www.zexe.net, 2008.
Interactiva web installation

Registering Realities, Parasiting Networks: An Interview with Antoni Abad.

Interview conducted by Kim Sawchuk, 23-04-2008. Publicado por cortesía de la autora y de Wi: Journal of Mobile Media: http://wi.hexagram. ca Antoni Abad is a Catalan artist whose “canal” projects, broadcast on his website www.zexe.net, are intensive short-term collaborations with various diasporic communities.

Cab drivers in Mexico City, moto-boys in Sao Paulo, sex-workers in Madrid, the Roma people (gypsies) in Lleida, Spain, Nicaraguan immigrants living in Costa Rica and most recently handicapped participants in wheelchairs in Barcelona and Geneva have been given camera- phones to produce alternative images of and for their communities. These images are then transformed into flyers, posters, post cards and most importantly, they are broadcast on the World Wide Web using open source software developed by Abad and his team for the project.

The documentary images produced by these participants act as selfportraits, documents of their communities, visualizations of a city and diagrams of their trajectories through urban space. Although Abad’s participants-turned-broadcasters (or transmitters) are sometimes a well-defined and self-selecting group with already existing bonds, such as the Roma people and the Madrid prostitutes, Abad’s projects also have instigated political and social bonds beyond the time frame of one of his exhibitions. For example, the taxi drivers in Mexico City and the handicapped in Barcelona formed associations to lobby for social change after the exhibition. In this interview with Abad, conducted in October of 2007 at his home in Barcelona, Catalonia, he discusses the genesis of these projects, the potential of mobile technologies for activist art, and his processes of collaboration with these communities.
Kim: Why did you decide to work with cell phones and the web?
Antoni: In 2003 I had, for the first time, a cell phone with an integrated camera and I discovered that this little device –this little marvel of technology– had two possibilities that until that moment you couldn’t find in any other piece of hardware.
On the one hand, there was the possibility of registering fragments of reality, via multi-media. Video, audio, photography and text could be used in all of its combinations. On the other hand, it was a machine that could be connected to the Internet. I thought it was the perfect broadcasting machine, something that you can hide and put in your pocket.
K: It is very portable, isn’t it.
A: Portable and you can take to any remote place. Well not any, but where you can get a signal. In these places you can register reality and then send this data to the Internet. Immediately I thought that this technology could be used for something other than sending party photos. If one could organize a community with a small number of cell phones, maybe one could give this community the opportunity to express themselves without the necessity of waiting for the opinions given by the media.
K: Where do you get the phones?
A: I’ve been asked about it many times. Every time has been different. In Mexico we had the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was quite easy, like Fudafone Telefonica gave the phones and access and space on the net. That was great, it was the first time and we were able to do it. A couple of times, like with the gypsies and the disabled, Nokia gave the phones.
K: Did you approach Nokia?
A: In Spain I did. In Costa Rica we bought illegal phones from Venezuela. In Brazil, I had 10 phones that were left from the project with Nokia in Barcelona and I smuggled them in Brazil, which is risky because you can be put in jail and fined double the price of the phones. I took ten phones in my luggage. It’s hard work negotiating to get the technology to people who don’t have access to technology. We’ve negotiated with Nokia in Madrid, we’ve been negotiation in Costa Rica with a cellular company that gave us the network. We have these meetings and then, in a couple of hours, we’re in the middle of a market with a minimum. In my life there are a lot of contrasts and it has a lot to do with how technology is negotiated within the world. As an artist, I am happy to face these challenges. It gives me knowledge of our present and it takes me into a whole new spectrum. I’m not saying I’m a prophet; I am only negotiating. I have had questions from Brazil about working with multinationals and the influence of their agendas on my projects. I’ve been asked if my projects depend on those agendas. I don’t know. I’m only parasiting those networks. There’s no way that technology stops so we have to try tricks to parasite inside those networks. I can show you shops in Barcelona where you can buy a cell phone with integrated camera for 20 euro.

Antoni Abad:

Antoni Abad was born in Lleida in 1956, and he currently lives in Barcelona. His projects have been presented at the Espacio Uno/ Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, 1997; Museo de Arte Moderno of Buenos Aires, 1999; 2nd Ibero-American Biennial of Lima, 1999; MECAD/ ZKM’net_condition, Karlsruhe, 1999; Dapertutto, the Venice Biennial, 1999; Media Lounge/ New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2001; Hamburger Banhof, Berlin, 2002; Museu d’Art Contemporani of Barcelona, 2003; P.S.1/ MoMA, New York, 2003; Cultural Centre of Spain, Mexico City, 2004; 1st Biennial of Seville, 2004; Centre d’Art La Panera, Lleida, 2005; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), 2005; La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2005; Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, 2006; Estrecho dudoso: Tráficos, Fundación Teorética, San José, Costa Rica, 2006; Sao Paulo Cultural Centre, Brazil, 2007; Centre d’Art Contemporaine, Geneva, 2008; The Discreet Charm of Technology, MEIAC, Badajoz, 2008; Banquete_ nodos y redes, Centro de Arte Laboral, Gijón, 2008; Souls and Machines, Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2008 and on the internet. The canal*ACCESSIBLE project at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica was awarded the National Visual Arts Prize of the Regional Government of Catalonia and the Golden Nica Digital Communities Award of Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, 2006. www.zexe.net