Working Group Introduction: Pacific Rim New Media Development: A Search for Terra Incognita

This sensibility for complexity is only possible to the extent that we can avoid naturalizing a single spatial form, a single topology.

-John Law [1]

Reasons

Why create a Latin America/Pacific-Asia New Media Initiatives Group? Why mix two different regions, each with a diverse range of cultures? Probably such questioning should begin with asking, Should we analyze Pacific Rim collaboration at all, other than in economic terms? Today, innovative developments and new networks are being arranged at many levels: local, national, regional and global. However, the phenomenon of globalization is emerging not only at those levels, and not only in economic terms; it also has profound consequences for the ways we deal with ourselves, with our individuality, at the micro-reality level: The culture surrounding us changes, and many of the main reasons for these changes are technological.

Countries in the Asian region have been developing new-media technology for the last 3 or 4 decades; thus, they have been exposed to it much more intensively than has Latin America. This, however, is only part of the story; the "techno-emergent" Western media habitat has changed many of the developing countries' local traditions, not in ethno-historicist or folk-loristic terms, but rather in conceptual ones. The idea of being different also gives a certain energy to this emerging new global commercial market. Now that technology is reaching ubiquity, we see how each country has a different approach toward it, which also means that the culturally defined concept of "underdevelopment" is shifting from neglect of world diversity into acceptance of new, creative ways of dealing with technology.

Technology does not come by itself; it brings with it a series of "socio-technical" processes that also imply social change; hence, it "becomes"; it is this "becoming" and the transformation of a socio-technical system that is most interesting. One of the most compelling reasons to juxtapose discussions about media art and creativity in such different regions, united (but also separated) by the Pacific Ocean, is that we are dealing with local micro-realities that generate a complex schema. This means that we cannot merely make a priori judgments. Interestingly, since some advances have been made first in one place and then in others, there are things that we can share and gain from these micro-realities, shifting from the commercialization (or trade) of goods toward the sharing of ideas. This is why we are searching for a terra incognita, a place unknown, invisible, yet possible. As in many "spaces" addressed in intellectual discussion, its order is not geographically clear. Rather, it is a complex topography, a network of relations and interests in which we all find nodes of action and thought.

A Process(Rather than a Complete Work)

Capturing new micro-realities will never be a complete or finished process. Nevertheless, a reinterpretation of new media should also deal with those social insights that arise from new micro-realities. Artists have always presaged and questioned technology; questions of ethics can also arise that cause us to examine the sciences and the arts in social and philosophical terms, with a critical perspective and without touting technology as neutral but rather treating it as social.

In the same sense, there are other realms that must be addressed in relation to the use of new-media technologies toward understanding current social changes in different places and circumstances. The great challenge arises around knowledge, especially in relation to traditions, modern and past, as a realm of cultural heritage. We believe that technology can help to develop better ways of understanding and explaining cultural memories, but we have yet to find the commonalities in inspiring examples from different contexts.

With reflection we can analyze how localities in different moments assimilate new media. In that sense, while China is trying to embrace new media and catch up, as quickly as possible, with the global superpowers, institutions in Mexico are moving from an initial infrastructure-based objective toward a people-based path. Other nations, such as India, are struggling to tell new stories and make participants aware of the...