The Digital Dilettante
The Digital Dilettante (2006-2011) was a project founded in the University of Arts of Cuba (ISA), and was active from the years 2006 to 2011. During this period the artworks of more than twenty artists were compiled (some of them teachers and other students). The Digital Dilettante worked as an online gallery to promote novel and well known Cuban artists.
Among the goals of the project was:
- to explore the expression possibilities that new technologies, especially the Internet, provided to the artists;
- to help other artists in the creation of their works, since in the context of Cuba access to the new technologies and Internet was very limited;
- to create a space for the debate of the main notions and concepts that guide creation in the field of emerging media (more than twelve articles were published);
- to help students accomplish their goals and graduate with works and degree thesis related to new media art.
Several workshops also took place:
- How to be Vuk Cosic in 3 Easy Steps (2009). With the artworks of several students compiled as you can see in this video: Vimeo. This was also when I built my own distribution of Linux, called Kitten Linux, based on Slackware. The favicon of this website, that depicts a white cat, is a legacy from those times.
- Hacksing Lily (2011). Workshop and show with works of Raúl Aguiar, Jorge B. Rodríguez, Amilkar Feria, Samuel Riera and Yonlay Cabrera. It took place during the VII Coloquio Internacional de Estética y Arte. Several intellectuals as Kenneth Goldsmith, Rachel Price, Victor Fowler and frency, participated in the debate.
- Electronic Poetry Multimedia (2011). I compiled very dispersed materials related to electronic and digital poetry and as far as I know the only attempt in Cuba to do so. It was later presented in the event "BEYOND THE HYPHEN. APPROACHING A POST GEOGRAPHIC CUBA." in Princeton University.
Along the actual artistic praxis I analyzed the concepts we were using in our discourse. This philosophy-aesthetical research became my master degree thesis; a resume of which was later published in the book "Outlooks on Digital Art".
Eventually it became my personal website. The Digital Dilettante (2012-2021)