[-empyre-] -empyre- in March: aLe, Regina Célia Pinto, and Jorge Luiz Antonio

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

Thanks to Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz for sussing the art of
collaboration/collaboration in art in February on -empyre-.

March on -empyre- features Regina Célia Pinto, Alexandre Venera, and Jorge
Luiz Antonio from Brazil. We may also hear occassionally from Ana Maria
Uribe of Argentina as time permits her limited involvement at the moment.

Their practice extends in many directions, but of particular note in the
current context is their work on/for the net. Most of them have extensive
bodies of net.art viewable via the browser. And this work is notable in its
synthesis of the sonic, visual, and literary amid the codes of net.art and
other arts.

Much of it is also notable in its international dimensions via their
translation of their own work into different languages but also,
significantly, via approaches to the visual, sonic, and literary that use
the materials concretely.

The title of -empyre- for March, 'The Phenomenological and Fantastic in
South American New Media' grasps at straws, somewhat, in its attempt to
characterize similarities in their work--they are very different in their
practices and approaches, but they do share a concern with the phenomenology
of net.art and poetics more broadly; also, it is often the case that their
work shares a concern with the carnivalesque or fantastic, and a kind of
universal good will amid high energy multimedia.

What we'll do is engage with them in turn, with focus on their work viewable
on the net: Alexandre is featured for the first nine days of March; then
Jorge for the next nine days; Jorge is primarily a scholar of electric
writing/poetry--we will seek critical perspective from Jorge; and finally
Regina, who has a show of her art happening in Rio starting March 10, which
may occupy her till the opening and perhaps a little beyond.

So let me first post their bios, and say thank you, Regina, Alexandre,
Jorge, and Ana Maria for participating with us on -empyre-. I look forward
to dialogue about your concerns and work!

ALEXANDRE VENERA (March 1-9)
http://www.eale.hpg.com.br
The restless artist multimedia and South American cultural producer,
Alexandre Venera is teacher of scenic arts and electronic midias in the
Teatro Carlos Gomes in Blumenau, the city where he was born, lives and
works. He is developing his artistic production parallel an interesting form
of integrating the scenic human action with the electronic art, it is
treated of a technique that he calls "stereocena".

JORGE LUIZ ANTONIO (March 10-18)
http://vispo.com/misc/BrazilianDigitalPoetry.htm
Jorge Luiz Antonio, a poet, writer, researcher, and teacher, is currently
studying electronic poetry in his PhD degree in the Communication and
Semiotics Program at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. He
has written Almeida Júnior através dos tempos (Almeida Junior throughout
time, 1983) and Cores, forma, luz, movimento: a poesia de Cesário Verde
(Colours, form, light, and movement: Cesario Verde's Poetry, 2002). He has
published many articles in printed and electronic magazines such as Galáxia:
Revista Transdisciplinar de Comunicação, Semiótica, Cultura and Karenina.it
(from Italy). Some of his researches are linked from Brazilian Digital Art
and Poetry on the Web and he has done some digital poems with Fatima Lasay
from the Philippines: Imaginero; and E-m[ag]inero. He also collaborated with
Regina Celia Pinto on Lago Mar Algo Barco Chuva.

REGINA CÉLIA PINTO (March 19-27)
http://arteonline.arq.br/library.htm
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Regina Célia Pinto is a researcher, visual artist
and teacher. She earned a teaching certificate in Drawing and Art at the
Escola de Belas Artes of the Universidade Federal in Rio de Janeiro, 1974 -
1977. She has a Master's degree in Art History, specializing in the
Anthropology of Art / EBA, UFRJ, 1994. Her Master's thesis is titled: "Four
views in search of a reader, important women, art and identity," 1994, EBA,
UFRJ. She has written a variety of academic works, including published
scientific essays. As a visual artist, she has participated in several
exhibitions and curated several. Her interest in web.art started in 1997.
She created and publishes arteonline.arq.br which, since July 2001, is
called The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That. She believes that one of
the good characteristics of globalization is it allows the exchange of
national and international artistic experiences.

ANA MARIA URIBE (as time permits her)
http://amuribe.tripod.com
Ana Maria Uribe is a visual poet and web artist born and living in Buenos
Aires, Argentina. In 1997 she started a series of Anipoems or Web based
animated visual poems, where she picked up some of the ideas of her Typoems
or typographic poetry, which had been typed many years earlier with the
Lettera 22.

ja