Barbarian Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts

edited by Gabriel Menotti and German Alfonso Nunez

Forthcoming

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. Barbarian Currents 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 anthology 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 documents, 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.

Barbarian Currents rigorously illuminates the way in which Brazil’s relationship with technological progress, modernism and utopia shaped a distinctive trajectory for its media arts. The book offers readers unprecedented insight into how Brazil’s media art scene evolved both within and against the global art world. This is an essential resource for understanding the special character of technological art in the Global South.
José-Carlos Mariátegui, Founder – Director of Alta Tecnología Andina, Lima
This unique book fills an essential gap in media art studies. Compiling an extensive directory of Brazilian artistic production, it reconstructs, through the perspectives of its leading actors, an important history marked by creative experiments between art and industry post-World War II..
Professor Giselle Beiguelman, University of São Paulo FAU-USP

Editor Bios

Gabriel Menotti is Associate Professor and chair of the Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies graduate program at Queen’s University, Ontario. He also works as an independent curator in the field of media practices. His most recent books are Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies (2020, co-edited with Virginia Crisp) and Movie Circuits: Curatorial Approaches to Cinema Technology (2019).

German Alfonso Nunez is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the Department of Multimedia, Media and Communication at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). His work focuses on the Brazilian artistic field of the post-World War II era. Recently, he worked as a researcher at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, where he organised and edited the commemorative book for the Museum’s 75th anniversary.