Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwor20 Download by: [Stefanie Kogler] Date: 17 March 2016, At: 02:50 World Art ISSN: 2150-0894 (Print) 2150-0908 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwor20 The art practice of Carlos Motta and the archive as tool for re-enactment and communication Stefanie B. Kogler To cite this article: Stefanie B. Kogler (2016): The art practice of Carlos Motta and the archive as tool for re-enactment and communication, World Art, DOI: 10.1080/21500894.2016.1153515 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2016.1153515 Published online: 16 Mar 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data
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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwor20
Download by: [Stefanie Kogler] Date: 17 March 2016, At: 02:50
The art practice of Carlos Motta and the archive astool for re-enactment and communication
Stefanie B. Kogler
To cite this article: Stefanie B. Kogler (2016): The art practice of Carlos Motta and the archiveas tool for re-enactment and communication, World Art, DOI: 10.1080/21500894.2016.1153515
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2016.1153515
The art practice of CarlosMotta and the archive as toolfor re-enactment and communication
Stefanie B. Kogler*
School of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
This essay discusses the practice of contemporary, multidisciplinaryartist Carlos Motta (Colombia/USA), who explores history, politics,religion, sexuality, and gender in the context of today’s democracy,and from the view of side-lined groups and their subjective views.Approaching this topic from a distinctly leftist political field, Mottacritiques democracy as a political framework that imposes the rule ofthe majority upon minorities, who are obliged to adhere to hegemonicnorms that determine their way of economic, social, and politicalengagement. Motta’s strategy traverses extensive research and theformation of online archives through which he establishes carefullycurated repositories that critique power relations and the hegemony ofthe majority. He furthermore, uses documents from the archive to re-enact and re-contextualize historical events in contemporary settings.This multifaceted approach contributes to the creation of multiplevoices that are in dialogue with each other. As a result, the artist’spractice underlines the significance of archives and their contingencyfor the future, as well as their potential to provoke change. This essayargues that Motta uses the archive as a tool for communication andimpetus for action. Through this artist’s contribution to contemporaryart, he unearths pressing issues concerning unequal power relations,opening avenues for discussion and debate.
Keywords: online digital archives; communication; activism; democracy
In his seminal essay, ‘An Archival Impulse’ (2004), Hal Foster outlines theaims of artists who work with the archive: ‘Archival artists seek to makehistorical information, often lost or displaced, physically present’ (4).Foster points to the mining of information, and its re-contextualizationin the present to produce counter-memory. The incorporation of archivalpractices in contemporary art creates works that reimagine the past andunderline the malleability of documents through processes of intenseinvestigation. The ongoing global and far-reaching practice of CarlosMotta exemplifies this approach, adding research and activism as integralcomponents. This artist revisits and re-contextualizes the past through
historical and political re-enactments. Moreover, he creates curated onlinearchives that engage critically with issues of democracy, and the role ofgender and sexuality. More than static repositories, Motta’s practice usesthe archive as a fluid instrument for action and critique:
[I] approach the concept of democracy from the perspective of ‘marginal’social groups and make visible a set of nuanced critiques of democracy,which have been historically repressed by the mainstream. I am interestedin how citizens and organized social movements both perceive and enact pol-itical processes. (Kogler 2013: 3)
This essay discusses how six of his projects, all of which are part of theseries Democracy Cycle (2005–15), use the archive as reflexive tool forcommunication, action, and re-enactment of documents. Art21 Magazine(2011) states clearly that communication is one of the main concernswithin his art practice: ‘I am interested in art projects that show long-term investment in research and aesthetic questions, and that are avehicle for communication and social transformation.’Motta instrumenta-lizes the process of research and curating the archive’s content to establisha space for alternative ideas, subjective perceptions, and personal historiesthat provide a forum for open discussion.
Ridener (2009: 148–51) describes the way in which archives haveacquired ‘an increased level of subjectivity. [… ] Rather than a simpleaccumulation of material, the archive itself [is] an expression of the archi-vist’s point of view’. This is apparent inMotta’s practice. The curated onlinearchives, including publications, transcriptions of interviews, and lists ofevents, are accessible and downloadable for free from the respective web-sites, encouraging an active engagement with the documents.
Further to this, each of the six projects encompasses multichannel videoinstallations of interviews, re-enacted speeches, and sermons in galleriesand museums. Alongside these, objects, photographs, and drawings,created by the artist, are exhibited inviting the audience to spend time withthe archives-cum-exhibitions. Adding another dimension to his artworks,their physical and aesthetic incarnation investigate the various problemsposed by Motta, allowing for an exchange to take place that is differentfromwhat is experienced through the online archives. By inhabiting galleriesand museum spaces, Motta’s practice creates a tension between the archive,the exhibition, and that of a repository in the form of a display. While in allcases the results are curated, they are experienced differently – and mostimportantly, subjectively – by the visitor to the exhibition and the user ofthe online archive. Nevertheless, all examples attest to the political ideasand inherent motivations of the works, and the use of the archive as a criticaltool in both the online repositories and the resulting exhibitions.
Motta’s use of the archive brings to light Mike Featherstone’s (2006)assertion that archives change over time and depend upon the context in
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which they are kept and administered in order to acquire significance.Featherstone further asserts that documents move between meaningsand importance and hold ‘a high degree of contingency’ (592–3). Thisbecomes apparent in works such as Six Acts: An Experiment in NarrativeJustice (2010), and DEUS POBRE: Modern Sermons of CommunalLament (2011).1 In both works, Motta collaborated with actors andordained priests who re-read historic political speeches in Six Acts, andsermons of Liberation Theology, a movement that originated during the1960s and 1970s in the Catholic Church in Latin America, in DEUSPOBRE. The performative re-enactment of the speeches and sermons inpublic spaces activates the contingency of documents, enabling theiraesthetic re-contextualization through the videos and their installation ingalleries and museums.
Motta also creates contingent archives recalling Jacques Derrida’s(1995) claim for the role of repositories in the future. Derrida assertsthat the collection of archival material in the present asserts ‘a responsibil-ity for tomorrow [and] should call into question the coming of the future’(34). Motta’s practice focuses on forgoing nexuses throughout history bycreating projects that collect contemporary reactions to the role of democ-racy throughout Latin America and Sweden. This includes the works LaBuena Vida/The Good Life (2005–8), and The Immigrant Files: Democ-racy is Not Dead; It Just Smells Funny (2009). In La Buena Vida/TheGood Life, Motta creates a vast online archive of over 360 interviewswith people in the streets of 12 cities throughout Latin America.2 Theproject further consists of a publication of critical texts written by scholarsand art professionals, and descriptions of the installation of the work ingalleries and museums. The result is an archive of subjective and criticalanswers to questions relating to historic interventions in Latin Americaby the United States, the current state of democracy in Latin America,and a desire for a political system that is built upon justice and equality.
For The Immigrant Files, Motta travelled to Sweden to investigate thestate of democracy there, since the idea of the Swedish model of democracywas mentioned and praised as an ideal form of government in severalinterviews for La Buena Vida. The Immigrant Files consists of eight inter-views conducted with activists, politicians, scholars, and professionals whohad immigrated to Sweden and were engaged in various ways with thedemocratic process there. The interviewees reveal a persistent tendencyto marginalize some groups, while also forcing integration of immigrantsinto Swedish society, therefore foregoing a truly democratic process onequal terms. Through the experiences and observations captured in theinterviews, this project reveals a complex relationship and nuancedcritique of Sweden’s current form of democracy.
In We Who Feel Differently (2012), and Gender Talents (2015), theartist explores constructed ideas of gender and sexuality pitted against
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hegemonic and heteronormative values in countries including Colombia,Guatemala, India, Norway, South Korea, and the United States. Again con-sisting of online archives of texts written by scholars and activists, andnumerous interviews and portraits conducted throughout these countries,the projects delve deeper into the role of sexuality and the imposition ofstandards that determine the conditions of inclusion for the lesbian, gay,and bisexual community inWeWho Feel Differently and for the transgen-der and intersex communities in Gender Talents. Both projects highlightthe wish for being accepted on equal terms, rather than being forced toconform to a hegemonic system of gender, relationships, and sexuality.3
Motta’s practice operates on various levels. On the one hand, throughaccessing the archive in order to find and then perform documents fromthe past in the present, he re-enacts the document’s contingency in SixActs and DEUS POBRE. On the other hand, Motta’s curated onlinearchives acquire contingency, through the reactivation of these documentsin future. Featherstone (2006) serves as an aid to comprehend Motta’spractice in terms of contingency, and the archive as a space that containsthe potential for unearthing decentred and alternative knowledges.
All works in the series discussed here show an intense interest in the con-ditions of democracy and free access to information online. This suggeststhe democratization of the archive and increased information exchange.Simultaneously, Motta asserts authority by carefully curating his body ofwork in order to compose effective criticisms of democracy and presentviews from a marginal perspective. This marks an alignment with Foster’s(2004: 6) and Featherstone’s (2006) observations that artists use archivesas a fertile ground to present counter-memories. Further, Motta createsrepositories that are firmly set within an artistic, multimedia, and activistcontext. This paper focuses on contemporary art’s increased use of thearchive as a malleable, and ultimately, critical tool. The following pagesunderline the multifaceted use of the archive as a tool for communicationand stimulus for debate, underlining the role of curated online repositoriesin creating subjective accounts and re-contextualizing myriad histories.
Critical contingency in digital archives
Archives, far from being merely holding places for documents, ephemera,audio and video recordings amongst other materials, are spaces in which,over time, documents are revisited. Archives are, moreover, contingent andleave a trace from the past for re-contextualization in the present andfuture. This recalls Derrida’s (1995: 33–4) proposal that repositories actas critical tools not only now, but also in future: archival material will con-tinue to assert new meaning and, more importantly, open the possibilityfor critical reading.
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This is reiterated by Featherstone (2006), who underlines the contin-gency of archival documents and their changing meaning. He also dis-cusses digital archives, observing that they are more akin to databases inwhich information ‘flows through decentered networks’ (595). This maybe debatable: while it can be argued that Motta’s online archives are data-bases of information, their subjective framing and aims, which are deter-mined by the artist, transform these databases into digital archives ofthe history and memories of marginal groups. Rather than mere databases,these archives represent a subjective position and form a critique thatdiffers to otherwise static, classified archives.
Moreover, the possibility of access to digital archives suggests thepotential for interpretations made by the users who are able to accessand search its varying categories. This includes users other than, forexample, researchers and artists who enter these archives. This echoesDerrida’s belief that the archive should be accessible in order to promotedemocratic involvement in the archive’s interpretation:
There is no political power without control of the archive. [… ] Effectivedemocratization can always be measured by this essential criterion: the par-ticipation in and the access to the archive, its constitution and its interpret-ation. (Derrida 1995: 4)
According to this often cited passage, democratization can only beachieved through the open access to the archive and the assertion ofcontrol over the re-contextualization of archival material by not onlyresearchers and artists but also the public.4 Patrick Joyce (1999: 37)asserts that ‘an archive exists because there is a user to give it meaning’.Both Derrida and Joyce declare the importance of users in the re-contex-tualization of documents; however, neither mentions the subjectivity ofeach user and the archivist that influences the interpretation and collectionof documents. The role of archives as tools for communication brings to thefore the subjectivity with which the repository is created and accessed. As aresult, the re-contextualization of documents is in continuous flux, broughton by their contingency and the subjective approach by the user who entersthem, and the archivist who determines the contents of the repository.
In the case of Carlos Motta’s artistic practice, the artist acts in bothcapacities. He accesses and re-contextualizes contingent documents inSix Acts and DEUS POBRE. Moreover, Motta produces online archivesfor the works La Buena Vida, The Immigrant Files, We Who Feel Differ-ently and Gender Talents. In his own words, the artist explains the roleof the archive in his projects as follows:
As archives these works are also springboards, not only to engage with thematerials that are there, but also actually to use them as a way of discussingthose very things they present. (Kogler 2013: 11–12)
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Through the content and the framing of the artworks and archives, theartist seeks to provide an impetus for debate. The online archives preservetraces that provide an insight into the moment in which the documentswere created and relate to such issues as religion, politics, sexuality, andhistory. Motta’s aim is to activate discussion through the archive and there-enactment of documents. He further instrumentalizes the archive andthe internet as an open space to re-contextualize and create documents.However, rather than democratizing the archive and archival material,Motta asserts authority and control over the creation of carefully curatedrepositories and re-enactments that pose a critique of democracy.
This echoes the hypothesis of de Jong and Harney (2015), who proposethat artists use the archive to subvert hegemonic and colonial represen-tations and point to the issues faced by marginal communities. Mottaclearly acts against mainstream ideas and reactionary politics that do notallow for other voices to be heard. In fact, he silences these voices andunderlines marginal positions that oppose repression. Motta’s artworkscall for equality within democracy. The archive becomes a tool to createa space for communication and critique of political and religious repres-sion, as will be seen in the following examples.
Six Acts: An Experiment in Narrative Justice (2010) andDEUS POBRE: Modern Sermons of Communal Lament (2011)
These works exemplify Motta’s practice of re-enacting historical docu-ments. The artist delved into the history of twentieth-century political elec-tions in Colombia, as well as underlying arguments of Liberation Theologyin Latin America. In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, actors and actresses re-read six speeches of political leaders in public places as part of Six Acts.In Porto, Portugal, priests re-read sermons of Liberation Theology inDEUS POBRE. These re-enactments were recorded on video, creatingaudiovisual records for the online archive and for their exhibition in gal-leries and museums. Both artworks engage with violent political and reli-gious pasts that are critiqued through historic speeches and sermons.
In Colombia, the historical speeches were by left-wing, liberal politicalleaders who were active at different times throughout the twentiethcentury.5 All were assassinated due to their political beliefs, and while cam-paigning for elections. The speeches were in turn staged during the run-up tothe Colombian presidential elections in 2010, marking a timely convergencebetween this singular political event and various political rallies in the past.
The speeches include Rafael UribeUribe’s ‘TheHomeland and Freedom’from1901, reaffirming theneed to forma just government in order to defendfreedom and encourage patriotism. This is offset by Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’sspeech ‘Prayer for Peace’, directly addressed to the then presidentMariano Ospina Pérez (1946–50), pleading for an end to the systematic
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political violence in which the country began to be entrenched. This speechwas the result of a peaceful protest that took place on 7 February 1948 inBogotá, where members of the public demanded an end to the fightingbetween opposing parties and communities.
Over 40 years later, yet more impassioned calls for restoring peace inColombia were uttered by political leaders. Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa’sspeech from 1989, ‘For Peace’, was presented during his tenure as Presidentof the Unión Patriotica (Patriotic Union). He vehemently arguesfor diplomacy and negotiations between warring factions including the guer-rilla, government and the paramilitary in order to reach a peace agreement.Similarly, Carlos Pizarro, former commander of the M-19 guerrilla forces,calls for social justice in his speech from 1990. He also calls for a representa-tive and participatory democracy that will lead to a united Colombia.
Political violence has been an ingrained aspect of Colombia’s history,and trade unions are particularly under threat. Jaime Pardo Leal’s shortand untitled speech from 1986 points to the threats to life endured bythe members of the Union of Young Patriots, of which he was the leader.He further asserts his unrelenting support for socialism and for therights of workers in Colombia.
The inherent subjectivity of this artwork becomes apparent if we con-sider that all speeches are part of the political left in Colombia. Neverthe-less, this aspect only underlines one dimension, since all speeches ask forpeace and equality within Colombia that is enacted through democracy andparticipation. The fact that all politicians were assassinated points tointense efforts of repression by the opposing parties, and therefore, afailure to enact democracy on equal terms.
Perhaps the most poignant result of this artwork was a merging of aes-thetic representation, Colombia’s reality, and its need for democraticreform. The re-enactment of ‘A Program for Victory’, a speech that was pre-sented by Luis Carlos Galán in 1989, provoked reactions from the bystan-ders who listened. The speech presented a program of systematic change atgovernment level to restore peace and promote social and economic devel-opment. During the recording of this re-enactment, which took place inSoacha Park where Galán was assassinated, a group of elderly peopleapproached the film crew and began a dialogue in response to thespeech, which they thought was genuine. The group asked to be supportedin their struggle and daily hardship they experienced (Figure 2). Such anunscripted and unexpected result following this speech demonstrated thework’s success, according to Motta:
The performance stopped being a representation/reflection about politics, tobe politics proper. That was really fantastic because it made representationand fiction look each other in the eyes and test each other’s limits. (Kogler2013: 8)
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As a result of these re-enactments, past concerns found an uncannycontinuation in the present. The speeches provoked urgency and under-lined the way in which social, economic, and political issues havechanged little in Colombia. They are still relevant today and speak topeople in their struggle for democratic representation, and the wish toachieve peace in a country that suffered from internal conflict for over60 years. The timely re-enactments of the speeches, immediately beforethe presidential elections in 2010, brought these challenges to light andprovided a reflexive re-enactment of documents within a new historicalcontext, giving them fresh relevance.
The similarly violent history pertaining to the complicit role of thechurch in the conquest and colonization of the Americas, and which ismet with equal vocal resistance, is subject of DEUS POBRE. ‘Deus pobre’translates from the Portuguese as ‘impoverished God’, and the projectre-enacts sermons of Liberation Theology. This movement emerged fromwithin the church in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. It decid-edly rejects the unequal structures of power and economic wealth that aremaintained, and which oppress and subjugate indigenous and poor people.Liberation Theology proposes a life without wealth in order to connect withGod in a more meaningful way.
The sermons arguing for a more spiritual state that excludes wealthinclude those by Gustavo Gutiérrez (1971), Óscar Romero (1977–80),and Leonardo Boff (1996). Furthermore, accounts by priests who wit-nessed the conquest and subsequent colonization of the Americas werealso re-enacted. At the heart of their critique lay the exploitation and ensla-vement of indigenous people for material gain. This includes the re-readingof sermons by António Vieira (1653–57) and an excerpt from A ShortAccount of the Destruction of the Indies (1542), written by Bartolomé delas Casas, in which the author condemns the treatment endured by theindigenous people at the hand of the Spanish conquerors and colonizers.All sermons and accounts were read by ordained priests who have an inter-est in this field of theology.6
The re-enactments took place in churches, monasteries, and thegrounds of the Serralves museum in Porto. Much like the speeches re-enacted in Six Acts, the choice of location for this project plays asignificant role. The political speeches were brought to the present inplaces of historical significance, and public spaces that invite communi-cation. Motta explains the selected readings and choice of locations forDEUS POBRE:
The texts I chose … speak to power fromwithin churches. [… ] It was signifi-cant to me to symbolically contain these performances within that samespace of religious practice as a form of resistance. Both, in that it acts asan architecture of power in relationship to the institution of the church,
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but also as a place of individual faith and a relationship with God that is verymuch a personal one. (Kogler 2013: 7)
The churches and monasteries invite an intimate communication withone’s faith, while at the same time containing an institutional critiqueagainst its shortcomings. With the exception of the grounds of the Ser-ralves Museum, the project examines the ambiguous role of the churchin criticizing yet colluding with the violence and oppression imposed bySpanish and Portuguese colonizers. The sermons reject the exploitationof indigenous people on the grounds of economic gains, and emphasizethe role of poverty as a true form of Christianity. Further, respect andlove for people is inherent in these sermons and forms a significant basisof these teachings.
As has been shown, both projects re-enact documents from the past togive them new significance in the present. While this, and the critique ofpower relations, is at the core of these artworks, their realization in gal-leries and museums differs. Six Acts requires several monitors and projec-tion space that show the videos. Since the emphasis rests upon the contentof the speeches, the installation is minimal (Figure 1). On the other hand,DEUS POBRE consists of ‘floating’ screens on which are projected the re-readings on one side, and videos shot throughout Latin America on theother. These include moving images of church interiors in CentralAmerica, images of individuals in Caracas, Venezuela, re-enacting theStations of the Cross, as well as indigenous people among ruins of pre-Columbian temples in Mexico (Figures 3 and 4).
The juxtaposition of the sermons re-read in churches, gardens andmonasteries in Porto, and the images from across Latin America, mark adichotomy between the spoken, re-enacted words on one side of the projec-tion, and the silent images of a colonized and oppressed continent on the
other. Moreover, the installation also includes a series of puzzles with ico-nographic images of saints that are placed on shelves in the gallery. Theseare located in a darkened corner and individually lit, allowing a private andintimate engagement with the images, mirroring personal prayer andcontemplation.
The re-enactment of contingent documents, revealing new meanings inthe present, marks Motta’s practice in both works of art. Much like hisother works (discussed below), they afford close examination and engage-ment with the ideas presented in them. The speeches enacted in Six Actsunderline the need for an open and public dialogue, one that leads topeace and democratic representation of the left. DEUS POBRE emphasizesan individual and personal role and the responsibility to carry forth ideasof Liberation Theology. In both cases, the performing of documents chal-lenges power relations in that they look at the political left in Colombiaand critical voices within the church that propose a different engagementbetween God and people.
Nevertheless, the results are not static, rather the video documentscreated by Motta continue to be in flux and persistently change theirmeaning. For example, the 2010 presidential elections in Colombia havepassed, and the video documents now attest to a history of violence.During their creation in 2010, Motta sought to highlight a political lack
in Colombia – namely, that of a weak and fragmented left. The project’srole in 2010 was therefore different than it is today. Conversely, DEUSPOBRE attests to a history of colonization as viewed through LiberationTheology and a critique of hierarchies entrenched within the church.These works use documents from the archive, while the works in thenext section consist of online archives that the artist curates in order toconvey information and stimulate debate.
Archivist, researcher, exhibitions
In his practice, Motta also asserts the role as researcher and archivistestablishing online repositories that will acquire new meaning over timeand that will be re-read in future, thereby inverting the practice outlinedpreviously. Featherstone (2006: 592–4) recounts that, in the past, govern-mental archives helped to create communities that mirrored the idea of thenation, while more recently, ‘diasporic archives’ mirror the ‘desires andmemories’ of migrant and minority groups. Motta’s framing of theseworks rests within this latter field, and forms an integral part of creatingopportunity for debate, and re-contextualization in the future.
The online archives include The Immigrant Files: Democracy is notDead; It Just Smells Funny (2009) and La Buena Vida/The GoodLife (2005–8), as well as We Who Feel Differently (2012) and GenderTalents (2013–15). These respective works highlight the subjective experi-ences of individuals and marginal social groups within democracy invarious countries in the world. Motta acts as researcher, interviewer,curator, and archivist, since he undertook extensive investigations and tra-velled at length to record and collect video interviews. He then edited thevideos and curated the online archives to present repositories reflecting theviews of minorities within democracy.
The websites for each project also comprise publications containingessays written by scholars, researchers, and activists, and transcriptionsof interviews that can be downloaded for free. All websites, apart fromThe Immigrant Files, are categorized and ordered according to themedium of documents. This includes a section for the video interviews –or, in the case of Gender Talents, these are categorized as portraits – aswell as a section with information about the framing of the project, andanother containing the accompanying publication and events. Some ofthe websites include lists of associated events, such as Gender Talentsand We Who Feel Differently. Again, it becomes apparent that theexchange of information, and the creation of a platform for discussion isa significant aspect of these works.
While the above describes the online archives, the exhibitions inmuseums and galleries underlines Motta’s interest in the creation ofspaces in which debate becomes a possibility. This additional and integral
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component of his practice involves carefully curated displays that presentthe information gathered by the artist in participatory and reflective ways.For each project, the artist also creates numerous objects, such as thepuzzles outlined earlier in the exhibition of DEUS POBRE. He also pro-duces drawings, and in the case of La Buena Vida/The Good Life, aseries of photographs of political and subversive graffiti taken throughoutLatin America.
In all exhibitions, video monitors run the interviews, sermons, andspeeches in a loop. For The Immigrant Files, La Buena Vida/The GoodLife, We Who Feel Differently, and Gender Talents, visitors are invitedto sit on especially designed seats, and listen to the interviews throughindividual headphones (Figures 5–7). Opportunity to browse the respect-ive online archives is also provided through a computer that is connectedto the internet. The installations seek to perform a participatory functionthat allows the audience to engage with the archives in a physical space.The artist asserts that the online archives
Manifest as physical installations, as (social) sculptures, social spaces to holdpublic events, etc. I am interested in the idea that artworks aren’t solely (anarrangement of) objects that are passively waiting to be discovered but rathersituations that need to be activated by an audience – each of whom have adifferent experience. (Kogler 2013: 12)
This further speaks to the artist’s multifaceted approach transcendingthe virtual space and encompassing galleries and museums. Both under-line the engagement by users with the online archive, and that of the
visitors with the exhibitions, as an important component in his practice.Through exchange and interaction, the archive as artwork is ultimatelyactivated.
Nevertheless, the potential to create debate in galleries and museums isthreatened by the fact that the visitor can only listen to the interviews
through individual headphones, rather than as a group. Moreover, themore permanent state of online archives suggests the possibility of consist-ent engagement with their information than does their installation in gal-leries and museums which are short-lived. In both cases, the artistincorporates the online archive in his practice as a tool for communication.The amalgamation of research, video, documents, and publications, alsohighlights their potential for debate and action through the themespresented.
Curated online archives
All online archives that form part of Motta’s works consist of several com-ponents that allow the user to navigate through the wealth of informationpresented. The website to La Buena Vida/The Good Life consists ofperhaps the most intricate categorizations of its contents (Figure 8). Thisproject consists of 360 video interviews based on the following questions:
. Do you have any knowledge or opinion about US foreign policy inregard to Latin America?
. Do you remember any instance of US intervention in LatinAmerica?
. What do you think are the effects of these interventions in the localpopulation?
. What is your opinion about the current form of government:democracy?
. How would you like to be governed?
. What are your expectations of a leader?
The questions posed investigate the personal knowledge of people aboutmultilateral politics, historical interventions, democracy, and leadership.The project did not arrive at a singular view; rather, the many differentsubjective views and answers create a myriad of responses that wereunique to each interviewee.
The interviews can be searched by occupation, gender, age range, city,and themes, which include keywords such as violence, war, capitalism, reli-gion, democracy, and socialism. Not all interviews are subtitled in English,creating a difficulty in accessing the information for those who do notspeak Spanish or Portuguese; however, a function is provided that filtersthe interviews subtitled in English for the user. The site is translatedinto Spanish, making most of its contents accessible in both English andSpanish.
While La Buena Vida/The Good Life considers a broad cross-section ofviews, The Immigrant Files focuses on seven people with grounded knowl-edge and experience of the status of immigrants, and that of democracy, inSweden. The project consists of interviews conducted with non-govern-mental organizations, activists and politicians that live and work in thatcountry. The transcripts are available, together with a 192-page publicationin Swedish and English online, and reveal a nuanced critique of democracyand integration efforts of immigrants in Sweden. This project explored thenotion, apparent in La Buena Vida/The Good Life and conveyed in numer-ous interviews, that the Swedish model of democracy is the most desirableand successful one.
The result of The Immigrant Files is a sobering investigation into thecurrent state of democracy in Sweden. The interviews reveal a struggleon the part of immigrants to be incorporated equally, and democratically,into Swedish society. The forced integration that is taking place overridesthe cultures and languages immigrants bring with them upon enteringSweden. The chasm between immigrants and those who already live inSweden widens rather than being bridged. This is echoed through theessay written by Diana Mulinari (2009: 135) as part of the publicationaccompanying the project. She outlines that:
The culturalist discourse constructs ‘migrants’ as an undifferentiated wholein terms of assumed uniform ‘cultural’ traits that distinguish the ‘west’ fromthe ‘rest’ and ‘them’ from ‘us’. These policies not only result in an increase of
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criminalization of migrants but also in silencing issues of poverty, insti-tutional racism and exclusion.
Similar issues arise in an interview with Carlos Díaz, Project Leader andEducator for the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-gender rights based in Stockholm. He outlines how homosexuality isdependent upon heterosexual norms in order to be accepted. This includes,for example, marriage. He questions these norms and how they are instru-mentalized in order to overcome difference within democracy. He outlinesthe basis for discrimination in the law as, for example, transgender peopleare not integrated within them, erasing their participation in democraticprocesses as protected citizens. These conditions are repeated and dealtwith in more detail inWeWho Feel Differently andGender Talents. There-fore, an overlap of issues exists throughout the works in this series.
Upon closer inspection of the videos for both projects, the variousanswers of the many respondents may well be different today, especiallyfollowing the first indications of the financial crisis of 2008 and the auster-ity measures experienced in various countries since. The curated onlinearchives attest to a time just before and during impacting changes inworld economy. It becomes clear that its contents will have changedtheir meaning and are today viewed differently than when first created –demonstrating how such documents and archives are contingent and willcontinue to alter their meaning in future.
Further aspects differ between these works; for example, for La BuenaVida/The Good Life, Motta selected people to interview at random inpublic spaces throughout Latin America. On the other hand, for The Immi-grant Files, he interviewed selected individuals with direct experience ofthe Swedish model of democracy, seeking their views on this system of gov-ernment. While the first work was framed through the six questions, thesecond was framed by the selection of interviewees. In all cases, theartist asserts authority by selecting the various interviewees and formingthe questions.
It becomes apparent that Motta’s practice seeks to minimize the gapbetween politics and art through collecting the responses of the many indi-viduals he interviews, establishing online archives, and presenting hisworks withinmuseums and galleries. This multifaceted approach incorpor-ates his authority in the selection and curatorial choices undertaken in thisprocess. This opens debate and the potential for action. The gap betweenart and politics is bridged through intense research, collection, and preser-vation of documents and data, and finally, exhibitions that are realized inactual spaces. This is also inherent in the staging and capturing of the inter-views in the numerous video documents adding yet another visual layer tothe works, namely one that is embedded within the document and forms asignificant aspect of its aesthetic experience.
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The framework for the projects We Who Feel Differently and GenderTalents is similar. These are Motta’s latest works, and approach democracyfrom the perspective of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex,Queer and Questioning (LGBTIQQ) position. The works consist of col-lected interviews and, in the case of Gender Talents, video portraits.They also consist of publications and symposia organized in connectionwith the research undertaken. This includes ‘Gender Talents: A SpecialAddress’, a symposium held at Tate Tanks, London in 2013, and ‘WeWho Feel Differently: A Symposium’ held at the New Museum,New York in 2012. Both artworks, much like the previous examples,provide an outlet via an online archive.
In We Who Feel Differently, Motta interviewed 50 respondents includ-ing activists, artists, scholars, and writers. The interviews are in some casesan hour long, and are presented on the website in up to four parts. Further,the audio files can be downloaded, as can the transcripts of all interviews.The website also hosts a downloadable publication presenting summariesof the interviews, as well as a journal of essays and list of associated eventsthat includes film screenings, artist talks, interviews and exhibitions of theproject in the United States, Colombia, and Norway.
This archive provides similar search functions as those of La BuenaVida/The Good Life, in that the interviews are searchable through termsthat include ‘adoption’, ‘love’, ‘transphobia’, and ‘civil rights’, to namejust a few. The artist interviewed individuals who have experience of,and work within, the field of Queer Theory. Just as Motta chose the inter-viewees for The Immigrant Files, the content for We Who Feel Differentlyis carefully curated to form an argument for the deconstruction of sexu-ality, challenging prejudice and arguing for equality.
This is also applicable to Gender Talents, which focuses upon transgen-der and intersex communities in India, the United States and Colombia.This project charts their struggle for recognition and inclusion in thedemocratic processes in these countries. The collected portraits mark adifference from the other works, in that they provide its content in a docu-mentary style. Some of the portraits are shot during the night and accom-pany transgender sex workers on the streets in Guatemala City. Othervideos show interviews conducted with human rights activists and foun-ders of various organizations that provide support for transgender individ-uals in their local towns and cities. The focus in this project differs fromthat of We Who Feel Differently, in that the videos are less an academicexploration than a documentary survey of the work conducted at certainlocations in which transgender communities live and work.
Motta’s aim through both projects is to critique the attempts of normal-izing LGBTIQQ issues that aid their inclusion within a hegemonic frame-work, rather than recognizing these marginal communities with theirdifferences. The artist seeks recognition of equality rather than pressure
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to comply with normative ideas of, for example, marriage and monog-amous relationships. He invites recognition that through processes suchas these, marginal groups are being normalized according to a hegemonicstandard, rather than respected. This in turn echoes the imposition ofnorms established by the majority upon minorities, leading to their subju-gation to standards that do not resonate with theirs. Motta’s series Democ-racy Cycle is underpinned by this critique.
Archives and action
Motta’s subjective and critical archives do not provide solutions to theproblem of economic dominance, the failure of democracy or social injus-tice; rather, he unearths the problems that exist within democracy. The aimof Motta’s artistic practice is ‘to underline the need for systematization ofinquiry (political, social and historical) and rejection (of abuse, manipu-lation and violence)’ (Motta 2008: 17). By approaching these problems sys-tematically, understanding their causes, and using the archive as a fluidand critical device, Motta’s artworks yield potential to contribute tochange through communication.
Motta, like numerous artists who engage intensively with the archive,seeks to address issues in the present that arose from the past. The artistasserts authority over the archive in order to point out its potential topresent views that originate from a marginal perspective. Through theprocess of entering the archive and re-enacting documents, he highlightsrepressed histories, and presents counter-memories. This becomes appar-ent in Six Acts andDEUS POBRE, which highlight the changing meaning ofdocuments.
On the other hand, through his creation of curated online archives, theartist creates repositories that are framed by the perceptions and opinionspertaining to marginal groups in society, revealing both the subjectivity ofthe individual and that of the archive as a result.
All curated online archives presented here consist of a peripateticpractice that encompasses three continents. They also present far-reachingacademic as well as everyday views that draw out similarities and contra-dictions between each project. Out of this multifaceted artistic practiceemerge aesthetic and social inroads into activism and debate, urgingchange toward a potentially more equal democracy.
This is supported by the fact that Motta’s works require an audience tospend time and engage with their content in order to activate communi-cation and debate. This may stand in the way of evoking a generalized dis-cussion, since the content is rich. The online archives hold vast andintricate documentation that require a close and time-consuming engage-ment with the experiences and perceptions of marginal groups. Further tothat, the archives reflect a view that was captured during a particular time,
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making them subject to re-contextualizations in the future. This artist’scontribution to contemporary art consists of a re-evaluation of the roleof digital, online archives as active tools for communication and action,inspiring firmer political conviction. As outlined here, the archives andexhibitions are animated through their interaction by users of the websitesand visitors to the exhibitions. Through combining these elements, theworks seek to evoke change through counter-hegemonic practices.
Notes on contributorStefanie B. Kogler is a PhD candidate at the School of Philosophy and Art History, Univer-sity of Essex, UK. Her ISLAA/Silberrad funded thesis explores exhibitions of art from LatinAmerica and Latino art in the United States between 1956 and 2004. Between 2014 and2015, she contributed to the Unplace project with a presentation and publication DivergentHistories and Digital Archives of Latin American and Latino art in the United States- OldProblems in New Digital Formats. She has worked on archive projects and exhibitions inthe UK, and continues to research the intersection of art, digital media, and curating.
Notes1. The projects are accessible online: http://carlosmotta.com/project/deus-pobre-
modern-sermons-of-communal-lament-2011/ (DEUS POBRE) and http://car-losmotta.com/project/six-acts-an-experiment-in-narrative-justice-2010/ (SixActs).
2. Motta interviewed a variety of people in the streets ofMexico City, Mexico; Gua-temala City, Guatemala; San Salvador, El Salvador; Tegucigalpa, Honduras;Managua, Nicaragua; Panama City, Panama; Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Vene-zuela; São Paulo, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia; Santiago, Chile; and Buenos Aires,Argentina.
3. All projects discussed in this paper are accessible online: http://la-buena-vida.info/ (La Buena Vida/The Good Life); http://carlosmotta.com/text/the-immi-grant-files-democracy-is-not-dead-it-just-smells-funny-by-carlos-motta-2009/(Democracy is not Dead); http://wewhofeeldifferently.info/ (We Who Feel Dif-ferently); and http://gendertalents.info/ (Gender Talents).
4. The term ‘public’ encompasses a vast mass of people, the definition of which isbeyond the scope of this essay; however, it is used here to denote Derrida’s andJoyce’s idea of democratic inclusion of everyone, despite the inherent difficul-ties of realizing this ambitious notion.
5. The actors and the speeches they performed were: Carmiña Martínez, as RafaelUribe Uribe; Dubián Gallego, as Jorge Eliécer Gaitán; Ivonne Rodríguez, asJaime Pardo Leal; Lisandro López, as Carlos Pizarro; Atala Bernal, as LuisCarlos Galán; and Francisco Martínez, as Bernardo Jaramillo.
6. The priests and the sermons re-enacted were: Father Almiro Mendes, readingGustavo Gutiérrez; Father Antonio Bacelar, reading excerpts from ‘The Vio-lence of Love’ by Oscar Romero; Father João Lucas and Father José MartinsJúnior, reading a sermon of Father Antonio Vieira; Father Manuel Correia
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Fernandes, reading Friar Bartolomé de las Casas; and Father José Alberto deOliveira, reading Leonardo Boff.
ReferencesArt21 Magazine. 2011. “5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Carlos Motta,”[http://blog.art21.org/2011/06/17/5-questions-for-contemporary-practice-with-carlos-motta], accessed 17 February 2015.
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Featherstone, Mike. 2006. Archive. Theory, Culture & Society (May): 591–6.Foster, Hal. 2004. An Archival Impulse. October 110 (Fall): 3–22.Joyce, Patrick. 1999. The politics of the liberal archive. History of the HumanSciences 12(2): 35–49.
Kogler, Stefanie. 2013. Democracy cycle: An interview with Carlos Motta. Art andArchitecture of the Americas 11: 1–12.
Motta, Carlos. 2008. Postscript: Civilization or barbarity. In Carlos Motta: TheGood Life, edited by Eva Díaz, 14–17. New York: Art in General.
Mulinari, Diana. 2009. Introduction. In Democracy is not Dead; It Just SmellsFunny, [http://www.carlosmotta.com/sweden/images/Democracy_Motta%20copy.pdf], accessed 17 February 2015.
Ridener, John. 2009. From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History ofArchival Theory. Duluth: Litwin Books.
