[Air-L] Barbarian Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts: new open-access book

[Joanna Zylinska]

Open Humanities Press is pleased to announce the publication of *Barbarian
Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts*, edited by Gabriel
Menotti and German Alfonso Nunez



Like all Open Humanities Press books, *Barbarian Currents *is available
open access (= it can be downloaded for free):

https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/barbarian-currents/



*Book description*



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.



*Endorsements*



*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.



*Series*



The book is published as part of the MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW series
edited by Joanna Zylinska:
http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/series/media-art-write-now/


--

Joanna Zylinska

Professor of Media Philosophy + Critical Digital Practice

Director (Interim) of the Centre for Attention Studies
<https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/centre-attention-studies>

King's College London

Department of Digital Humanities



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