The Festival of Art, Thought, and Technology took place in 2021 at the Cultural Center of Spain in Montevideo, aiming to embrace new artistic narratives within the changing health, social, and economic paradigms. It was a hybrid reflection space, with a significant virtual component, which generated debate and facilitated dialogues around the democratization of culture and the arts, emphasizing the presentation of various techno-social tools that are emerging today.
FAP-TEK featured a program with a strong Ibero-American component, showcasing artists from Uruguay, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile. The festival spanned three weeks and included performative conferences, a virtual exhibition, multidisciplinary intersections, an artist residency, and workshops for all audiences, all on an active artistic value platform available online for an entire year.
Artists: MAGO HART (UY) / IKRAM BOULOUM (MA/ES) / KEBRA (BR/MEX) / IDENTIDAD MARRÓN (AR) / JARA ROCHA (ES) / JUAN COVELLI (CO) / JOVEN DE LA PERLA (ES) / LILIANA FARBER (UY) /JULIA C. PARODI (ES/AR) / MIYÖ VAN STENIS (VE) / DESMUSEA (ES) / CRUELAUDIA (ES) / RODOLFO OPAZO (CL) / GABRIELA MUNGUÍA (MEX) / LETICIA YBARRA (ES).
Curated by Cecilia Almiron & Paula Cárcamo, FAP-TEK The Terminal is a Virtual Environment designed by artist Miyö Van Stenis (Ve) to explore the work of four contemporary artists who mediate and integrate technology as a medium of production and creation. Through an interactive and immersive journey, collaboratively constructed with the artists themselves, this space serves as an invitation to question the regimes of consumption and relationship with technology in the Anthropocene era.
Wandering through neural branches, artist Perla Zúñiga (Es) invites reflection on sick bodies subjected to productive discourses and the cult of optimization and progress. Using montage and image appropriation, Julia C. Parodi (Es/Ar) highlights issues related to the dematerialization and control of our bodies that arise amidst technological utopianism, questioning its neutrality. Juan Covelli (Co) explores new digital materialities and their relationship with the physical world. Through the construction of a speculative universe that alludes to the power relations and exploitation logics between the West and the New World, they examine the role of technology in colonial history and future imaginaries for colonizing new worlds. Liliana Farber (Uy) captures the muscle memory of our fingers interacting with mobile devices through her work, reflecting on algorithmic behavior and its impact on human psychology.
Visit the FAP-TEK Terminal: https://faptek.com/terminal/ . This is a heavy digital space, so it will take a few seconds to load. The link to navigation instructions is also available.
Building a Feminist Avatar
Cruelaudia and Miyö Van Stenis
Digital artist, curator, and gamer Miyö Van Stenis (VE), responsible for the design and development of the FAP-TEK exhibition space, and digital artist and gamer Cruelaudia (ES) will meet in a virtual reality where they will construct their own avatars and engage in a dialogue about the representation of women and non-binary people, the depiction of queerness, and the limits of performativity in video games and virtual environments in general. This journey through their references in the video game industry will analyze predominant aesthetics and the impact and consequences of the lack of representation in digital spaces.
