Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen – an interview with Doreen A. Ríos
by Annet Dekker
In the second edition of the Bienal Universitaria de Arte Multimedial (BUAM) in Quito, Ecuador,[1] Mexican curator and researcher Doreen A. Ríos invites the audience to think critically about our relationship with screens. BUAM aims to promote spaces for conversation and exchange around the production of knowledge that takes place in art, focusing on the relationship with new technologies, the digital world, and virtuality.
Through a series of artworks oscillating between painting, virtual reality, video, sculpture, performance, and generative code, with the current exhibition Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen, Ríos addresses the hidden and visible layers of these digital surfaces and their impact on contemporary culture. Rather than focusing on how the screen began to dominate our lives and according to some led to ‘sustained inattentional blindness’ (SIB), addiction, or saturation and hence could undermine the development of interpersonal connections, Ríos addresses the potential and reappropriation of the screen by artists to emphasise how our perceptions, connections, and the very definition of reality have been reconfigured by the devices that envelop us.
Annet Dekker: Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen is the enigmatic title of the exhibition you curated for the Bienal Universitaria de Arte Multimedial (BUAM), at Universidad San Francisco at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito and Q Galería in Ecuador. To start with ‘liquid spaces’, could you explain what you mean with this expression?
Doreen A. Ríos: Absolutely. ‘Liquid spaces’ encapsulate the essence of constant transformation and fluidity. These spaces symbolise environments that exist in a perpetual state of change, where boundaries blur and definitions remain elusive. Those that are vulnerable and mutant, unstable and undefined. In the context of this exhibition, it is a metaphor that highlights the dynamic nature of spaces traversed by digital materialities.
I am deeply interested in this topic both from my curatorial work but also my research. In my perspective, I have tried to make a case for reconciling ‘soft’ materials, as carefully articulated by Marisa Olson (2014), which encompass software and soft power, and ‘hard’ materials, pertaining to hardware and hard power. This exploration aims to facilitate a deeper perception of digital technologies, artistic expressions, and a critical examination of themes like intellectual and resource-based extractivism, surveillance, political radicalisation, and technocapitalism. My research and work is situated within the Latin American context, which is intricately shaped by the historical legacies of colonialism, epistemic violence, the process of mestizaje, and the distinctive commonality of sharing Spanish as a predominant language along with a shared socio-political history, with its tensions and contradictions.
Dekker: The discourse around screens developed in the last decades from the 1990s large screen projections and LCD/Plasma/(O)LED flatscreens to small screens the size of tablets, mobile phones, and watches, also holograms (which perhaps sits in between a projection and a screen).[2] It was often argued that the digital era replaced objecthood with digital code that remediates inscriptions of objects, people, spaces, and ideas. Or, how it replaced the dimensionality and depth of an object with the surface of the screen, narration with interaction, and singularity with multiplicity, as well as how it obscures the working of the computer.[3] What is your view on the current status of the ‘politics of the screen’?
Ríos: In contemplating the evolution of screens and digital devices, it is vital to recognise their physicality / body. These interfaces are composed of materials often sourced under precarious conditions, manipulated and assembled amidst similar circumstances, designed with planned obsolescence, leading to their transformation into toxic waste. This cycle, from extraction to disposal, presents a significant political dimension, particularly evident in the Latin American context. This region has directly witnessed the repercussions of extractivism, leading to various consequences like illness and deforestation. Additionally, there is a distinct political impact stemming from the deployment of technological devices, exemplified by instances such as the Mexican government’s utilisation of the Pegasus malware against activists and journalists.
While acknowledging the gravity of the issues highlighted in your question regarding black boxes and objecthood, I think that talking about the politics of the screen, particularly in Ecuador, leads us to consider a closer interconnectedness with the politics of the lands and bodies themselves. For instance, within the exhibition, artworks like Ronny Albuja’s biosculpture Llévame Cielo, Agárrame Tierra and Luis Navas’ installation Más Allá del Colapso vividly portray the hard power politics encircling screens, showcasing the extractive cycle’s impacts within the country.
There are explorations into how these technologies facilitate the circumvention of individual rights through surveillance, exemplified by Jose Luis Moncada’s IDENTIFIED, where he creates a live sonification of images captured by hidden cameras; and Santiago Serrano’s video piece Satélites, fully created with webcam footage found online. Additionally, artists like Samantha Albuja with Dispositivos de intimidad and Sofía Varea-Acosta with MALDITA TU OBRA offer alternative perspectives on the losses and gains within digitisation, echoing the dichotomy between singularity vs. multiplicity as well as synchronous vs. asynchronous presence. Albuja’s video performance and Varea-Acosta’s digital diary exploring telepathy reflect these autopoietic approaches, delving into the multifaceted impacts of screen-based affection.
Dekker: Since I’m based in Amsterdam, I am not able to experience the exhibition myself, so paradoxically I’m watching some of its documented photographic evidence on my computer screen, while writing these questions on the same screen for you to read on your own screen. From what I could see on my screen, the artworks are very diverse in their choice of medium, ranging from painting, virtual reality, video, sculpture, performance, and generative code. How do the fraught complexities of screens as interfaces play out in the exhibition design and in the artworks?
Ríos: The variety of mediums showcased in the exhibition is fundamental to its essence. My intention was to explore the multifaceted nature of screens, now transformed into meta-tools. By this, I mean tools that facilitate a range of tasks that range from entertainment, work, education, affection, the use and consumption of goods and services, and, of course, the production, distribution, and experimentation of art. This meta condition has given rise to an all-encompassing, ubiquitous (screen) device which has its contents pouring outside the digital and re-materialising in diverse forms.
It is important to mention that all artworks were selected through an open call for artists working and/or living in Ecuador. The selection process deliberately avoided specifying particular techniques, aiming instead to observe how artists explored these ideas across different media. However, another critical aspect that informed the final selection of the 22 artworks that this exhibition encompasses has to do with how the artists perceived their relationship with screens.
Notably, I observed a divergence in approaches between the categories of artists: current art students and established artists. The younger demographic tended to explore performance and hybrid media, exploring themes such as the inescapability of screens, body and identity, death and permanence, as well as contemplation and rituals. Conversely, established artists focused more on manipulating digital technologies through data visualization, creative coding, and video, addressing topics like extractivism, non-human life, surveillance, necropolitics, and networked co-creation.
This dynamic allowed for interesting connections between pieces. For instance, Juan Pablo Racines’ exploration of boundary-breaking spaces within video games in his painting series I’ve Been Hit can stimulate dialogue when juxtaposed with Martina Andrade’s VR installation What if Dying Online is Unavailable?, which looks into the concept of death and the digital body. Another example of this can be seen in the exchanges prompted by Xavier Barriga’s The Only Screen, which provokes the audience to question if they would be up for disconnecting from their personal devices, with Juan Andrés Marcial Coba’s Videografías, an interactive video sculpture that mimics the anxiety and fear produced by social media content. These intersections between various techniques and media serve to bridge existing gaps within contemporary art, hopefully fostering a more thorough exploration of the exhibition’s themes.
Dekker: There also seems to be a tension between the screen and the body that may be interesting to explore in the context of an exhibition. In the latter people tend to move around, perhaps interact with the artworks, but certainly move their bodies in space to experience the space from various angles. Yet when relating to the screen, the body is fixated on – or glued to – the movement on the screen, and there is little involvement of the body. How did you (or some of the artists) deal with this tension in the exhibition?
Ríos: The exchanges / encounters between the body and the screen were key considerations in curating the exhibition, a topic I extensively explored during conversations with the participating artists. For instance, in conversations with artist Rocio Soria regarding her piece Screen and Shell, we contemplated how the sculptural element of her artwork, resembling a ‘dead’ screen, might influence the audience’s interaction. Would it create a desire to touch the dead screen to see if it was still alive? This is a particularly important question, considering that this piece wasn’t meant to be touched. Some of the artworks were indeed meant to be interacted with.
Similarly, artist Carolina Velasteguí raised pertinent concerns about her work Cyborg Colectivo, designed for audience activation. This piece, comprising 26 wooden arms and wall-mounted ink, responds to tide changes around the Galápagos Islands, inviting viewers to collectively compose a poem through an automatic writing process. In order to do so, the viewers become active participants through using the wooden arms to stamp letters on the exhibition space walls.
Navigating these nuances required meticulous spatial design, ensuring an intuitive engagement for the audience. We aimed to craft a subtle yet compelling environment, facilitating the audience’s understanding of their role within the exhibition. Employing a web of cues – integrated into artwork labels, on-site guidance, and online documentation of the audience engaging, either passively or actively, with the artworks – we aimed to encourage organic exploration. These strategies looked to invite participation without overshadowing the essence of each artwork.
Dekker: How does this exhibition connect to your earlier curatorial work with [ANTI]MATERIA, an initiative that you set up to emphasise issues and artists from Latin America. What were you looking for that you considered to be relevant to show from this context?
Ríos: I believe that this exhibition is a continuation of my previous curatorial work. It is my first exhibition within Latin America but outside of Mexico and this, of course, came with the responsibility of getting involved with this new context. Ecuador is a vibrant space with an artistic community that is really close and who will have no reservations about collaboration and knowledge exchange. This last thing might be somewhat true for a lot of places but I think it’s particularly relevant in the Latin American context.
Throughout my exploration of art and technology within this geography, I’ve encountered a very special ecology: a predominantly self-taught circuit that has, in many instances, constructed its own technological devices. This echoes Ernesto Oroza’s observations on Cuban technological disobedience, revealing a unique approach to technology through hacking, repair, reappropriation, tutorial culture, and piracy. I’m aware that it’s crucial to acknowledge the perils of romanticising asymmetrical access to technology; however, there’s undeniable significance in the adaptive resilience exhibited within such circumstances.
Beyond its artistic implications, this phenomenon encapsulates a broader narrative – a narrative woven within the socio-political fabric of Latin America. Here, the necessity to construct one’s own technological devices arises not only due to a lack of accessibility but also in response to a compelling need to resist the necropolitical state, facilitated by surveillance and oppressive technologies. In this context, the (mis)use of technology opens space for acts of resistance where every machine becomes a canvas for hacking, a tool for disobedience – a testament to the ethos of resilience and adaptation prevalent within the region.
To jump back to some of the artworks presented at Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen, we can see this reflected in Inundación by dmtc_lab, where they created a touchscreen sound machine that is activated by touch. The performance collective built this resonance instrument from zero from an intuition, interdisciplinary collaboration with people working with glass, and tutorials. This installation emerges as a dislocated and useless screen that is meant to be touched and caressed as a commentary about the violent and disembodied nature of screen time.
Dekker: Perhaps similarly, in what ways does this exhibition and particularly its topic relate to your other curatorial work or research? For instance, I’m thinking of the exhibition My Wall is Your Filter Bubble,[4] which was an augmented reality exhibition mapping the surface of the Peaks. Together with Matthew Plummer-Fernandez you took a critical look at the borders and silos we are confronted with in our online lives, and as a reflection of these virtual barricades you created a geo-fence: an intangible border and virtual geographic boundary that acted as an online perimeter, meaning that the exhibition was only accessible to visitors online when in the physical vicinity. This particular location-based way of working is not confined to the digital – clearly, as mentioned, I am also not able to visit the current exhibition – but on a conceptual level, and in connection to screens. I wonder also how our perceptions, connections, and the very definition of reality have been reconfigured by the screens that we depend on?
Ríos: In My Wall is Your Filter Bubble, Matthew and I looked into the implications of online polarisation as mirrored by off-screen socio-political events like Trump’s election and Brexit. We presented a curatorial proposal that aimed to build a fictional border between Mexico and the UK in order to explore how digital filter bubbles are, too, a very violent wall. The use of augmented reality allowed us to blur the lines between on-screen and off-screen realities as well as to make a case not only that they are both equally revealing but also complementary and in a constant feedback loop.
The conversations during that exhibition revolved around how our perception of reality transformed with widespread social media use. Themes of community, censorship, and propaganda echoed in those discussions and continue to resonate in my current curatorial practice. One particular idea that stayed with me was the concept of fake news acting as a modern form of censorship, akin to hiding a tree in a forest. This encapsulates how our screen-mediated communications impact our understanding of truth and information dissemination.
In many ways a lot of these ideas also poured into Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen. I think about Memoria del Tacto, where artist Lux Monsalve reflects upon the disconnection between the real, its digital counterpart, and their rematerialised ‘others’. This multi-component installation showcases the transformation of physical objects into digital entities and then back into new material forms. Monsalve’s exploration makes space to show the gains and losses inherent in digitisation, revealing the vulnerability and adaptability of digital objects in a cycle of hypermaterialisation, which is a very compelling analogy of the current state of communication, affection, politics, society, and economy mediated (and expanded) through screens.
Dekker: Finally, and to connect with another exhibition Minimal Rituals that you curated for arebyte Plugin,[5] an online tool to present art as a series of automatic window pop-ups that appear at different times throughout the day. In the exhibition the artists transported us to alternate worlds where technology and ritual merge to create new forms of connection and community. Similar to the current exhibition, you selected artists working in a diverse range of media, yet all of them were presented via the screen. However, together with the time-based element and the theme of the exhibition relating to shamanistic rituals, I wondered, is the screen the new shaman?
Ríos: Oh I loved curating that exhibition! I shared really meaningful conversations with Rebecca and Nimrod about what we could do and how we wanted the pieces to feel. Minimal Rituals was, for me, a way to explore adding the factor of time within an online exhibition; also the role that time, attention, care, and patience have in a lot of technological developments created by Mesoamerican cultures, such as the agricultural system of milpa where three crops are planted together (corn, squash, and beans) so that they create a symbiotic relationship that helps them grow while keeping the soil fertile. That’s how I thought about the artworks being shown at Minimal Rituals – a web of elements that ranged from 3D models, creative writing, AI-generated still images, plotter-drawings, and music that created a symbiotic relationship between themselves yet activated by the viewer/shaman. There was a key element in order for this to happen: I commissioned artist Mónica Nepote to write a ritual for each artwork in relation to the day where they would be presented, so that it became a guided journey through pop-ups.
I think the screen is an oracle and those exchanging energy through them are, potentially, shamans. Within the synchronous/asynchronous dance of exchanges through screens, there exists an inherent ritualistic quality – whether consciously acknowledged or not. Drawing inspiration from Fabiane M. Borges, I echo the belief that theories like the multiverse and advancements in quantum physics align more with a shamanic ontology than the predominant theological/capitalist framework guiding current technological production. In this evolving digital realm, the screen becomes a conduit for ritual, forging connections and communities in very interesting ways. However, just as with other rituals, this oracle can only take form when we are guiding it from within.
Authors
Doreen A. Ríos is an independent curator and researcher. Her work focuses on digital art, post-digital practices, and new materialities. She is the founder and director of [ANTI]MATERIA, an online platform dedicated to the research and exhibition of art produced through digital media. She was chief curator at Centro de Cultura Digital from 2019 to 2021. Ríos is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at University of California, San Diego. She is Advisor of Advanced Technologies at KADIST and she is part of the International Selectors Committee for Lumen Art Prize as well as the Leonardo Peer Review Panel.
Annet Dekker is a curator and researcher. She is Assistant Professor of Archival and Information Studies and Comparative Cultural Analysis at University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University. She has published numerous essays and edited several volumes, among others Documentation as Art (co-edited with Gabriella Giannachi (Routledge, 2022) and Curating Digital Art: From Presenting and Collecting Digital Art to Networked Co-Curating (Valiz, 2021). Her monograph Collecting and Conserving Net Art (Routledge, 2018) is a seminal work in the field of digital art conservation.
References
Andersen, C. and Pold, S. Interface criticism: Aesthetics beyond the buttons. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2011.
Mondloch, K. Screens: Viewing media installation art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Monteiro, S (ed.). The screen media reader: Culture, theory, practice. New York: Bloomsbury Academics, 2017.
Olson, M. ‘The Rhetoric of Soft Tools’ in The emergence of video processing tools: Television becoming unglued, edited by K. High, S. Hocking, and M. Jiménez. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2014: 540-555.Paul, C. ‘Digital Art Now: Histories of (Im)Materialities’, International Journal for Digital Art History, No. 5, September 2020: https://doi.org/10.11588/dah.2020.5.75504.
[1] https://buamusfq.org/la-bienal/
[2] A good overview of the exploration of the screen as an element of popular culture and its influence on an understanding of society, see Monteiro (2017); in connection to media art installations, see Mondloch (2010). For a more specific account on the loss of objecthood, addressing the relationship between material and immaterial, see Paul (2020).
[3] See for instance the politics of the interface. Andersen & Pold 2011.
[4] https://anti-materia.org/filter-bubble
[5] https://www.arebyte.com/minimal-rituals (30 August 2023).