Barbarian Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts (Book Launch & Screening)

Contemporary art and media art do not exist in separate worlds. In 20th century Brazil, technology was a key element of artistic imagination. Oswald de Andrade, the father of Brazilian ‘cannibal’ modernism, envisioned the Americas as a cradle of a new society populated by technicised barbarians. The country’s post-war avant-gardes embraced computers and electronic media as transformative forces, capable of realising the promise of a nation in search of its modern identity.

The anthology Barbarian Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts explores this history through a sociological lens, examining the many intriguing circumstances that have shaped the new forms of cultural and artistic expression. This pioneering volume brings together the voices of artists, critics and curators who played a pivotal role in the emergence of technological arts in post-war Brazil. The chapters, most of which have been translated into English for the first time, remind us that ‘alternative’ art histories are simply the flipside of dominant narratives. They encourage us to look beyond the lens of Western exceptionalism and reframe our understanding of cultural histories worldwide.

Come celebrate the launch of Barbarian Currents in Canada! This activity comprises a panel with editors Gabriel Menotti and German Alfonso Nunez and a screening program featuring pioneering video works made at University of São Paulo’s Contemporary Art Museum in the 1970s and documentaries about Brazilian tactical media from the early 2000s.