The Biennial of Media Arts of Santiago Prepares Opens Its Fourteenth Edition Entitled the Fourth World

El cuarto mundo, 1972. Photo Credit: Roberto Santandreu

14th Biennial of Media Arts of Santiago
The Fourth World
September 4 – January 2020
http://www.bienaldeartesmediales.cl/14

How do we relate to the territory in which we live? What is the role of art and culture in a world in crisis? In its fourteenth edition, the Biennial of Media Arts of Santiago is dedicated to observe, think and imagine The Fourth World, a place that allows us to reflect on the current state of the relationship between humans and the ecosystem.

The title and curatorship of this new edition are inspired by the sculpture El cuarto mundo by Chilean artist Carlos Ortúzar (1935-1985), a work installed in 1972 in the courtyard of the building destined for UNCTAD III (now the Villavicencio Building), in which art, science and society converged strongly with power.

The work became a criticism of the distinction between the “first, second and third world”, a division that expanded the effects of the industrial revolution on a global scale and separated the world into different social classes, while the concept “fourth world” was coined to designate the most marginalized portion of the developmental order.

The UNCTAD III building and the works that were installed there represented an attempt to reverse that order. However, both like this utopia, the work disappeared after the military coup in 1973. 46 years later, the JEMO mastergroup, in charge of its original manufacturing, has built a new version to be restored in the same place as part of the 14th Biennial.

“The fourth world of Carlos Ortúzar invites us to reconsider a warning given by a generation that was trying to provoke a form of non-extractivist relationship with our ecosystem. This warning, which was born from the relationship between art, economy, science and politics, is still in force, and the Biennial is proposed as a space to appropriate this manifesto in a purposeful way, ” explains Enrique Rivera, director of the Biennial and The Chilean Video Corporation of Video and the Electronic Arts, whose team worked together with the JEMO engineers, that prepared the calculations of the measures of the work based on multiples of 4, as there were no surviving no blueprints plans for its reconstruction.

20 spaces, more than 60 artists

The program of the 14th Biennial consists of exhibitions in 20 cultural spaces places in Santiago, whose inaugurations will be happening for five months along with a series of talks, assemblies, concerts and activities until January 2020. Also, as in previous editions, the main point of the meetings will be Editorial Gardens will be placed at main meeting points, becoming a space instance of interaction wherewith visitors canto rest, conversation converse and engage with content editing through the format of blogs, which will be gradually completed and delivered and completed by the attendees as a device for appropriating the contents during the course of the Biennial.

The first opening to the public was held at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (GAM) on September 4th with the uncovering of the sculpture The Fourth World on the esplanade of the Villavicencio Building that borders GAM, and the inauguration of One hundred is a color. Arts, crafts and mathematics one hundred years from the Bauhaus by the Chilean-German artist Cornelia Vargas, who has worked with the mathematician Alejandro Jofré, member of the Center for Mathematical Modeling of the University of Chile, presented more than 20 paintings that result from the variations between geometric shapes, numbers and colors that account for the plastic expansion of abstract concepts.

Subsequently, several spaces will be inaugurated in succession: National Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Visual Arts, Recoleta Domínica Heritage Library, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna Museum, Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum, Cerrillos National Center for Contemporary Art, Matucana 100 Cultural Center, Sound Museum, Chemistry and Pharmacy Museum, Macchina Gallery, Metropolitan Gallery, CCU Gallery and Cava Gallery, among others.

Some of the exhibiting artists that will perform at these centers are: Nicole L’Huillier, Sebastián Preece, Sergio Larrain, Etienne de France, Claudia González, Josefina Guilisasti, Jorge Tacla, Denise Lira, Maia Urstad, Mauricio Lacrampette, Ignacio Acosta, Sebastián Maqueira Julian Charrière, Roman Signer, Pauline Julier, Ursula Biemann, Silvie Defraoui, Mille Kalsmose, Uffe Isoloto, Lea Porsager, Pablo Langlois, Francisco Navarrete, Semiconductor, Gianfranco Foschino, Alejandra Prieto, Iván Navarro, Claudia Müller and Rodrigo Arteaga, among others .

Also, the 14th Biennial consists of two programs that seek to generate an experience of reflection and participation from the audience:

School of Intuition. Mediation and education program based on meetings, conversations, workshops, laboratories, mediated visits and editorial objects. It, which will feature the participation of Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas as a pedagogical curator, as well as and a number of artists, members of the scientific community, popular cultivators and researchers who will deepen, -together with the diverse audiences that participate in the Biennial-, the techniques, methods and inspirations to awaken the collective intuition.

Magnetic Fields. Public program composed of meetings, performances and concerts that will be performed by national and international artists, shaping a series of actions and other actions that will give continuity to the Biennial program. Among them is, the Cinema Forum of the Fourth World, a series of documentaries that combine anthropological and poetic views, video art, experimental records, fictions and biographical essays that seek to create form an album that remembers the stories that precede the Fourth World. Each session will be framed to showcase a dialogue between programmers and attendees. Access will be free released upon registration.

The 6th General Assembly of the International Biennial Association (IBA)

In addition to its regular programme, the 6th General Assembly of the IBA will also be taking place during the 14th edition of the Biennial of Media Arts of Santiago from December 10 – 14.