Performative Archival Approach to Latin American Digital Heritage
Free for download at H-Art Journal
Authors: Valentina Montero and myself.
Abstract
The present article addresses the exhibition mundo[>·<] interior// backup! v.3.1 [InsideWorld] which took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) of the Faculty of Arts, University of Chile, between October 2021 and March 2022. The exhibition took up the challenge of presenting a series of digital Works from the‘90 and early 2000, collected by artist Brian Mackern. In order to do so, the curatorial approach had to deal with problems such as the historiographical invisibility of Latin American artistic-digital production, the difficulty of collecting Works based on obsolete technologies, and its preservation problems. The exploration of mundo[>·<]interior allow us to discuss the notion of “archival performativity” as a creative and divergent strategy for the recognition and activation of the heritage of pioneering digital art projects/objects; which implies, additionally, the analysis of key issues in this field such as virtuality, materiality and digital memory.
Photo: Valentina Montero