As an extension of the long-term, evolving international collaboration between the UC Digital Arts Research Network (UC DARNet) and the Centro Hipermediático Experimental Latinoamericano (cheLA), South@North@South (sanas) was at once 1) cross-cultural dialogue, 2) technological research, and 3) a public art production process.
This multilayered, multidisciplinary project sought to investigate and generate a set of tools for meaningful dialogue and exchanges between artists and communities from California and Argentina—working under the premise that such a relational approach would result in better understanding of each other’s rapidly evolving socio-cultural technological environments and their identity-defining effects. Ultimately the objective was to enable participating individuals and communities to take an active and self-determining stance towards technology.
The three threads (dialogue, technology and creation) converged to generate a comprehensive set of design specifications, functionalities, and interfaces for an integrative technological distributed system. Three UC artists and two graduate student researchers engaged in a rigorous in-residence research, development, and production program at cheLA. This far-reaching, concerted effort involving local partners, high-level technologists, and community groups was constructed and presented as a distributed form of a performative public artwork.
University of California (multiple campuses) and Buenos Aires, Argentina—2005-2007.