[nettime-lat] RHIZOME_RAW: Regina Célia Pinto on -empyre- in March

[Regina Célia Pinto <regvampi@iis.com.br>]

> Regina Célia Pinto (Rio, Brazil) is one of four South American featured
> guests in March on -empyre- ( http://www.subtle.net/empyre ). You are
> invited to join us for discussion with Regina about her work and concerns
on
> 'The Phenomenological and Fantastic in South American New Media' in March
> on -empyre-.
>
> She has a new online multimedia work called "Viewing Axalotls" (
> http://arteonline.arq.br/viewing_axolotls ), which keys on a short story
by
> the Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar called "Axalotl" from his collection
> of stories The End of the Game. As it happens, we encounter Axalotl ("the
> larval stage of a species of salamander of the genus Ambystoma"), an
unusual
> 'game' made by Regina Pinto, and portions of Cortazar's text in "Viewing
> Axalotls", which is not an adaptation of Cortazar's piece for the Web but,
> instead, Regina's piece builds on Cortazar's text, takes it as an
informing
> departure point in a wistful meditation on "reality" and the limits of
> communication between human beings.
>
> I asked Regina about the Cortazar connection in "Viewing Axalotls" and the
> apparent Kafka connection.
>
> JA: There seems to be an odd Kafka connection in Cortazar's piece in which
> the speaker turns, somewhat literally, somewhat figuratively, into an
> Axalotls. Do you know Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'? In this story, the
> speaker turns into a big cockroach. There is the sense in Kafka's piece
that
> K's life was already that of a cockroach. But I don't really get that
> 'moral' from either Cortazar's story or your "Viewing Axalotls".
>
> RCP: "Of course I know Kafka and The Metamorphosis. In fact Metamorphosis
> was my first idea when I thought to do a new book. But I remembered
Cortazar
> and I decided to work with the Axolotl. However, I think that there is a
> large difference between these books. Kafka is Expressionist and Cortazar
> something related to "magic realism". I think that the story of Kafka is
> much more social than the Cortazar story. Cortazar's story, I think,
speaks
> much more about the impossibility of communication between human beings
and
> animals, but more than this the impossibility to be the other, in this
case
> I think that it can be enlarged to human beings, the impossibility to
really
> understand the other. However, you will discover another fundamental
> difference between Kafka and Cortazar. Gregor Samsa turns into a cockroach
> and disappears, only the cockroach keeps on in the story. Cortazar's "man"
> or my "woman" turns into Axolotl but keeps on being human and it is just
> this that I think is fantastic because it was a notable intuition of
Virtual
> Reality and in this case the story is deeply social: Me and my Avatar
Woman.
> If you think in this way you can think about Ideology or about Media
> building Ideology or you."
>
> JA: And what is the attitude of your piece to the transformation to
> Axalotl? Are you saying we are turning into axolotl via the virtual? Or
> something else?
>
> RCP: "I think it shows my deep interest in Virtual Reality and Computers.
I
> enter into the aquariumm computer and I am there, but I am  out of it too.
> Out of it I am concious that I am not really myself, that I am an Avatar
> built by the media. In this case I am speaking about Anthropology and
> Ideology.  Perhaps it shows the difficulty of communication too. In spite
of
> the Internet and all the modern devices for communicating, the human being
> remains incommunicado, unable to understand and accept the other - you can
> see this in the lists and forums you participate in or participated in."
>
> We will also look at other of Regina's works during March on -empyre-. In
> particular, we'll look at the online multimedia works in The Library of
> Marvels ( http://arteonline.arq.br/library.htm ) which she has been
building
> since 1999. Several of the works in Regina's Library of Marvels, like
> "Viewing Axalotls", have 'games' in them of Regina's device. The notion of
> 'game' that she develops in these pieces comments on the relation between
> games and art, certainly. We'll also hear about her vision of her site The
> Museum of the Essential and Beyond That http://arteonline.arq.br , which
is
> surely one of the main sites on the Web concerning intermedia between
> literature, visual art, and programmed work--between and amongst Americas
> (and beyond that). It is marvelous in its internationalism and
> cross-fertilizations between cultures.
>
> The other featured guests in March on empyre are Alexandra Venera
(Brazil),
> and Jorge Luiz Antonio (Brazil), with the occassional post from Ana Maria
> Uribe (Argentina). It should be fun. I hope you join us.
>
> ja
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
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