Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature (review)

This innovative volume explores a wide range of online practices in Latin America, and suggests avenues for future research in this exciting new field. It is organized into two broad sections. The first deals with cyberculture, and the second with cyberliterature.

Debra Castillo's examination of short film on the Internet charts what she calls the 'transformation in our concept of cinema' (35), brought about by increased access to affordable, high-quality means of producing and editing films. She highlights the ways in which this technology is challenging cinematic conventions as a medium that both 'binds and frees us'. (48) Geoffrey Kantaris's essay on two Latin American 'cyborg films': the Mexican 'urban vampire movie' Cronos (1993) and the Argentine sci-fi film La sonámbula (1998), focuses on the transgression of boundaries through technology. Kantaris argues that both films present fluid, shifting identities and show how new technology can 'allow for the circulation of new forms of cyborg kinship within global circuits of power and exchange'. (67) Margaret Anne Clarke looks at a Brazilian cyberart project, Corpos Informáticos, whose productions explore the interaction between the embodied subject and technology. Clarke highlights the group's engagement with philosophical debates and their imagining of spaces in which boundaries 'may dissolve, transform, and be transfigured again' (83). Thea Pitman moves into the field of cyberprotest. She aims to dispel 'pessimistic visions' (86) of the Internet in Latin America as a potential site of social exclusion by detailing the successful political activism of groups such as the Mexican Zapatistas. Pitman argues that through the Internet, the Zapatistas have greatly expanded their potential audience, and she is optimistic about the potentially positive impact of the Internet on social activism at grass roots level.

Niamh Thornton discusses the performances of Mexican artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, who deals with 'issues such as race, class, gender and national allegiance in order to achieve radical social change' (111). As well as celebrating the Internet's expansiveness, Gómez-Peña is also critical of it, and Thornton asserts that the artist's use of this forum is problematic in that the 'disenfranchised subaltern he purports to address' (121) may be at risk of exclusion. Lúcia Sá writes on the São Paulo bairro of Capão Redondo, two of whose inhabitants have created a website for the neighbourhood. Sá suggests that this online community may be able to influence the offline community by giving voice to a variety of forms of expression. Shoshannah Holdom looks at literary e-magazines from Peru, Venezuela and Chile that share a 'desire to bring like-minded people together in a productive way' (157) by providing online communities for writers and readers. Holdom points out that access to the Internet in Latin America is by no means universal, but that despite this, online literary communities nevertheless provide valuable opportunities for the promotion of Latin American literature. Paul Fallon's focus is on Mexican border authors, whose works 'enable possible links with limited, temporary communities that represent both shifts and continuities in reading culture' (162) by engaging with new technologies to negotiate new forms of literary practice.

Stefan Herbrechter and Ivan Callus focus on the work of Jorge Luis Borges, who, they argue, 'is a major literary precursor of contemporary interactive and multimedia works'. (179) The authors suggest that exploring Borges' literary imaginary may enrich meditations on cyberculture. Rob Rix's essay deals with Julio Cortázar's 1963 novel, Rayuela. Rix enquires as to how the web publishing of fiction may alter our understanding of the genre, given factors such as 'the reader's – or the user's – freedom to rearrange, recombine, and even abandon any specific text at any time' (198). This, he argues, creates the possibility 'to engage new kinds of readers in the elaboration of new fictional spaces'. (205) Ana Cláudia Viegas explores the relationship between literature and information technology in Brazil, asking how new technologies have affected print literature...