aesthetics in Latin America and the global communication networks that facilitated it.
This paper outlines the theoretical and artistic changes in the way the Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC) used cybernetics, systems theory and information theory between their exhibitions Arte y Cibernetica (1969) and Arte e Ideología (1972). It demonstrates that the CAyC moved away from cybernetics and towards a socially engaged systems theory as the basis for their artistic and political praxis and that this shift happened within a complex global communication network of artists, curators and academics. Furthermore, their theoretical praxis altered to allow for systems-art to address what Glusberg describes as the ‘shared problems’ of the global South, most notably, oppressive political systems and ecological crises. Bringing to light the ways in which the CAyC developed their engagement with cybernetics to address these problems reveals an alternative trajectory of systems aesthetics in Latin America and the global communication networks that facilitated it.