La bodeguita de La Concordia - Juan Obando.
La bodeguita de La Concordia
En años recientes, la actividad participativa en Internet ha estado ligada a la operación fantasmagórica de redes masivas y automatizadas llamadas “granjas de clics”. Paralelamente, nuestra relación con la pantalla se ha tornado íntima, personal e incluso espiritual. A través de ella navegamos un cosmos plano, compuesto de imágenes, emojis e íconos, en el que encontramos los materiales necesarios para construir nuestras proyecciones. Aún así, la comprensión colectiva de las operaciones y sistemas que sostienen esta superficie luminosa es cada vez más opaca. Estimulados por una promesa de viralización, nos desdoblamos como extras y protagonistas de una historia que cabe en nuestros bolsillos pero que poco a poco se está quedando sin batería.
La bodeguita de La Concordia - Juan Obando.
Charla entre Carolina Cerón y Juan Obando
Para escuchar la conversación ingrese aquí.
Juan Obando
Tiene títulos de pregrado en Diseño Industrial, con opción en Arquitectura, por la Universidad de los Andes (Colombia, 2005) y un MFA en Artes Electrónicas y del Tiempo por la Purdue University (EE.UU., 2010).
Obando es un artista bogotano cuyo trabajo presenta la pantalla como un espacio en el que la ideología confronta la estética y especula sobre mundos nuevos. Obando está interesado en una noción ampliada de los sistemas operativos —la ingeniería dominante que sostiene las unidades sociales—, su adopción intercultural y sus posibles intervenciones. Su obra reciente está conformada por video-performances, objetos posdigitales y esculturas cinéticas. Con estos medios explora los efectos generalizados del capitalismo tardío y la globalización agresiva, y cuestiona los niveles de participación en los que operamos bajo estas condiciones.
Sus exposiciones individuales recientes incluyen Pro revolution (Espacio Odeón, Bogotá, 2019), Full collabs (Distillery Gallery, Boston, 2018), Jeep vip (Volta Art Fair, Nueva York, 2017) y Collabs (Nuevo Miami, Bogotá, 2017). Estas son algunas exposiciones colectivas en las que ha participado: Game changers (MAAM, Boston, 2020), Video sur (Palais de Tokyo, París, 2018), La vuelta (MAMM, Medellín, 2019) y Rencontres de la photographie (Arles, Francia, 2017), Aún, 44 Salón Nacional de Artistas (Pereira, 2016) y MDE15 (Medellín, 2015).
Instagram: @juandavidobando
La bodeguita de La Concordia (La Concordia click farm)
The work explores the phantasmagoria of the Internet and the concealed mechanisms which model our concepts of democracy, participation and consensus, for which he uses the phenomenon of “click farms” (usually known in Spanish as bodeguitas)
In the last few years, several investigations have discovered that click farms are behind most of the digital political participation in the country, this has made the term “bodeguita” (little warehouses) become popular. These click farms operate thousands of automated social network accounts, known as bots, to establish massive trends through the repetition of hashtags and the replication of official messages.
The existing visualizations of click farms are distorted and scarce -they exist between theoretical constructs by some academic factions and limited photographic records from a few journalists-. Still, the use of click farms is highly popular and effective: influencers, corporations, politicians and popular musicians have hired these ghost services to increase their influence in the public domain. In recent years, these click farms have radically affected the aesthetic, social and political life of Colombia and the world, although this may be hard to accept, and even imagine.
Artist and writer James Bridle, in his book titled New Dark Age (2018), states that “Something is broken in Democracy when a large number of those participating in its debates are incomprehensible and untraceable agents, and when we cannot know who or even what they are”. Certainly, democratic activity has become an artificial ideological spectrum that we are a part of, but which does not represent us in real life. In a world where opinions, denouncements, regrets, claims and sponsorships are industrially produced by a central machinery which operates against our interests, we all are the bots.
Although the Internet has changed our relation with the world, our understanding of its networks and systems is becoming increasingly obscure. We are upon an illustrated obscurantism: surrounded by images and information, but without a specific idea of the structure generating, distributing and trending them. Moreover, in post-colonial contexts, such as Colombia, Internet technology has been dominated by hegemonic, traditional powers and it has been used to hasten the progress of agendas based on misinformation, violence and inequity.
With this work, the author proposes to explore the way in which totalitarian ideologies are concealed under the cloak of technological progress. His intention is to create a staging that generates questions regarding the information, personification, spread, participation and transparency processes. At the same time, La bodeguita de La Concordia expects to activate communal awareness regarding the context and consequences of our daily digital interactions, and to invite us to see and understand the complex systems that we navigate together every day.
Juan Obando
Holds an undergraduate degree in industrial Design, with an Architecture minor, from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia, 2005) and an MFA in Electronic and Time-Based Art from Purdue University (US, 2010).
Obando is an artist from Bogotá whose work presents the screen as a space where ideology confronts aesthetics and new worlds are speculated. Obando is interested in an expanded notion of operational systems -the dominant engineering which sustains social units-, their intercultural adoption and possible interventions. His recent work includes screen-based installations, post-digital objects and kinetic sculptures. Through these means, he explores the generalized effects of late capitalism and aggressive globalization, and challenges the participation levels in which we operate under these conditions.
His recent individual exhibitions include Pro revolution (Espacio Odeón, Bogotá, 2019), Full collabs (Distillery Gallery, Boston, 2018), Jeep vip (Volta Art Fair, New York, 2017) and Collabs (Nuevo Miami, Bogotá, 2017). The following are some collective exhibitions where he has participated: Game changers (MAAM, Boston, 2020), Video sur (Video South) (Palais de Tokio, Paris, 2018), La vuelta (The Turn) (MAMM, Medellín, 2019) and Rencontres de la photographie (Arles, France, 2017), Aún (Yet), 44 National Artists Salon (Pereira, 2016) and Mde15 (Medellín, 2015).
Instagram: @juandavidobando
