[Commlist] New book: Barbarian Currents: Half a Century of Brazilian Media Arts

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/ 
<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/ 
<http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/series/media-art-write-now/>

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