GUERILLA HOTSPOT
Wynwood, Design district, Miami, FL, United States, 2017
This ongoing research project / artwork focuses on the intersection between art and technology. It understands internet as a public space and uses it as a medium as well. The exploration of VR or immersive representation of different data sets is at the center of this artistic creation. The focus during the research will be the critical analysis on the contemporary practices of metadata retention and digital surveillance architecture exercised by internet companies, internationally…
NAKED LINK 2.0
WaveMakers Grants, Miami, FL, United States, 2016
Pilgram 2.0: Naked Link is a conceptual work that explores the boundaries between data visualization and art made from data collection, creating a link between scientific infovis & data sublimation. Pilgram 1.0 first iteration was made in the recently opened hotspots in Havana. This new iteration will show the invisible structures that tie the U.S. (Miami) and Cuba, monitoring and analyzing the packet data traffic. The naked links iteration will be a reflection of the existing communication infrastructure. We will display how the flow of communication between the two cities and the two countries is taking place now a days…
Pilgram 1.0
Pilgram 1.0 was a commission for an Instagram-based exhibition organized by Boffo NY Foundation. By offering free WiFi to those who came to the hotspots, I was able to gather meta-data of their Internet traffic. Software fed by this information generated basic circular shapes as graphics of users’ most-used apps and visited websites. By breaking down and imaging data I wanted to find patterns, trends, and correlations between the individuals and their internet usage, as a form of survey.
VRhole.net
12 Bienal de La Habana, Habana, Cuba, 2015
VR hole is a web-based piece & tool that explores the web browser as VR immersive experience.
Jailhead.com
This piece is part of a series called That Which Contains Emptiness, where I explore the inside of abandoned spaces that are loaded with historical meaning. Jailhead is the digital version of the Presidio Modelo, a former panopticon jail located in the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) in the south of Cuba. In this piece, I use raw 3D models and 3D scans, photos and sounds that I have captured in several visits to the prison. In the work, the online visitors can surf the prison in virtual reality devices via The Internet. Mirroring a real panopticon, the piece stores and shows their IP address, country and Internet Service Provider (ISP) in real time. As real inmates, they also have the opportunity to interact with each other.
(this piece is an ongoing research)
Songs for my Bookbag: The Heritage of my brothers upon falling
In this piece, the lyrics of nine fascist songs used during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain to indoctrinate children and youngsters pop up in a screen in the fashion of political propaganda phrases. The sound piece that accompanies the images is only discovered when using headphones, and shows the interpretation of lyrics by a chorus of children.
This series will continue to grow into an archive of songs used for social engineering in other countries and contexts.
Play and Learn: The Trees Prevent Us From Seeing the Forest
Play and Learn… is my first game art piece. It was made in Cuba, in 2007. Designed as an arcade-style game, in it the player is engaged in a virtual battle with the content and the graphics of the book Manual de educacion formal, a publication conceived to indoctrinate young people in the revolutionary Cuba following Che Guevara’s model of the New Man. This piece will form part of a more comprehensive project; a game console with ten similar games where I use content extracted from other books representing different ideologies from around the world.
From the Series: For Your Safety
For Your Safety is composed of sets of signs in differents formats and supports, from metal urban signs to stickers and animations, to other resources. I use pictograms from the International System of Typographic Picture Education (Isotype). Through this language, I bring personal narratives to the public space. These signs have been used to intervene public spaces in different cities including Havana, Toronto, Portugal, Mexico, Spain, and Brazil. My approach to this system of symbols is ludic –I like to subvert the rational and functional character of this language that is used to set city rules and commands.
Nothing is in Vain Everything is Forbidden
Nothing is in vain everything is prohibited explores the public space as a space of artistic resistance, using the language of signs as in its urban context. This piece, from the Circuito Cerrado series, deconstructs the system of public signs to turn them into spaces for personal visual storytelling with a focus on social criticism.
Series: Closed Circuit
Year: 2003
Material: Vinyl on metal
Dimensions: Variable